Hurricanes, The Mad Gasser, and the Kokomo Hum

For the second Thursday evening in a row, I saw writer friends. On the second Thursday of the month, Southern Illinois Writers Guild sponsors an open mike at Latta Java in Marion. When I can, I like to go to hear others read. I might not have made it this month since Jeannie and Cecelie were visiting, but I had a phone call that morning from Lois Barrett that she was in town from Texas and she planned to be there. I told her to be sure and bring copies of her newest book—her fourth novel.

Despite a crazy afternoon where a hair appointment was cancelled because the shop kept losing their electricity off and on all day, Jeannie was encouraging. We managed to get back to the farm, feed everyone, and be at Latta Java at 7. We heard some wonderful readings including the first chapter of Gulf Coast Love Affair: 19th Century Hurricanes, which is based on Lois’ research about local hurricanes. I haven’t had time to read it yet, but as sit lies on the table, I am enjoying the cover by her grandson Matt Fowler of Harrisburg. When Lois still lived here, I used to engage in email conversations with Matt, who did Lois’s website for her while Matt was still in high school.

Then this Thursday my friend Jari Jackson and I scurried over John A. Logan College for our regular SIWG monthly meeting to hear Jason Brown. After teaching at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he studied in the Creative Writing Department, and teaching at JALC, he became a part of the faculty at Eastern Illinois University up at Charleston. But we are fortunate that he is still living at Murphysboro this summer and could visit SIWG. A poet and short story writer, Jason had been much praised by our president Jim Lambert ever since Jason and he met last summer when both had won scholarships to Ropewalk Writer’s Conference in New Harmony, Indiana.

Much published as a poet, Matt talked some about his aggressive submission of his poetry and encouraged us to do the same. He gave us copies and read us some of his poetry in his fine reading voice. (He thinks we enjoy most when we can both see and hear poetry at the same time. I agree.) But he spent most of his time talking about the novel he has been working on nightly to the exclusion of most of his other writing. One of his handouts was copies of articles in the Mattoon Daily Journal-Gazette, a town near EIU where Jason and his wife will be living when fall classes begin. That handout instantly piqued my interest since down through the years since they have lived in Mattoon, my sister-in-law has frequently sent me clippings from that newspaper telling of activities and successes of their family.
.
However, I had never heard them mention the “Anesthetic Prowler.” Jason is basing his novel on a happening in Mattoon in the fall of 1944 (long before my brother’s family moved there) when several families reported being attacked in their homes by the sickening sweet fumes coming in from an outside window. They suffered nausea, slight paralysis of their legs, burning eyes and mouth, and other unpleasant symptoms. Footprints outside windows and even a cloth permeated with the mystery gas left on a front porch escalated the excitement. National newspapers picked up the story and there was widespread terror in the town. No one was arrested, the incidents stopped, and it is still debated today if this really happened as reported or if mass hysteria played a part. Oddly when I just checked Wikipedia, I found that l0 years earlier a similar situation occurred in a Virginia community.

I couldn’t wait to call my brother the next day and ask him about this story. “Oh, you mean the Mad Gasser?” he asked. No one had talked to him about the historic event, but sometime in the past decade the newspaper had run a feature about the Mad Gasser and he had read about it.

That brought to mind that shortly after our youngest daughter Mary Ellen and husband Brian left Kokomo, Indiana, and moved to the Saint Louis area, we heard about the Kokomo Hum. They had not heard it while living there, but evidently many people did and reported headaches and health problems because of it. That story too was picked up the national newspapers, which is how I learned about it. Come to find out, there was also a Taos Hum and numerous other Hums in cities around the globe, and certain people were affected negatively by these reported mysterious low-frequency sounds.

Brian has been down to Woodsong for the weekend hauling off soybeans and checking his crops. He will be doing the same tomorrow. After a job assignment change, their family just settled in this week in their new home in rural Wagoner, Illinois. Their five acres is somewhere up by Springfield, Litchfield, Raymond—all towns I’ve heard them mention during their house hunt in that area. I wonder what new legends and stories will come from that area, where Lincoln used to walk. Brian had me laughing at the extreme burglar alarm system in their house including a search light on their roof. They haven’t turned it on. If the Mad Gasser shows up, they will be all fixed to scare him away.

A Spring Week at Woodsong

As I drove into the Shawnee National Forest on Tuesday, the pinkish purple blooms on the redbud trees brightened the still bare tall black-limbed trees all around them. The drive there had been stunning with the redbud at the height of its glory. Inside the forest, there were also a few scattered dogwood showing white blossoms and foretelling that time was running out for the redbud. Sure enough by this morning, though still lovely, the redbud trees had begun to shed the blooms for green leaves. And everywhere in yards and roadside, the white of the dogwood was beginning to dominate.

Tuesday Gerald left the house early to go with his friend Herman on an Angel Flight. Before I was through my breakfast and coffee, however, he was back home because the weather had cancelled their flight. I unexpectedly needed to figure out something for his lunch before I left the farm, and I did and hurried on to errands in town and my plan to consider going up Hamburg Hill to revisit the cut of the 1838 road there.

I knew I would not go unless I completed errands quickly enough that I could go there and back in time for our grandson Samuel’s jazz band concert that night. Since this group of youngsters had just won superior at state recently, I wanted to hear their performance. Sam’s junior high band was playing at the high school before their jazz band played, and Sam and fellow trombonist Ben were going to be improvising together. Coming home, I cut through the country by way of Goreville, one of my favorite towns in the universe (cause my grandparents lived there), and I was home from the forest in time to fix our supper. Gerald and I were sitting in the auditorium as the curtain was ready to open.

Gerald did take the Angel Flight on Wednesday, so he wasn’t there for lunch. But I had the same sort of rushed day with emails and phone calls to take care of as I worked on the final collection of handouts to mail to Rend Lake College for copying for the thirteen participants who will be on our river-to-river van trip this week. On Tuesday we will traverse Route 146, the designated Trail of Tears auto tour across our state.

After I completed the handouts and stopped to replenish our fruit supply, I went through the drive-in for supper and then hurried to the car wash to get the mud from Hamburg Hill taken off so Gerald wouldn’t feel he needed to do it. I arrived early at our village church in Crab Orchard for a First Place meeting at 6. I had neglected the Bible study all week and needed to attempt to catch up before the others arrived. With only three of us there, we lingered sharing our thoughts, our troubles, and our opinions in addition to the Bible study review. Consequently, it was later than usual when I arrived home to hear Gerald’s stories about the day’s Angel Flight and find out who won Georgia’s and Texas A&M’s games. The stories were interesting as always, and we had won both games.

Thursday afternoon I left the farm with all kinds of extra trucks there as once again some service was helping Gerald burn off our fields of native grasses. I thought this was a government requirement for these fields, but he explained that it was just the recommended plant culture. The two women in charge were careful to burn by creating V-shapes that allowed wildlife to escape safely. The eggs of one turkey nest, however, required our brother Keith and nephew DuWayne to come rescue them for their incubator.

Again I had a tad of shopping to do, ran by Katherine’s, and got a sandwich at Subway before meeting Jari Jackson to go to our Southern Illinois Writers Guild meeting. It was a Critique Night. I had hoped to have something new to read, but hadn’t completed anything. I did grab an article out of the file cabinet marked for revision and was amused to see it was written when my youngest daughter was still in high school as her son is now. I decided it was a little too old to share, but I may yet revise it someday.

It was fun just to relax and listen to the wide variety of offerings presented by more prepared members. When I got back to the farm, Gerald was in bed with the light on and his book of Appalachian humor in his hands and was fast asleep. I debated whether I should wake him and tell him good night or let him wake on his own when the book fell from his hands. That seemed the simplest, so I went on downstairs to check emails and surf a bit.

Friday morning for me started with a long welcome phone call from that youngest daughter who has been too busy with house revamping lately for leisurely calls. The weekend soft ball games would start on Saturday, and Gerald was hurrying to mow the yard and finish his shop project of modifying a sprayer for Scott, the next-door neighbor. This lengthy project turned out to be more complicated and challenging than Gerald, a perfectionist, anticipated. He was glad yesterday to take the completed sprayer home to Scott. In the meantime, our son-in-law Brian had arrived at the other farm for some weekend farming, and at the end of the day he dropped in and ate a waffle with us.

Yesterday Vickie and Geri Ann had gone with Gerry to Auburn University to watch Georgia play, and we were following them and also Erin at Oklahoma University at Norman, where she started the first inning with a RBI double. Gerald was also trying to follow Lucas Hileman at Baylor in the other room on TV.

Interspersed with the games for me was a trip to the village to return overdue library books and collect Revolutionary Road that the library had ordered for me. The florist shop where I owed a bill was closed but the wonderful owner/hostess of The Mustard Seed in adjoining quarters assured me she’d see that LaRonda got my check. There in that haven of crafts and antiques, I could not resist a small good-looking and inexpensive alarm clock for a downstairs bedroom. Then I took a drawing and some photographs that needed framing up to Tom Ribedeau, photographer, wood craftsman, teacher, and owner of the most beautiful long driveway imaginable through a certified wildlife habitat. I went back to Woodsong for more softball inspired by the beauty of the drive and Tom’s delightful personality.

After sleeping with the sound of rain on the camper all night, Brian dropped in to say goodbye before he headed home to the city. I was able to hand him John Elder Robinson’s Look Me in the Eye that I had told Mary Ellen about and wanted her to read.

As always today I was inspired by siblings Miranda and Caleb as they participated in various learning activities in our preschool classroom. Watching their faces as they learn new things and discover new words and new concepts is a joy. Since our story was about Jesus healing ten lepers and only one saying thank you, we played with band aids and wrapped bandages. Miranda had noticed my tiny “owie” on my hand and her band aid is still there tonight. Caleb was very interested in counting the ten pennies, ten marbles, and ten pencils that Miss Kim brought. He quit his independent play to go over and sit on her lap to try and figure out what this counting was all about. He could say the word “two.”

Since Erin’s game today was on ESPN, we watched as we ate lunch and then went downstairs to the bigger TV to see the rest of the game. David dropped in to pick up some left-over vinyl for a project he was working on to try and make Katherine’s chair more comfortable. We were quite unhappy to see Texas A&M lose, but despite our sadness, we had to be proud of Oklahoma’s D. J. Mathis who was back on the mound after a shoulder injury. D.J. played with Erin for Southern Force here in Illinois and won everyone’s hearts with her enthusiasm, and probably knew she needed to keep walking Erin.

At our evening service, Becky Belt handed me her copy of The Shack that Kim had finished, so it looks like I have plenty to read in the week ahead.

My Cup Is Squashed Down and Running Over

[Note: This entry was started on Thursday night, but because it was finished AFTER midnight, the date above is the date it was finally published.]

Driving home from Writers Guild through snow flurries tonight, as I approached Woodsong, it dawned on me I did not blog last night.

I had ridden up to Cahokia yesterday afternoon with fellow Trail of Tears Association board members to meet another board member at the library there. We had to finish before their 7:30 closing. After a quick stop at a drive-in for coffee and hot chocolate to keep us awake for the ride home, I was back at our house in time to blog—if I had remembered to do it.

When I got home on Monday night from an inspiring Black Heritage Tour in Saint Louis, I knew I would have much to blog about this week. Yet when I came down to the computer last night, I found emails from our Glasco Family genealogy group, and suddenly I was visiting a extraordinary site that an unknown distant (very distant) relative had placed online. There were photos of our family tombstones and documents that were just amazing to me because of all the work that had been done and generously shared.

Before the end of the evening at midnight, I had actually corresponded with the photographer and had learned much new information about Gerald’s large family tree here in Southern Illinois. I went to bed and slept soundly feeling the satisfaction that learning new family facts brings to a genealogy buff—even though I keep saying I have quit working on family history since it is such a never-ending process that takes you further and further back in time and leaves less and less time for current life.

I woke up with the glad anticipation of a friend coming for lunch. Jari Jackson retired back to her hometown of Marion, and I was going to be privileged to hear fascinating stories of her newspaper career at many of the largest papers here in the Midwest. After an afternoon of visiting, suddenly we both realized we had to end the visit if we made it to Writers Guild tonight. Later we met again in town to ride over to Carterville for the Guild.

Over twenty writers gathered to share their writings or just to listen to the others. We had poetry, short stories, articles, and parts of novels to entertain us. Our president, Jim Lambert, read from his ongoing effort to meet the challenge of writing a novel in a month. We were saddened as he took us from Death Row to the execution chamber with his character.

We listened to poetry that rhymed and poetry that didn’t and enjoyed both. A children’s book by a probation officer made us both sad and happy. Jeremy Melvin’s novel turned my stomach with fear. He made us all want to hear the end of that book. Pam Braswell said she had been writing “feel good pieces” and her essay about her early walk in the meadow with her horses proved she had succeeded. The humorous work of others made us laugh. One poem made us remember Virginia Tech.

We never fail to be pleased by the diversity that exhibits itself. Tonight we were also inspired by a stroke victim’s haltingly presented poem explaining her difficulty with words. To contemplate her year-long come back from speechlessness was encouraging to us all to overcome our more minor hindrances.

Maybe it was good I forgot to blog last night. There is no way I could really convey all we saw and experienced on Monday’s Saint Louis trip, which began with a visit to the Old Courthouse where the Dred Scott case started and went on to the Eugene Field house where his lawyer father, Roswell Field, no doubt lay abed at night thinking about how he might help Dred Scott secure his freedom. I wish I could let you hear as we did Scott Joplin’s music on the player piano when we visited the house where he lived in an upstairs flat and gave piano lessons during the day. On to lunch at the Black Heritage Museum, we saw exhibits there that made us realize anew the absolute horror of slavery and to puzzle at humanity’s unbelievable capacity for cruelty. We traveled through Saint Louis cemeteries, and some put a Lincoln penny on Dred Scott’s tombstone. (I’d planned to do that, but an unexpected nap prevented it.) Finally our guide left us, and we started our trip home in the motor coach, which is outfitted with screens throughout that enabled us to watch videos coming and going. How sadly different were our comfortable luxurious well-fed lives than the lives we had contemplated that day. When a mike was passed among us for comments, one touring member expressed the hope that our new President will bring us another step closer to the justice, equality, and freedom that our democracy aspires to.