Stepping On My Grave

No, I didn't die.

I was just resting.

Actually, I've been driving some, and I hurt my wrist a little, so I took a while off from typing. I'm not dying anytime soon. But I have been wondering about our fascination with graves, the famous, the infamous, and the unknown.

I wrote about Tom Dula's grave in my book. It is difficult to find, up a muddy and overgrown path, and possibly on private property, but still it has been visited numerous times, to the point that it turned into a souvenir stand for overzealous fans. Why I don't know, he was a bit of a syphilis infested cretin who slept around and may or may not have killed a girl. Still, we want to see it.

Less visited, even though it is just down the road, is Laura Foster's grave. Laura didn't get a trial, let alone two, but she got a rather pretty and peaceful resting place. Less molested than Dula's that's for sure. It could have something to do with being surrounded by cows and an electric fence.

Less known for the person in the grave, and more for the statue on it, Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel stands in a cemetery in Hendersonville. It is a marker for Margaret Johnson. This sculpture has seen its share of repairs. The wing has fallen off and been fixed, and now it resides behind a wrought iron fence.

A more hidden, and less known grave, if you can call it that, is Annie Lee's grave marker. A stone pylon was designed by a Confederate veteran to honor the final resting place of the daughter of the famous general. Annie died young, and was placed in the small cemetery because it would have been impossible for her remains, and her family, to travel back to her mother's ancestral home. Her mother, a descendant of George Washington, had lost the farm when they had to move after threats from the Republican government nearby, since she was the wife of Robert E. Lee. Her home was then given up to become a military cemetery.

A more peaceful spot is where Robert Harrell rests now. More well known as the Fort Fisher Hermit, his grave is decorated with shells, photos, and a pan where people can still give him a few coins to help him out. 

The curious thing about his gravesite is that it sits just outside a cemetery. There is a local Methodist church cemetery there, where an old church used to sit. The church cemetery is still used, but Harrell's grave is not inside the fences. It sits in an older spot, a local historical site, with a few other graves. I'm guessing that he was placed there before the cemetery was well used. I know that the spot was donated for his resting place by a local family.

There are so many grave sites that seem to be famous, either for who rests there, or what they represent. I haven't been to the grave of the little girl buried in a keg of rum, or the grave of a man's legs, the one that looks like tree branches, There's the grave of the guy who got trampled by an elephant, and they put an elephant on his grave marker. Kinda cruel, I think, but then, maybe th elephant got his revenge. Otway Burns has a grave with one of his cannons on it in Beaufort, NC. And there are the two grave sites in Hatteras and Ocracoke where British sailors rest after their ships were torpedoed during World War II.

I did once try to go find Chang and Eng Bunker's grave near Mt. Airy once, but I was with my sister-in-law, and didn't want to seem extra creepy searching out a grave site when she just wanted to go to Mayberry. 

Plus I really have mixed emotions about visiting and discussing people's graves. I like the weird stories, the strange events that either led up to their final spots, or just the rather unique markers they use. But at the same time, I don't like the idea of sending people to see them, trampling underfoot the peaceful graves of someone's family member just to get to another person's grave. 

At the same time, one day, long in the future, when I finally shed this mortal coil, I wouldn't mind a cool marker for people to visit. Maybe a giant question mark. And a picnic table.

You can drive my car

We went to the British car show at Shelton Vineyards this past weekend. Packed full of Triumphs, MGs, and quite a few Austin Healeys, it was, as usual, a fun day out for us. The vineyard is a nice setting for a show, and a picnic, and a great spot for my daughter to wander around, as well as get invited to sit in a bunch of old cars. Those things are so tiny, she almost fits now. Give her a phone book and she could drive on of those Triumphs.

On the tractor ride around the farm, one guy, a member of the Triumph club, suggested I get her a pink Triumph. I agreed, as that would be a good way to keep her at home. I don't know if he got it or not. See, Triumphs and other little British cars are notoriously unreliable and... well, there's a lot of baling wire involved.

I must say, I am surprised that I don't see the roads leading up to Shelton littered with little MGs steaming and smoking, dying by the side of the road like a squashed groundhog. When I lived in California, I enjoyed going to the different shows at Monterey Historics Weekend. The place was crawling with Ferraris. Lamborghinis, Bentleys, and more. We would take the day off on Friday to go to the big Concorso Italiano to see all the new and old Italian cars. And that spot, wow, those things would overheat as soon as they stopped. Those high end Ferraris really needed air going into their radiators to keep them from popping. 

Having a sports car, whether it is a classic little machine or a high end supercar, is a challenge and a risk. There's a reason you can find Maseratis that normally coast close to $100K on sale used at around $35,000. The brake job on many of those cars can cost more than an entire car. It may not stop you from wanting one of these, but don't think that a classic can be a good daily driver.

I remember seeing a Jaguar XK120 at a dealership in Monterey once. I was commenting on how nice looking it was, when the salesman pointed out that it had no seatbelt, and the unpadded dash was probably right at the height your chin would be if your head went forward in a crash. 

I'm liking my SUV with a dozen air bags more and more.

Cross That Bridge When You Come To It

I made a big, fast journey down to, well, I keep wondering if the whole area has a name. I started near the SC border and made my way up through Carolina Beach. I gotta figure out where I was because I need a name for the book. Anyway, after my first stop, I made it quickly to the old pontoon bridge that used to cross the intracoastal waterway to Sunset Beach. I planned to stay just for a bit, take a few pictures, then get on the road, hit the other spots I needed to, meet up with someone I planned to meet, and get in to Southport early so I could shoot a little, eat a good dinner and go to bed early.

No such luck.

Actually, my luck got a whole lot better. The pontoon bridge had a volunteer there that happily spent the better part of an hour telling me old stories about the bridge and all the people who got to cross it, or wait to cross it. I missed out on a lot of other places, but I got so much out of that stop. Sometime, you just have to roll with it, and something good comes out of your time.

The pontoon bridge was a very simple design, meant to do the menial job of letting cars cross the water to the newly developed Sunset Beach, while at the same time, letting boats go through the waterway it spanned. The bridge itself was a low simple design, separated by a floating barge of sorts, on pontoons, so that it rose and fell with the tide, that swung out as if on a hinge to open a breech in the bridge for boats to go through. On the hour, two ramps lifted up, and then a big diesel engine would work a winch to pull the floating part open for boats to get through. Because the bridge was so low, pretty much every boat had to wait for the bridge to open to get through. It opened on the hour and closed when the line of boats got through. If a boat came by late, it either tried to run the closing gap, often catching the closing wire on the winch that shut the bridge, or had to wait until the next hour. Because of this, many people traveling the waterway had to plan their visits according to the time of the bridge's opening. It's 15 minutes til? We gotta go!

Of course, when the bridge was open, the road was closed. Traffic would stack up, cars would turn off their engines, and people got out to watch. No use sitting in the hot cars. You weren't going anywhere. You just hoped the bridge got closed before your cold food got warm, or melted.There was no shopping on the island, so people had to take everything in.

Now, this seems like one of those idyllic old timey stories from back long ago when people piled into the big station wagon and traveled to the beach, their only toys a towel and maybe a bucket and shovel. Which would be true. Except that the bridge was used up until January of 2011. And it wasn't like the bridge was even 1950s technology when it was built. This thing was pretty much thrown together to make things work, to get people over to the island.

So there are lots of stories about waiting for the bridge. Lots of stories of being stuck while the bridge was open, or closed. Or broken. And I got to hear them. I can't wait to put them all down in my book.

The bridge was picked up and moved to preserve it, along with the bridge tender house. It;s now a bridge over land. And a lot of history.

The best of times

I just got back from the Outer Banks. It was unfortunate that I had the dregs of a cold, icky sinuses, rainy days, and a wrenched muscle in my back. On the plus side, I spent time with my father. So, all in all, it was a positive trip.

My father has all the best stories. Best in good stories, best in adventures, best in tales. Not all stories are happy, but they are good. He told me this one before, but he added a little more this time.

Once when he was in college, he and some buddies of his went out sailing in the Pamlico Sound. Now this way before the days of checking the weather reports and radar. Heck, it might have been before flare guns for all I know. Anyway, it was a nice day, so they went for a sail.

Of course, as you can guess it, a storm came up, and their boat tipped over. Unable to right it, they all clung to the hull of the ship. My father looked about in all directions, but there was no sign of land, just stirring water and waves everywhere. Only in the far off distance was a house on a point. So my father said, "Look, we can't just stay here. No one knows we're gone, no one is going to come looking for us. I'm going to swim to that house to get help. You all stay here, don't move. (He meant don't swim off from the boat.) Keep watching that house. When I get there, I'll wave my shirt so you know I got there." And he and one friend set off through the churning water to get to the house, miles away.

Of course, he finally made it to the house. Only to discover that the house was abandoned and dilapidated. However, he figured there had to be a path to the house, and a road at the beginning of the path. So they set off over a grassy track and finally made it to a road. Walking down the road, he was finally able to flag down a truck, go in to nearby Aurora, and get help for his friends.

That is where the story usually ended for him, when he told it to me. This weekend, he was reminiscing about his friend he swam with, as he had recently attended his funeral. So this time, he added a little bit more.

He said he always held the people of Aurora in high regard. When they were rescued, the whole town turned out, gave them a warm place, hot food, dry clothes, a place to stay. What they did was important. It was a an act of kindness by a whole town.

Now, I love the story, and the addition I just heard. But more than that, I like that he has a story to tell. It might be a little scary, and at least it has a happy ending, but mostly, he has stories to tell his family. Stories are important. Sometimes it's better to have a memory than a photograph.

Fort Fisher Hermit

I'm going to start out by saying, if you want to know more about the Fort Fisher Hermit, please read the chapter in my first book, Did You See That? A GPS Guide to North Carolina's Out of the Ordinary Attractions. It contains a fairly complete, yet concise, tale of Robert Harrill's life and times, as well as information on his tragic death. Harrill's story is pretty amazing, and it was the reason my once short little book of weird places in NC became the much longer behemoth that it is now. After learning about Harrill and his life, I just couldn't write about him in a few paragraphs.

For those of you that don't know about Harrill, I'll give you a quick synopsis. He lived near Charlotte as a child and young adult, but after several bad turns for him, most which were not really his fault, he decided to run away to the coast, south of Kure Beach to the uninhabited shores past Fort Fisher. He was 63 years old at the time. He lived for 17 years in an old concrete bunker, and became known as the Fort Fisher Hermit, a celebrity on the coast for tourists and locals alike.

Sadly, not all people liked Harrill. Often, people would go down and harass the old man. It was something people would do "for fun." Ultimately, the "fun" probably cost Harrill his life. Some boys went down to see him in June of 1972, only to find him dead, tossed on top of a pile of junk in his bunker, with the signs of a struggle all around the sand outside. Police and the medical examiner ruled his death natural causes, essentially saying he died when his heart failed from being an old man living alone in a bunker on the beach.

Now, obviously, there is more to this story. As I recommended at the beginning, please read my chapter on Harrill in my book for more information. I've just got to say that this has always preyed on my mind some ever since I wrote the chapter. Who killed the Fort Fisher Hermit?

It should have been easy to figure out. Harrill had told some visiting locals that there were people out bothering him the day before, in a VW Beetle. A popular car, sure, but just how many were there around Carolina Beach at the time? I just got suspicious. I mean, it most likely was someone from the area, maybe as far as Wilmington, sure, which would really enlarge the search, but still, probably younger, probably male, probably more than one person. And as I learned more and more, probably known by other people as the likely suspect. I even remember an interview with a filmmaker, I believe, who was asked if he could discover who did it, and his response was something to the effect of, "I still have to live here."

Harrill's family even wanted to know, They were sure it was murder, or at least not natural causes. As it turned out, several people knew who the alleged attackers were. Michael Edwards, who headed the Fort Fisher Hermit Society, was told by other locals of overhearing the men who did the crime discussing it many years later. Four young men went to hassle the Hermit, pulling him out of his sleeping bag, and chasing him into the marsh, where Harrill then fell and went limp from a heart attack. The men put Harrill back in the bunker and left. Edwards went on to explain that it was more likely a bullying gone horribly wrong rather than an actual murder, and that the people were known in the community, and that they know that others know.

This is all alleged in an article in the Star-News from 2001.

And what bothers me? What just kinda creeps me out? Aside from the death, the bullying, the sad history? I'm surprised after all this time that nothing more has been done. I can understand letting the dead rest in peace, but it it just feels really creepy to know that there probably, possibly, allegedly, are a few men, now in their 60s, still walking around, knowing they caused the death of someone. And there are people who know who they are. And they are satisfied with the way things are like that. The horrors of the conscious... 

The Cora Tree

     When I first heard of this legend, I just didn't believe it. I'll tell you a shortened version of the story...

Long ago, before Hatteras was a destination for tourists, or a marker for navigation, it served as a quiet yet hardscrabble land for the few fishermen and their families. The men spent most of their time upon the sea, and the women and children spent most of their time worrying about the men, probably. Then there was Cora.

Cora lived alone in a shack on the soundside of Buxton. She had no family, except for a small child, a quiet and solemn little one that was always her companion. If others had things to complain, she certainly didn't. The fishermen knew that there would be good days and bad days, when the wind blew hard or when the sails were still, the nets were full or empty. But Cora always had fish.

Of course, the rest of the village was sure Cora was a witch.

Once, a cow stopped giving milk when she touched it. And a young boy fell deathly ill, almost dying, when he made a face and teased Cora's child. People knew to give her a wider berth.

Locals knew. Visitors did not. And oddly enough, Hatteras did on occasion get visitors. They were not entirely wanted, nor were they willing. But Hatteras was not known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic for nothing. Shipwrecked sailors occasionally washed up on shore, as they would for centuries on the sandy spit of land.

A certain Captain Blood wound up in that exact position. He and his crew washed ashore along with all the other flotsam that accompanies a good shipwreck. The good captain was taken in by the townsfolk, while his crew enjoyed setting up camp on the beach, and living the reckless life. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Unfortunately, one of the local young men of the village turned up more than slightly dead on the beach one morning. Small footprints led away into the woods, and the numbers 666 were carved into his forehead, above a face frozen in terror.

So of course, it had to be a witch.

Now, the rest of the town were willing to ponder the chances of this, but Captain Blood was a man of action. The captain, a New England sailor, had long dealt with witches, so he said, and he quickly gathered up poor Cora and performed his dastardly tests on her, throwing her into the sound to see if she would float, trying to cut her hair, the usual. He proclaimed her a witch and decided to tie her to a tree and burn her, along with her wicked child. The townsfolk were aghast, they insisted that she be taken to the mainland and be tried. But Captain Blood was not to be swayed.

When he approached the tree with his torch, the sky began to darken and boil. A storm appeared on the formerly cloudless day. A bolt of lightning flashed and its thunder cracked immediately after. The tree was split down to the trunk; all around were knocked to the ground, senseless.

When they awoke, the smell of brimstone permeated the air. The ropes still twisted around the tree, blackened and smoking. But no Cora, and no child. Cora had vanished utterly.

Now, the story could end there, just another fancy tale on the Outer Banks, if not for one thing. The tree is still there.

A huge old oak stumbles out of the ground, reaching up and out with splintered limbs. The tree hangs on, even though it suffers a vicious wound. The trunk is ripped open, with a big dark hole in it. And carved into the wood, as if with a scorching finger, is the name CORA.

if you want to know more, and where to find the tree, check out Did You See That? On The Outer Banks, on sale at Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Did-You-That-Outer-Banks-ebook/dp/B00Q7MV1NK/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Who's That Guy With The Big Head?

Early on I had to, had to in that I must, I needed, I wanted to badly, go down to Charlotte, to see Metalmorphosis.

Okay, I think we were there for a doctor's visit or something. Anyway...

Metalmorphosis is a giant metal sculpture by David Černý, an artist from the Czech Republic. He did some famous work in Europe, including painting a Soviet tank pink, babies crawling up a building, a giant middle finger, and a guy hanging from one hand on a pole off the roof of an office.

I like this guy.

Metalmorphosis is a gigantic shiny metal head that rotates over a reflecting fountain. Yes, it rotates, but it also is segmented, so each part of his head, from bottom to top, rotates as well.

It also spits water.

As we drove by the front of the building where it sits, it was facing forward, When we parked on the side, the head turned to look at us. Creepy.

Then the thing just started spinning around in circles in different directions. 

It's rumored that Cerny has access to a webcam and a remote control to make it do stuff when people are visiting. I believe it.

By the way, "Who's that guy with the big head?" is a famous line, one of many, from Mystery Science Theater 3000.