Dead Soldier Fruit

 The ghosts in Gettysburg taught me that you do not have to have money, or even a body, to be generous. You simply have to be open to acknowledging when someone tries to reach you. It might not be pricey or as elaborate as feeding camels from your Lamborghini, but free can hold far much more worth than things people pay for.

Starting out the day at the childhood home of Jenny Wade, which is now the Museum Haunted Objects, I had some fun experiences there, from feeling cool air in a chest and feeling as if my back was hurting from constant coughing, to setting my hand on a board, feeling my wrist tingle, then my elbow, then shoulder from touching the amputation board, then there was the kidney pain, feeling as if I could put my thumb into a bullet hole in my back, but it was the dolls that got me. The little blonde one’s pupils kept shifting, getting slightly bigger and smaller as I stared at it, while the crackled doll they just got kept demanding my attention, but it was that damned covered one positioned in front of the covered oculus that keeps magnifying it that made me question reality when I saw her eyes glow red for an instant. They had warned me not to look at the cursed doll, had even said that people wind up having traffic issues after looking at the doll, such as expensive tickets and even car accidents, but I looked anyways, because I’m stupid, and of course, I came out to a ticket on my car.

Cassie, the tour hostess, pulled out a spirit box, and there were many chatters, clear answers to questions. When I went to leave, we both clearly heard them say, “thank you for coming,” and as Cassie seemed shocked, claiming they had never said that to anyone before, another voice piped up. This one was smaller, like a feminine child.

“Yeah, thank you.” I told them I would write about them. The book will come out before too long if I keep going…

Though I was scheduled for the midnight tour, I also joined the bus tour members from the family reunion were going on, which loads just across the parking lot from the Jenny Wade house. While waiting for the bus, I wandered away from the group to Cemetery Hill. With the air of dusk settling in, amplifying the scene, I stood over the hill, looked left to the tree line, and could have sworn I saw a soldier peeking out at me wearing like a tan colored outfit, which I knew was not black, navy, but I called it grey, as I knew it was lighter, not dark, more tan.

My phone rang. Bus is loading. Hustle back.

Hot hoof it over to the others. Try to explain to a cousin what happened, but only a few words come out. It takes a minute for words to form, as she stares at me like spit it out, so I point: “that place is fuct.”

Not exactly what I was trying to explain to her, but those are the words that slipped out anyways. She just kind of tilted her head at me like I was crazy, and we got on the bus. We heard all kinds of tales about the servants old time photos and other places around town, before making our way to the covered bridge to watch Tennessee smoke a cigarette.

The same cousin that I was trying to explain the Cemetery Hill to, she picked up the cigarette after Tennessee discarded it, and continued to smoke it. My aunts joined in for a puff, just to hit the ghost cigarette. Not sure if that’s how it’s supposed to go, but that’s how it went.

I would go back to the covered bridge alone, after doing the midnight tour through the Jenny Wade house and the orphanage, just to be able to meditate underneath where the dead soldiers hung, to do my own Spirit Box session, as there were a few people at the other end of the bridge offering up cigarettes for the spirit box. If I thought the voices were clear from The Museum Haunted Objects, this was even clearer still, “I want to talk to you,” followed by, “shhhhh!” Then I heard the spirit box at the other end of the bridge go off, like the spirit was trying to talk to both of us, going back and forth between boxes.

The orphanage was equally interesting, as I positioned myself towards the very end of the dining table, towards the darkest corner of the room. Located by the back door, through the darkness, I was watching the reflection in the mirror, which changed oddly into a small red box that I tried to capture in pictures, though it does not do it justice. Through the darkness, I noted a black shadow that was darker than the rest of the shadows that seem to come from the back door and into a corner, directly behind the tour guide.

As that happened, I heard his voice falter just a little bit, and he recalled the story of this one time, a tour guide had broken down in tears in a corner from a dark spirit that had come in and left out the back door. I could not help but think to myself, “buddy, that spirit is right behind you right now.” I kept quiet though.

Down in the basement is the not so fun place. That creepy corridor is nothing compared to the hole. Compelled to simply walk inside of it, I could feel my hands raw, as if I had been clawing, trying to get the mortar out from in between the rocks of the wall.

 The dread heaviness in my chest let me know that if someone had not died, people had experience near death experiences there, and I could picture a child curled up in the corner closest to the opening, though I got the impression the child had died in that spot. It’s that feeling in the chest, as if exhausted from crying and coughing.

The creepy toys in the back had lingered there too long. They had an energy of their own. It’s the time loop.

At the house where Jenny Wade was killed making bread for soldiers, the cabinet door had opened up after an emf reader spiked. The body laid out in the basement of the house was an interesting addition. I did have to put my ring finger through the bullet hole of the door, the bullet that killed Jenny, just to see if the rumors come true.

The next day, we visited the Dobbin house, and got to learn about the underground railroad action that happen there, seeing the slave hideout. The upstairs had a dizziness factor, which could be the uneven floors, but it could just be a weird thing with where the beds were. My aunt smelled tobacco smoke in there and pipe smoke at the covered bridge.

Convinced that I was going to leave the Dobbin house and go to the national cemetery, I wound up taking a wrong turn into a different cemetery next-door. Somehow, that wrong turn led me straight to Jenny Wade‘s grave. When I noticed that people had left pennies for her, I did not have a penny, so I left her a dime.

I did wind up finding my way to the national cemetery, but of course, I had to find my way back to Cemetery Hill. As if pull to the location where I had last scene that goes to the image pop out from behind the tree at me, I walk down to the tree line, to where I saw him. Something told me to look down at the rock lined wall.

Not sure what I was expecting to find, may be a stray bullet lodged in a rock, or some kind of weird memorabilia from the war, I was pleasantly surprised to find a nut that was cut perfectly in half. Laying in a position where I would see it, the inside of the nut was the perfect shape of a heart. I knew this was what he wanted me to find, but I questioned why.

Why was this better than a stray bullet? Why was this better than some shrapnel? Why was this better than some bloody object from the war?

He seemed to laugh at me. Didn’t I understand that this was the fruit born from the blood of dead soldiers? This was the only life that they could give from the fruit of their loins, as they had been unable to produce as many heirs as they would have hoped, dying so young and early.

The trees were left to produce their babies. These are the nuts dead soldiers can give. This is their living legacy.

Perspective. Sometimes, you have to be open to a new perspective. That’s when the soldier explained a person does not have to be rich to be generous and give what they can, pointing out the budding flowers of the trumpet vine, proof that life continues after death.

Upon booking one final ghost tour at night, I learned about the butter nut. When the tour guys showed up were in the exact color that I had seen from the tree line, I questioned what troop he was representing. Thinking that there was only gray and navy, I felt a little stupid to realize that there was butternut and many troops that simply wore whatever clothes they could find.

Questioning him, asking what states were likely to have worn this butternut color, especially around the Cemetery Hill area, he explained that it was probably some of the poor southern states, places such as Georgia or Louisiana. Both states I have ties to, so that’s kind of interesting. When I told him what had happened, he said it was very likely that I could have reminded them of a former loved one.

He took us back to the Dobbin House, explained a lot more of the history there, and pointed out the shadow that looks like Abraham Lincoln. Having a spring inside the house is one way to have kept groceries cold back in the day. Also, a great way to actually have running water.

Overall, I would say that the ghosts are very much still active in the area. To put it in perspective, they say that whenever people build, they often turn up remains, including the high school, where they exposed a mass grave of like 200. When you think of these poor guys that got these amputations, because that was a procedure for handling a bullet wound back in the day, here they are lying in the ground, starving, dying of thirst, trying to convince people to shoot them because they have no limbs to shoot themselves, and then comes the Fourth of July flood that just drowns them like a mercy killing.

There’s tales of couples falling side-by-side in battle. There’s accounts of “male” soldiers giving birth. The women paid prices just as high as the men.

Go visit Gettysburg. Go see Jenny. Leave her a Penny.

More by Marisa: www.lulu.com/spotlight/Thorisaz 

Pyrotechnics at the Braves Stadium again

Finally, after the past couple years have been at the North Port High School due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we got to have the 4th of July celebration back at the Atlanta Braves Spring Training Complex.  Of course, yours truly, as well as the rest of my crew from Garden State Fireworks - which included the Disney crew, as well as members who drove in from Lakeland, Gainesville and Daytona Beach - were there to set off the Independence Day Fireworks for people to enjoy.  It was nice being back at my first location, and if you're wondering why my crew had to come in from so far away, it's because we all have to have our ATF clearance to be doing this entirely legit, not some backwoods setup.

Ranking up to one of the senior crew members for the location, we had some first timers that had to learn the ropes of pyrotechnics.  Good thing I like to teach.  Great thing I have tremendous students.

My newbies were impressed mostly by the kitchen hookup, as Jennifer said, "I will always remember this location as having the best food ever."  Yes, the best thing about the Braves Stadium is the kitchen staff if you ever get a chance to meet and greet them, as they do more than an amazing job.  With a variety of multicultural chefs to vary up the menu, the extent of what they offer on a whole is more than impressive, but each day, the food is simply amazing, as they can even make green beans and Brussel sprouts taste phenomenal, which says something when a chef can get average people to eat their greens, and it also says something when the place is picked up spotlessly every night, just to give a shout out to the staff behind the scenes that most people might forget about, but not me: keep rockin'!

There's so many behind the scenes, from the Fire Marshall, Peter, that is cool enough to give us tips and tricks of the trade, while sharing some of his stories from back in the day.  In New England, he recalled how rookie firefighters were hazed by people pouring water in their boots and freezing them, but when you have to try to respond to a fire, and your boots are frozen, it's no joke.  Recalling injuries from firemen's poles and tales from his years working with fire, the danger is eminent and real.

Pyro leaves no room for errors.  If you mess up, it could be like a bomb going off.  People can die.

They say like 10% of pyrotechnics die each year.  It's very dangerous.  That's why I like it.

I saw Top Gun yesterday.  My buddy looked over and asked if I was sleeping through it, being so exhausted after a few days of set up and tear down from the fireworks at the Braves complex.  Though I might have thought about sleeping, I did not doze off too much that I know of, but it left my friend, a former commercial airline pilot, saying, "you must not be as much of an adrenaline junkie as I am."

Oh yeah?  Why was I in a wheelchair?  Jumping more than 100 feet off the side of a mountain into a river.

Going bungee jumping naked for free over the North Sea at sunset after learning how to walk again, just to face my lingering fears from the cliff diving accident?  Nah, that and blowing stuff up must not count in the adrenaline junkie club.  Not sure how I woulda got lumped into that crowd, maybe from my days fighting Mixed Martial Arts before jumping off the side of the mountain, maybe that's more like it?

Regardless, I was there at the Braves Complex on Monday, dressed in my navy blue jumpsuit, complete with fire resistant hood with only my glasses showing like Kenny from South Park, as it's safety first, not so much about fashion.  I love that some of my students were able to see it, as well as all the rest of the people who came to the free event that had all kinds of music from Maiden Cane - with an incredible sound system I might add.  It's always great to have a free event that will fit into anyone's budget to provide a good, social atmosphere, complete with music to inspire dancing.

Was the show good?  I was at post with a fire extinguisher while trying to film a bit.  Check it out:

Don't mind my chatter in the background of the videos.  That's how you know it's really me, and not just some imposter trying to pretend to be me (again).  Get your authentic pyro videos here and at outlandishwriter.com 

Nothing to see here, People; move along!

 I’m not allowed to talk about it. Confidentiality agreements and all. I wish I could.

Maybe I can add a few details without compromising anything. Let’s just say that yesterday, when I was on the bus with the team, it reminded me of being on the bus for Ozzfest. Touring across the country on a bus is not always as glamorous as people make it out to be, as there’s this fight for coziness when trying to sleep that leaves people in awkward acrobatic positions, body parts randomly sticking out between gaps in the seat and draped across the walking aisle, making anyone attempting to go to the bathroom have to dip and dive to reach the destination.

It’s funny, because these young athletes look at me at the right age of 42 as some sort of anomaly. perhaps there are other cultures on this planet where people hook up at young ages, and reproduction is the number one thing. However, when you happen to have a cliff diving accident that leaves doctors saying you would never walk again when you’re 19, and that you probably never have kids, it gives you a different sort of perspective on relationships when you take kids out of the equation.

For me, it’s like why would I put up with the drama and hogwash of sharing space with someone else, when I could just say go to your house and clean up your own dirty laundry? If there is a mutually beneficial situation, it’s not that I’m opposed to it, but when you take that needy desperation of wanting a child out of the equation, it makes you see flaws more accurately sooner. Sure, I am a girl, and I do have the reproductive parts within me, but I also have a lot of other things fighting against that, so it’s not like I could never get pregnant, it’s just that there has yet to be anyone to be able to afford the medical bills should that happen, as high risk is not a cheap scenario.

I already had to fight to learn how to walk again. I have a past of being a fighter, especially with my history of being involved with mixed martial arts before that accident. I have also been on the planet long enough to know to be wise in picking whatever battles that could arise.

One of my friends laughed and suggested that some of these guys might even think that I am casting spells or whatever kind of weird old cat lady things that might stereotypically be done by an old spinster. When I try to explain touring on Ozzfest years ago, every once in a while, I will get someone who may have heard of Ozzy. Of course, when I try to explain everything, I get the wide eyes that are kind of more scared than anything, or simply a disinterested, “so what are you trying to tell me?”

It knocks the ego down a few notches, and sometimes people like me need that. Of course, just when I am trying to be humble, I get a phone call when I’m riding on the bus. It’s one of my friends who is reading a book that I wrote about them, asking if I can recall what book it is, as they are a reoccurring character, whose name changes in multiple books, and over the course of writing more than 100 books, it can sometimes be very challenging to discern which passage came from which book, but considering that I happened to know which book he had last acquired, I was able to name that book, which was “The Music Mafia.”

This is the same character who came with me when I covered the first jam cruise for High Times. At the time, someone had accused me of being like the female version of Hunter S. Thompson, and I was on a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas kick, so I went on in character, thinking people would realize I was playing a character, and I introduced him as, “…and this is my attorney.” Of course, there is always one gullible dip shit who totally buys into the illusion, so she takes the bait hook line and sinker, asking where he went to school, which he replied the school of hard knocks, to which she asked if that was located next to Red Rocks in Colorado.

He thinks that she is joking, so he says yeah. The next thing you know, she is going around introducing him to everybody on the cruise as an attorney, and he is not an attorney, but he has been in trouble with the law enough to know a lot about legal issues, so he was actually able to bullshit his way though scenarios when people asked. This is, of course, the same person who toured on Ozzfest with me back in 2002, so he is like my brother from another mother, and we have just had too many crazy times over the years, which is why it’s hard to pinpoint exactly which story involves him out of all of mine.

Then I get a call beeping in, and it’s from another friend, address friend friend, asking if I want to go rage it for Memorial Day. It’s last minute, but I put an a press request for a show anyways. We shall see if it gets accepted or not, and if it does, you might have a little bit more details that can provide pictures and my normal spread, as opposed to a cryptic picture of what I had been trying to explain to many of the guys yesterday, which is when they travel to look at the manhole covers, as different cities in the globe have different designs on them depending where you are:

I do have a ton of pictures from yesterday though, so maybe at some point in the future I will be able to share some of them, but as for now, this is what you get. Take a look at the manhole covers. It’s one of those traveler things.

Healing through sports, burlesque and music

 There is a reason for my delay on typical music coverage, and it’s because my focus has been drawn back to sports. The whole thing is a little embarrassing, but it’s a darkest before the dawn story I will tell. Yes, it’s true that I may have, once again, overstepped my boundaries.

I’m a habitual line stepper. People told me to “stay in your lane,” and “learn to walk before you run,” but I like making a grand entrance. When a television and radio station said they wanted to double their audience on a budget of zero, I devised too grand of a plan: my bad.

Who here would not want to see Fort Rock return to southwest Florida? There’s no good reason it left. Oh, lack of vendors paying to help support the show?

When it’s sold out every year, bring it back. When that same festival location has a history of selling out since the late 90s when it was 99X who was doing the festival, as opposed to 93X who was running the festival, be at a different name or not, that says there’s an audience.

The X-brand radio stations folded, seemingly nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic. Detailing this out to the local radio and television station, I explained that there is a gap in the market, and we could very easily try to capture some of that market by doing things on the radio and television, as well as teaming up with the festival team who still runs the Welcome to Rockville Festival. The overstepping came when I dared to try to make an introduction to merely bring everyone together, whoops.

Too much to suggest commandeering a music festival in my first week, let alone suggest bringing rock music to PBS and NPR, with things like a PBS rocks campaign and a documentary of behind the scenes at the festival, while trying to weave in some science into entertainment, I was likened to a Bon Jovi fan and told I was “too commercial for public broadcasting.” They fired me, saying I was “not a good cultural fit.” That’s enough to depress anyone.

They assured me it was nothing I did wrong, other than “not being a good fit culturally.” Okay, maybe I had been scheming behind the scenes, even suggested a new festival location, such as the new Braves Stadium in North Port, or combining it with the Florida International Airshow to give a historical spin to the event. Is it so wrong to not want to have to drive all the way to the other side of the state for just one decent festival here, please?

Tell me it would not be cool to have local celebrities like Sarasota’s Olympic skateboarder, who could be flipping around in between sets. Bring in Rockstar and Redbull to make the adrenaline kick even higher. My little vision was apparently too much for them to handle back then.

Honestly, I had planned on covering Welcome to Rockville, making the drive to the other side of the state. I was not thrilled when they wanted me to do publicity beforehand for free in order to get a press ticket, given my years of previous publications I have done and still never wanted to make that long drive, but the kicker is hearing press still might not even be able to get a photo pass for those who do this publicity work ahead of time for free for them, but that’s besides the point. Just when I started to think of some stories I could write an interviews I could do, my attention got diverted back to sports.

Many of you may recall that I was the sports writer down in Key West, and I have covered a plethora of sporting events throughout the years for other newspapers, magazines, blogs and websites. The funny thing is that I did not even realize I was applying for a sports job. licking my wounds after being rejected by public broadcasting, being just a little too intense for them, I had thought about simply going back to education, and at the time, I thought I was merely applying for a teaching job.

Due to confidentiality agreements, I cannot say what sport, what team, who I am working with, or any of those crazy details. What I can say is that I am helping people transition from other countries. I am helping them not only learn English, but also ways of American culture.

This has been an extremely humbling experience for me. Not only is it the fact that I might have had an ego coming  in from the music industry, as it was 20 years ago that I toured on Ozzfest, but it’s also that these guys in sports don’t care about the music industry the way I do. While I may have thought that touring on Ozzfest was a cool thing, being able to tour with all these musicians, these guys from other countries have no idea who the hell Ozzy is, let alone Ozzfest: knock the ego down a little bit.

If I try to explain to them what Ozzfest is, or the various people involved in the heavy-metal music industry, they think I’m talking about the devil. It’s hard to try to explain to people who have never seen that stuff that it is just a façade, just an image. People try to create all kinds of images, and while I might have always thought that the heavy-metal scene image was cool, some of my students are literally not knowing what to think when they see images of pentagrams, dripping blood and shooting fire.

I’m sure a few think I am crazy, but they still indulge my shenanigans. It’s a very cool process, as I am learning as they learn. I’ll admit that I am not native or fluent in their language, knowing a little more than some basics, but they teach me as I teach them; if I pronounce it wrong, they can correct me the same way that I teach them.

It truly does boil down to the essence of teamwork. The whole scenario gives me an entirely different appreciation of teaching and learning, as the students are teaching the teacher, as the teacher tries to teach them, very zen. There’s still moments of frustration when words become like tongue twisters, but when both the students and the teacher can fumble at times and still pick it back up, that just goes along with the practice makes perfect teamwork.

What does that mean for the music scene? Well, instead of Welcome to Rockville, I am scheduled to be on a bus with the team, trying some impromptu English lessons. That does not mean that I am done with the music scene by any means, let alone pyrotechnics and real estate.

Just this morning, I was planning a collaboration. I would say details to follow, but it might just be a wait for the surprise type of scenario. Let’s just say that last night I took one of the latest imports from Chicago to her very first burlesque show: teaching America’s youth.