a ghost story from cooper

okay...

i'm gettin' all in the halloween mode now--only two days away and i don't have enough time to post qalla the creepy stuff i wanted to. oh well, we'll run over...

here, in response to my plea for members of our little circle here to send in their spooky stories, is a beaut from our pal, cooper. ernie cooper, now that we know...

he says right in his intro paragraph that i can post it if i deem it worthy.
oh, ernie...it's worthy.

Hi, Todd,

I kinda' have a story, too. I was actually typing all of this up in the blog comments, and then as it got longer and longer, and I wasn’t sure if there was a buffer max, I’d send it this way instead. Feel free to share if you deem it worthy.


I was born on Long Island, we moved upstate to a little town called Roxbury when I was three (we moved when I was in third grade, so I guess this story takes place at some point between ages seven and nine). We had a big old house. Two barns. Acres of land. It was great.

I was always an easily-scared little kid. Every night I had a ritual where, despite my little sister in bed across the room, I felt I needed to take all of my stuffed animals and line them up on either side of my body. I'd then pull the blankets up over my chin to thwart any potential vampires out there.

Now, as (bad) luck would have it, the cellar door was at our end of the hall. We'd have to walk by it to use the bathroom. The cellar was a complete nightmare for a scared little kid. Again, the house was old, so the walls of the cellar were piled rocks, and the floor was packed dirt, and it smelled...Well, pretty much like you'd expect it would. I always made sure to check to see the chain latch was in place before crossing in front of the door.

Well, one night I had a dream that I heard something down there in the cellar. So I got up, got out of bed, and went to the cellar door. I could hear some sort of rhythmic drumming, or throbbing, behind it. I unlatched the door, and there was a soft glow coming from down the stairs. I took a few steps down and saw several glowing men in some sort of old soldier's uniform marching in a circle.

I freaked out and ran back to my room, jumping onto my bed, hiding my face, petrified. I woke up in the morning, and I was still lying on top of my blankets (not completely sealed in, as per my aforementioned ritual). And the cellar door was wide open.

I slammed the door shut and ran into my parent's room down the hall, vaulting in between them and babbling my story. They told me it was just a bad dream.

Now, whatever was in the house wasn't overly fond of my little sister. One day, I was washing my hands in the bathroom across the hall, and she was standing at the window in the bedroom. To hold open the windows, we had to stick long wooden paint stirrers on either side, or else they’d slide closed. Somehow, those paint stirrers came out, and the window, instead of sliding down, slammed down so hard on her hands that it drove paint chips into her knuckles.

On a different occasion, I woke up out of a sound sleep in our bedroom. I thought I heard something, so I clambered out of bed and turned on the lights. Nothing. And then the ceiling over her bed just fell apart all over her. She woke up, crying and screaming and spitting out paint and plaster. My parents came running, and I had already locked myself in our closet with my big stuffed dog. We never figured out why the ceiling decided to fall apart. No water damage, no issues at that spot, no pipes near the area.

There were several times I woke up because Jen was crying for Mom because she claimed she saw something coming for her, some black shape coming down the hall with red eyes.

Mom and Dad ended up calling in Father Bob, the local Catholic priest, to “clean” the house. At the time, they said that it was traditional to do that for a new house, but we ended up moving several times after that, and not once did they ever call in a priest.

Flash forward well over a decade, and we’re living in the neighboring town of Grand Gorge. The parentals are hosting a party, and I’m in the living room eating with the younger crowd, while the older folks are in the kitchen, basically telling ghost stories. So, obviously I have one ear cocked at their conversation. Mom and Dad are talking about my Aunt Rose. Aunt Rose was sorta’ known as the family “sensitive.” She allegedly chased some sort of presence out of a relative’s house in Westerlo. They also threw in that, when sleeping in the living room at our first upstate house, some spectral figure in old military garb walked right through the wall, passed through the living room, and out the other side.

I pretty much choked on my chicken soup, and bolted into the kitchen. I’d never heard the story, and I basically recounted my own story, and asked them why they told me it was a dream.

“Ernie,” Mom said, “Would you have spent one more night in that house if we had told you it wasn’t a dream? You would have run away to Koby’s.” (Koby being my best friend at the time)

Well, I had to concede that point.

And there you have it!

-Ernie Cooper

niiiiiice! ; )
thanks, ernie! for sending it in and for giving me nightmares!
that's great!
anyone? anybody got something else...?

last week, my pal, christian (leaf!), linked matt and i up to the grooviest site i've seen in years!
it's some of the coolest, grossest, nostalgiac, creative art i've seen in a long time and, not only does it fit the season perfectly, it touches that part in all of us that yearns for the simpler days of saturday morning cartoons and breakfast cereals!
it's called

i dig cereal killers
and it's at

http://idigcerealkillers.blogspot.com/

it features some really, REALLY great artists having so much fun with the premise that i got lost there for hours! check it out and be sure to take a look through all the archives! fun, FUN stuff!

here are a couple of my favorites--







more tomorrow!
but first here are
the answers to your

"five for friday"

1. name all five "apes" movies in order.

planet of the apes (1968)
beneath the planet of the apes (1970)
escape from the planet of the apes (1971)
conquest of the planet of the apes (1972)
battle for the planet of the apes (1973)

2. what was the name of the orangutan in "every which way but loose"?

clyde

3. what was the name of the ape in dc's "angel and the ape"?

sam simeon

4. what legendary comics artist created "monkeyman and o'brien"?

art adams

5. what was the name of the 1980's matthew brodrick film that garnered so much trouble from the humane society over the treatment of the monkeys?

project x

* extra credit~~ name the monkees!

mickey dolenz, davy jones, mike nesmith, peter tork

smell ya later!
todd