One of Santa’s elves stopped by our house the other night to drop off a toy for our geriatric cat, Kitty Kelley. She proceeded to spend the next two days camped out in the “cat house.”
Our larger (and younger) cat, Lucy, is too fat to fit inside, it seems, so Kitty Kelley has a place that is all her own. She would be fatter, too, if Lucy didn’t eat all her food.
Merry Christmas, cats, from Andy, the Christmas Elf!
Tim Stopulos, a Davenport Assumption High School graduate who attended college in Wake Forest (Winston Salem, North Carolina) after graduation, was in town on December 19th, playing at the Redstone Room of the River Music Experience.
His tightly knit combo played some covers of Billy Joel and Elton John (“Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”) on which Steven Kretschmer guested and sang harmony, but most of the songs were original compositions from Tim’s album “The Long Drive Home.”
Tim’s band consists of Justin Hooks on drums and percussion, Seville Lilly on keyboards and bass guitar, Michael Tahlier, lead guitar. Tim, himself, plays keyboards and guitar and sings lead vocals while composing many of the group’s songs. Born in 1983, the 25-year-old singer/songwriter says he has been influenced by everyone from Dave Matthews to John Mayer, Ben Folds, Coldplay, Billy Joel, Radiohead and Jeff Buckley. He began 15 years of piano instruction at the age of 6, and it has definitely paid off.
I spoke with Seville Lilly, the bass and keyboards player (and the thin guy wearing the hat) and he said, “Tim is the most complete musician I’ve met. He has it all. He sings, he composes, he can play all the instruments. I’ve been in 13 bands in and around Chicago. This CD is really well-produced. It was hearing this CD that convinced me to join the band.” Seville went on to note that he is not on the CD. He gave kudos to band organizer and “main man” Tim Stopulos, who seems very upbeat and energetic and dedicated to making it in the crazy and unpredictable music business.
I bought one of the CDs, in order to listen to: “Weak and Willing,” “Too Close,” “Pride and Prejudice,” “Love It or Leave It,” “Where I’m going,” “Loose Ends,” “Lie to Me” (I thought it was going to be Johnny Lang’s version; it wasn’t), “Wandering,” and “Wait it Out.”
What I liked best about the concert was that Stopulos is undeniably talented. I haven’t been as impressed with a keyboard player since I heard Joe Firstman open for Sheryl Crow and predicted a big career for the guy (who is now the house band on Carson Daley’s late night show). [22 years of piano instruction here, so there!]
The band’s members are mainly from the Chicago area, and they are playing in the Chicago area at the following places during the upcoming weeks:
December 20th – Bad Dog Tavern (solo) 9 p.m.
December 23rd – Nan’s Piano Bar (solo) 8:30 p.m.
December 27th – Reggie’s Music Joint
January 9, 2009 – 1:30 A, Bar Louise (solo)
January 16 – The Red Line Tap, 9 p.m.
January 31, Private party, 8 p.m.
Learn more about Tim Stopulos’ band, and vote for a name for the band, at his blog:www.timstopulos.com. It’s nice to hear a singer who can actually sing, for a change, and whose talent comes through loud and clear. Good luck to this Iowa native as he takes on the world of entertainment.
by Tom Ware
I am a loyal Louis L’Amour fan, normally, but I volunteered to read and review Connie (Corcoran) Wilson’s and Michael McCarty’s new novel Out of Time. The novel is billed as a sci-fi thriller romance. One would-be reader who enjoys science fiction did not feel the book was as much science fiction (as the cover would suggest). She felt it was more a thriller and a romance.
I enjoyed the change of pace this suspenseful tale offered, and found the author inserted many references to current events. The novel held my interest. It has chapters of varying lengths, each chapter introduced by poetry, some of it original, some of it from famous poets. The characters were believable, with events that I felt bordered on the advertised science fiction, as it included reference to time travel.
Connie Corcoran Wilson and Michael McCarty seem to be capable authors, and I would read another of their novels. They seem to have done their research, and took a chance on creating original song lyrics to enhance the novel and introduce each chapter. (Much of the original poetry was from Ms. Wilson’s second book Both Sides Now, where you may remember having seen it previously)
A quick read and an interesting storyline, with some unanswered questions by novel’s end.
There were several book signings scheduled on the same December 6th Saturday.
The East Moline Public Library hosted its annual Christmas Open House and local weatherman Gary Metivier, as well as 3 published romance authors (pictured) were present. Also present was Mrs. Claus and friend.
The Midwest Writing Center had its book signing event from 2 to 4, and, among others signing, were Mike McCarty and Mark McLaughlin (pictured) and me. (I arrived late, as I had been at the East Moline event.)
That evening, the Silvis Public Library had its annual Christmas Walk. Pictured is the Alex McGehee family. Alex is a former student and his wife (a Cosgrave) was not, but certainly resembles the other Cosgrave students that I did have back at Silvis Junior High. They are pictured with their lovely family. There were sleigh rides and Rob Storm did an ice sculpture of a Christmas tree outside the fire station. The only drawback to the Silvis Annual Christmas Walk was that it was bitterly cold outside, at least 10 degrees below normal.
S
till, a good time was had by all.
Another of the Quad City Times’ “live” music sessions went down at the River Music Experience’s Mojo Café on Monday, December 8th, 2008, kicking off at 5 p.m. with The Kaps, moving on to “Keep Off the Grass” from 6:40 to 6:20 p.m. and, at 6:20 p.m., the band Hugh Hefner.
The introduction that “Times” Arts & Entertainment editor David Burke gave the group pronounced their name as “huge,” not “Hugh.” They have been together a year and a half and covered groups like the Bangles “Walk Like an Egyptian” and “We Got the Beat,” which certainly had the volume. Hugh Hefner had a full-bodied rock sound and a female vocalist with a country twang. The drummer was on the money and the bass guitar support was full throttle full speed ahead.
Following Hugh Hefner was “Cosmic” from 7 to 7:40 p.m. There were 2 female vocalists who sang harmony well and whose voices meshed together well. “Cosmic” has been playing as a group for 6 years and, this night, they played (among others) “I Shot the Sheriff,” “Boogie Oogie Oogie,” and “A Bad Case of Lovin’ You.”
“Head Held High” played last from 7:40 to 8:20 p.m. They were very loud, flat, at times, and, although the drummer did yeoman’s work keeping the group on tempo, it was really more noise than music. At the risk of having the lead singer send hate mail, I have to say that there is a difference between screaming as loudly as you can and singing. The band literally emptied the joint. It was painful to listen to and each song ended with an off-key twanging sound from the guitarist. The lead singer attempted to make up for tonal quality by volume and by thrashing around onstage, neither one of which worked well. At the end of the set, there were only about 3 people left in the entire place, and I had moved as far away from the noise as possible and was still getting a headache.
There is no charge for listening to the five bands, however, so the price was right, and all bands are being filmed for later enjoyment at qctimes.com/goanddo. The “live” sessions continue on Tuesday, December 8th, and, again, in January, on the 12th and 13th (Monday and Tuesday.) I plan to be there with books from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on those nights.
This strange ghost story has been circulating in Webster Groves, Missouri for many years…
Rachel and David
By Connie Corcoran Wilson
When Mike and I moved into the old house at 334 North Gore Street between North Rock Hill road and West Kirkham Avenue in Webster Groves, Missouri, we were intrigued by the handsome stone structure, the Rock House, our next-door neighbor.
“Wow! Look at that!” Mike’s awe at the beauty of this National Historic Landmark was evident in his voice. It was a great-looking place. The building had housed the Edgewood Children’s Center for emotionally disturbed children next door to our new rental since 1944.
“It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” I said, as we carried boxes from our U-Haul to the shabby-chic old house we had just rented as our new home. The landlord had seemed very glad to rent the place to us. We found out why when we settled in and discovered the extent of the renovation that was going to be necessary to make the house livable. Faulty plumbing. Creaking floorboards. Old furnace. The full complement of trouble.
“It’s a good thing our rent’s so low, or I’d consider moving to a fancier neighborhood.” Mike was smiling. He hugged me hard, too, and patted my pregnant stomach. I knew he was just having fun at my expense. We both loved the large leafy oak trees of Webster Groves and the grand houses that stood all around us. Our house might be a bit more run-down than the rest, but we were moving up in the world, for sure.
“Awwww! Don’t be like that. This is a terrific neighborhood. Why, the trees around here have to be at least one hundred and fifty years old! I read somewhere that a lot of this area was built around the time of the World’s Fair in St. Louis. Don’t you think this street looks just like that Judy Garland movie?”
“What Judy Garland movie?”
“You know…the one where she sang ‘Clang! Clang! Clang went the trolley!'” I sang the verse, to get Mike’s full attention, just as he was plugging in a standing lamp, only to discover that the electricity to the outlet seemed to be non-functioning.
“Oh! That’s ‘Meet Me in St. Louis.'”
“Louie?” I asked, with a laugh. Mike came over and hugged me tight once again.
“You better not be meeting anybody named Louie. You’re my wife, and I’m very happy that you are.” He kissed me softly on the cheek and returned to the lamp.
“Just think, Meg. It’s our very own home. Our first house.”
“Rented house,” I reminded him with a grin, just to keep things real.
We were newlyweds, married just shy of a year. Up until now, we had been living in cramped apartment quarters. One place we lived, we even had to go down the hall to use the community bathroom, so “our very own place,” as Mike had dubbed the run-down two-story frame house seemed palatial to us. We were ready, willing and able to start a family. This would be a great house for a child. I was four months pregnant, but I wasn’t showing, yet. Mike had just been appointed regional manager of the new chain shoe store down the road at the mall. Life was looking up.
The chill in the late October air made the fireplace inviting, but a small disaster with the flue left us banging on the ancient radiators. We prayed the heat would kick in before we turned to Popsicles. We were having trouble making anything work in the decrepit old house.
“Let’s huddle together for warmth,” Mike said, laughing.
“You just want an excuse to huddle. I’m not sure it’s for warmth.” I hugged him in return. “And we both know where that impulse has gotten us.” Just then, our attention was caught by a redheaded boy of about twelve, approaching our house from the direction of next door’s Children’s Center.
“Straighten up and fly right, Boy-Oh. Wouldn’t do to terrorize the neighbors. Especially since they’re all supposed to be children with emotional issues already.” The doorbell rang.
A ruddy-faced carrot-topped boy of about twelve stood there on the porch when I opened the door, clipboard and pen in his hand. Behind him, clutching a toy stuffed unicorn and silently regarding us with big blue eyes was a little girl who looked about six years old, presumably his younger sister.
“Hello, Mrs.” He said, in a courtly old-fashioned manner. “Would you care to order a Christmas wreath from the Edgewood Children’s Center? It’s not much money. We’ll deliver the wreath to you a month before Christmas. We’re just taking orders now.”
He looked so eager to please and was so polite that Mike and I both said, in unison, “How much?”
“Only ten dollars. They’re real. Blue spruce. It’ll smell great, and it’ll look great on the front door of this fine house.” He smiled. Apparently the redheaded entrepreneur was not above a little insincere flattery. Anything to make a sale.
“What’s your name?” we asked simultaneously.
“David.” He shuffled from foot to foot, the cold wind making his ruddy cheeks appear rosier.
“You cold, David?” I asked.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Want to come just inside the door while I give you our information? And maybe you’d like a cookie? We have some Oreos in the kitchen somewhere.” Mike and I were addicted to Oreos, always arguing about eating them “the proper way.” We had made sure before we packed the kitchen stuff in our former apartment that the Oreos would be right on top, so that we could have a quick pick-me-up of sugar whenever we wished. And, of course, we could also have our favorite debate over the “proper way” to eat an Oreo, with me favoring the white filling first and the cookie last, and Mike the reverse. We joked that we were like Jack Spratt and his Mrs. from the famous nursery rhyme.
“I’d like a cookie, Ma’am, but what’s an Oreo?” asked the shy, polite boy, as he stepped inside.
“You’ve never heard of Oreo cookies?”
“Oh! So it’s a type of cookie, then?”
“Why, yes. Yes, it is.” I didn’t know anyone who wouldn’t recognize the brand name.
“What about your little sister?” I asked David. The girl was lingering on the sidewalk. She had not climbed even one step up towards the top of the porch stoop.
“Oh, Rachel won’t come in. She don’t talk.”
“Can she have an Oreo?” I asked. In this day and age, you had to be careful about handing out candy or cookies to strange children.
“Sure, but she won’t say please and thank you, proper-like. It’s just her way. She don’t talk. And she won’t come inside, either. She got scared real bad. After that, she just quit talking.” I wanted to ask what had scared the poor thing that badly, but I didn’t want to pry into personal matters.
“That’s okay. If she can stand the cold, we’ll give her an Oreo to eat outside while she waits for you. It won’t take but a minute to give you our information. Her pet unicorn can have one, too.” As I said this, I extended two Oreo cookies towards the silent girl with the gigantic blue limpid pools for eyes, who was staring at me and clutching the pink stuffed unicorn as though it could save her.
Rachel took the first cookie and held it to the stuffed unicorn’s pink mouth. The unicorn did not take a bite. No surprise there. Rachel held the second cookie in her hand, her fingers clutched tightly around it. She made no move to put the Oreo in her mouth. Silence.
“Well, Rachel, we’ll have your brother back in a flash. Feed that unicorn while you wait.” I smiled in what I hoped was a kindly fashion as I shut the door against the cold. I could see that Rachel had not moved even one foot from the spot on the sidewalk she had chosen. She grasped the Oreos firmly in her slender fingers, uneaten.
“Our address is 334 North Gore Street, David, but we don’t have our phone hooked up, yet. We’re the Hansens…Mike and Meg Hansen.”
“Oh, that’s okay, Mrs. Hansen. We’ll deliver the wreaths personal-like, but not till one month before Christmas. I’ll collect the ten dollars then.”
“That sounds fine, David. And don’t forget your cookie!” David turned to leave as I almost forgot to give the young salesman his reward. I remarked, “It wouldn’t do to give your sister, Rachel, TWO cookies and not give you even one!”
“It’s okay, Mrs. Hansen. Rachel won’t mind. She knows I’d do anything for her. She’d share her cookies with me, if you forgot.” And then he was gone, giving us a last sad lingering look over his shoulder. He walked down the three steps to the sidewalk and rejoined his waiting sister and her pet unicorn. He took Rachel by the hand. They walked toward the cottonwood tree in the backyard of the Edgewood Children’s Center, fading into the haze of swirling smoke from autumn bonfires in the neighborhood of large trees.
Pyrite benzene, I thought to myself as the children disappeared in the haze from the burning leaves. Nasty stuff. That stuff can kill you. Those kids shouldn’t play near that bonfire. The people who work at the center should keep them away from that smoke. I hope the children don’t have asthma.
In the two weeks that followed, we learned more about the history of the Edgewood Children’s Center, researching it on the Internet. The children’s home was over one hundred and seventy-five years old. Originally, the St. Louis Association of Ladies had established it for the Relief of Orphan Children after the cholera epidemic of 1832. In 1834, the ladies came to the aid of the poor orphans, founding the Center. By 1848, the place had been renamed the Saint Louis Protestant Orphans’ Asylum. The asylum wasn’t located next door to us on Gore Street then, though. It had only moved to the Rock House, as it was known, in 1869. The Reverend Artemus Bullard, a preacher, operated a seminary for young men in the Rock House next door, until he was tragically killed in a train wreck in 1855.
Reverend Bullard was a strong believer in the abolition of slavery. The Rock House was one of the stops on the Underground Railroad. A tunnel several blocks long ran beneath the Rock House. Slaves from the South routinely hid there on their way North to freedom. In 1890, two children became lost in the tunnel and died. After that, the exit was sealed off.
In 1910 a fire gutted the old Rock House. The interior was destroyed, but the lovely stone exterior remained just as we saw it daily through our kitchen window. A six-year-old girl perished in the blaze that year, although her older brother tried to rescue her and died in the conflagration himself.
As we continued to unpack our few belongings, following David and Rachel’s departure, a middle-aged lady wearing a plaid Burberry muffler picked up our package of paper plates. Dislodged from the kitchen goods, the package of plates had taken flight in the strong gusty winds of the late October afternoon chill. The plates behaved almost like a giant pack of Frisbees.
“Here you go,” the stranger said with a laugh, as she placed the plain Chinette plate package she had retrieved from the street into my chilly hands.
“Thanks so much,” I said. “I was afraid I was going to have to break out my track shoes to catch those things. And who knows where they are?” I laughed and extended my hand. “That wind is really fierce. Thanks from Meg and Mike Hansen, your new neighbors.” I hoped my smile conveyed my genuine gratitude at the friendly gesture from the white-clad stranger, the first adult we had met in our new neighborhood.
“Not a bit,” she said, shaking my hand. “I’m Lucinda Resnick. I was just getting off my shift at the center. I stay through the nights on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. But, since it’s Thursday, I get to go home and actually cook and care for my own family.”
“You have children at home?” I asked. My question came more from curiosity than politeness. I wondered how the woman could manage to stay overnight next door while supervising active children of her own at home.
“Oh, yes. My husband is a fireman. He works weird shifts that we can usually coordinate. You know…week on, week off stuff. I really love kids, including my own,” she said, smiling. “These kids need me more even than my own, though, because most of them have emotional problems. Different traumas, you know. It didn’t start out that way, of course. The home originally was for orphans from the 1832 cholera epidemic, but, over the years, and with the move here to Rock House, today’s kids all seem to have psychological problems. You know the drill. Kid comes home and finds his father hanging in the basement. Parents leave to play golf and Mom and Dad never come home, killed in a car accident. Eventually, many of those kids wind up here.” She said all this so matter-of-factly that I was impressed with her efficient, calm demeanor.
“Well, it’s wonderful work that you do,” I said. And I meant it. “We met the young redheaded boy, David, and his sister, Rachel, just an hour or so ago. They seemed like such nice, polite young people. Although it’s sad that Rachel doesn’t speak. Why is that? Do you know?” I had been wondering about the small, frail six-year-old with the big blue eyes and the pink stuffed unicorn pet, clutching her Oreo cookies and waiting patiently for her older brother. Wondering why Rachel didn’t speak. What unspeakable horror had her young blue eyes seen?
Lucinda seemed startled. “David? When did you meet David?”
I turned to Mike for confirmation. “It was an hour ago, right?” I asked Mike. He was hammering away at a loose step on the front porch, two nails in his mouth, and nodded assent.
“Yes, an hour ago David came selling Christmas wreaths. Reasonably priced ones, too. We ordered one and gave him a cookie. His sister, Rachel, wouldn’t come inside, although we gave her an Oreo, too. David said she doesn’t speak. He was such a courtly young gentleman. Very Old World. So polite and courteous.” I smiled at Lucinda, expecting her to smile in response. Instead, she wore a puzzled expression, so I went on, “I don’t think I’ve ever met a child or an adult who didn’t know what an Oreo was, though. I had to explain to David that an Oreo is a cookie.”
“How old was this David?” Lucinda asked.
“About twelve. Why?”
“We have a David at the center…the only one,” Lucinda explained, “but our David is six feet two with dark hair. David Leibovitz. He’s Jewish. He wouldn’t be selling Christmas wreaths.”
“What about Rachel?” I asked. “Do you have a Rachel? Little girl of six? Big blue eyes?”
“Yes and no,” Lucinda finally said, with great reluctance.
“What do you mean? You do have a Rachel? A small six-year-old who won’t speak? Or you don’t have a small girl with big blue eyes who just stares at you as though she’s clairvoyant or something?” I had noticed the unusual nature of Rachel’s gaze. I felt uneasy as she stared at me, while her friendlier older brother chatted to us about the wreath.
“There was a young girl named Rachel in the home many years ago. She had an older brother named David. Both were orphaned by the flu epidemic, and so they came to live at Edgewood. Near Christmas in 1910, the house caught fire. Rachel was trapped in an upstairs bedroom. David died trying to rescue her. Sometimes, people say they can still se a red glow in the upstairs bedroom on the right. That was Rachel’s room. There are residents who claim to have seen Rachel swinging in the swing hung up in the old cottonwood tree. Others say she floats in the air near there, especially at Halloween. Of course, you can’t believe what kids say when it’s Halloween, now, can you?”
“Did Rachel have a pink stuffed animal…a unicorn?”
“How did you know?” Lucinda asked. She opened her car door, preparatory to leaving.
“I saw them both…remember?”
Lucinda quickly slammed the door to her car shut without further comment. She started the car and drove away, no longer our friendly new neighbor, but a spooked white-clad nurse from the institution next door who probably thought we were both nuts.
Mike finished nailing the loose porch boards. We both just stood there, absorbing everything we had just heard.” Neither of us felt threatened; we both just felt infinitely sad.
“Do you remember that neither one of them ate the Oreos?” I asked. “In fact, David didn’t even know what an Oreo was!”
“Well, to be fair, the unicorn didn’t eat the Oreo, either,” Mike said.
“The unicorn is a mythical beast, Mike.” I sounded cross. I was really just struggling to understand the unknowable. I was spooked.
“My point, exactly,” said Mike, as he opened the door to our home at 334 North Gore Street, and we returned to reality. “Guess we should just plan on picking up a wreath ourselves when we get our Christmas tree,” he added, with a crooked smile.
“Funny. Very funny.”
I moved to the computer and quickly googled Oreo cookies. 1912. Oreo cookies weren’t invented until 1912. The fire that killed both children occurred in 1910.
We hugged each other and moved to the couch in front of the fireplace, as a chill pervaded the room.
“Mike?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He settled deeper into the comfy chintz couch and pulled me towards him.
“When we have the baby, if it’s a boy, let’s name it David.”
Mike looked at me seriously. His eyes wrinkled with understanding. “And if it’s a girl?”
“Rachel, of course.”
The fire crackled in the fireplace, warming the cold room, and I almost could swear that I smelled the crisp aroma of blue spruce.
THE END
Today’s big adventure took place in Barstow, California, where we visited the Route 66 Museum supervised by Deborah Hodkin in the basement of a historic Harvey Hotel at 681 N. First Avenue. You approach the museum across a bridge not unlike the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge in that it has a turn in it, and you can see the entire railway below. The museum is open only on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, with the hours being 10 to 4 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday.
In the old days, people alighted from the trains and stayed in the Harvey House Hotels. There was even a 1946 movie starring Judy Garland that romanticized the Harvey House female employees, who had to take a vow not to marry while employed by the Harvey House and had certain other morals clauses in their work agreements.
We watched a movie, hosted by Marty Milner of “Route 66” television fame, that tracked the Mother Road (so named by John Steinbeck in “The Grapes of Wrath”) all the way from 
Chicago to California, with Milner at the wheel of a classic Chevrolet Corvette.
Completed in 1911, the Casa del Desierto boasted a rail depot, restaurant and hotel complex and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The original alignment of Route 66 was in front of this building, between the railroad tracks. Route 66, itself, was made from the National Old Trails Road, which crossed the Mojave Desert.
This Museum was founded in 2000 and charges no admission, but accepts donations. Volunteers staff the Historic Harvey House and the museum hosts special exhibits and upcoming events, including a Miss Route 66 pageant, a Route 66 Quilt Show, Artists & Authors and Desert Writers’ Day and group tours of the facility. Students attending Barstow Community College may also apply for the Barstow Route 66 Mother Road Museum scholarship, designed to bring more awareness to Main Street, USA. For more information on the scholarship, check www.route66 museum.org.
Today’s journey took us from Sedona (AZ) through a tiny corner of Nevada (Loughlin) on into California. Along the way, we stopped in Williams (AZ), Seligman and Kingman (AZ), and are now in Barstow, California.
Williams was the last town to capitulate when Route 66 was officially decommissioned. They fought in the courts, but finally lost the battle. Now, Williams has some downtown displays, a purportedly haunted bar called “The Black Cat,” and, according to the woman who assisted me at a roadside gas station, her own house is haunted. (Mainly by a cat belonging to the previous owner who built it.)
Seligman had a Polar Express train display, but little else.
Kingman has a haunted motel called the Beale Hotel on Main Street, and another place where a local doctor took his victims to murder them.
It took from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m. to reach Barstown, California, where we are now.
Here in Sedona, we lunched at Bistro Bella Tierra at 101 North Hwy 89
A, F29 in Sedona, Arizona, a lovely place with a great view that is nestled amongst other shops in a shopping center. We strolled through the shopping center afterwards and took part in a wine tasting (5 Arizona wines for $10; try the white merlot.) The onion soup was just the way you always hope it will be, with cheesy goodness, and the view was spectacular, featuring (from where we sat) the red rocks of three formations: Cathedral Rock, Snoopy, and the Coffee Pot.
As we have dinner reservations at L’Auberge de Sedona, a truly class act amongst the hotels and motels that dominate this town of 14,000, we ferreted it out down L’Auberge Lane (or Little Lane) and were given the guided tour by Graham, the concierge, whose wife was born in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
L’Auberge rooms start at $225, move up to $325 for the cabins with a garden view, and top out closer to $500 in the cabins with a creek view. There is extensive remodeling going on at the hotel, which is nestled amongst the trees and bushes of Oak Creek, and the concierge mentioned something about “an outside shower” under construction. We could see that a shower-sized extension to the cabin was being added, and we wondered if one would be able to be viewed au naturel.
A British couple (last name Craig) with whom I spoke in the lobby was off on a hike and chatted with me prior to leaving. Hiking seems to be a big thing to do here, as are hot air balloon rides and helicopter rides over the splendor of the canyons.
About 300 million years ago, the oceans that covered Sedona retreated, exposing layers of sandstone and limestone. [I seem to remember something about “upthrusting” and “downthrusting” from my years in Earth Science with Dr. Sherwood Tuttle (at which I was very bad).] There are also formations with names like Thumb, Steamboat and Bell Rock that surround the Sedona area.
There are numerous fine restaurants, one of the best of which was Dahl and Diluca’s at 2321 W. Hwy 89A. This is a freestanding place across from the Safeway Shopping Center with a romantic décor and wonderful Italian food. It is very fancy, which we did not know, as we entered in our jeans and tee shirts. Others dining this night were attired just as casually. The waitress, who was from Pittsburgh, was very efficient and friendly. We wanted fettuccini with shrimp, but we craved Alfredo sauce, not the red sauce mentioned with it on the menu. Only fettuccini with chicken had Alfredo sauce, the chef obligingly used prawns and Alfredo sauce, instead.
So far, we have not encountered anyone who was actually born here. The concierge in our hotel is from Chicago, originally. Graham, the concierge at L’Auberge de Sedona, is British. The woman at the gift shop where I bought candles, May, was originally from the Sacramento area. Her husband’s retirement brought them here, but she “misses the ocean.”
We learned about “vortex circles,” rock formations representing places where electromagnetic field energy naturally collects, creating energy whirlpools that can flow clockwise or counter-clockwise. Because the human body is made up of electromagnetic energy, students of the phenomenon such as Page Bryant of Sedona, claim that the rock vortex circles can have a range of effects on the human body.
Some believe that, if the vortex is too strong, it can weaken the human immune system. They maintain that compasses and electronic devices like cell phones and watches won’t work properly around such energy vortices. I can testify that this is the first hotel on our trip where the promised network connection in the room doesn’t work (although it works in the hotel lobby).
Other vortex believers say that the effects on the human body will be a form of healing and spiritual growth. They believe it can realign the energy in one’s body, increasing health and vitality. Terms like “upflow” and “inflow” and other meditation techniques are common in Sedona. Valleys, canyons and caves are inflow sites, while mountains and mesa tops are outflow sites.
Meanwhile, on the “Good Evening, Arizona” Channel 3 news, Patty Kirkpatrick tells me that Attorney General Michael Mulkasey fainted onstage during a speech at the Marriott. Mayor Gordon of Phoenix failed to come to a complete halt at a red light for the second time and was picked up by a traffic camera. A high of 78 in the valley today and it will dip into the fifties tonight. There will be a high of 80 tomorrow.
An erratic freeway chase came to a halt in Columbia as the arresting officer pounded Stephen Zombra, the driver, who was charged with drug possession, among other things. A traffic stop in Oklahoma City also led to 130 mph chase photographed by KWTV in Oklahoma City. One thing is for sure: there are wide-open spaces out here in the wild, wild west and it is easy to do 100 mph with nobody around for miles (not that WE would ever do such a thing).
Sunny Arizona (temperatures predicted in the 70’s until Thanksgiving) beckoned this morning, as we set off from Gallup to Flagstaff and then to Sedona on our tour of the Southwest, Route 66 and other interesting places that are hopefully warmer than the Midwest at this point in time. As established in a previous dispatch, we can now scratch Roswell, NM, from the list of interesting places, despite the fact that we drove hours out of our way to visit the alien museum there.
Most of the places mentioned on our Route 66 map didn’t have an address next to it that you could plug into our operating GPS system. Meteor City looked like we’d be driving quite a way out of our way to see a hole in the ground. (Can’t compare with the World’s Largest Ball of Twine!) I had a friend (Linda Henderson Hearn) who had a meteor in her backyard for years, so I was pretty blasé about driving out of our way to see this crater.
Therefore, we stuck to I40 until Flagstaff and then I selected one (of four) locations to try to GPS in, within Flagstaff, as a “tourist attraction.” The one I selected was known as the Museum Club. It wasn’t that I was that set on seeing the Museum Club; it was just that none of the other Route 66 era motels that were listed came up on the GPS, so the Museum Club it was, for lunch and a wonderful time. The place was great! I highly recommend it. I could easily have lost several hours in the dark fun place.
The bartender, Jane Bliss, is a treasure. She even was given a plaque recently, commemorating her 10 years behind the bar, which is a very dark, very picturesque old woody Route 66 place that has a lot of history surrounding it, ghosts, AND off-track betting!
Jane was only too happy to show me the tree that exists inside the club on the dance floor, which has quite a history. It seems that, in the old days, an African American was shot, hanged and burned from this very tree. (The bullet holes are still visible.) There it sits, right smack in the middle of the dance floor. No wonder the place is supposed to be haunted as hell! I went to the tree and whispered, “Barack Obama is President now!” I’d like to think that this poor allegedly innocent victim smiled somewhere in heaven.
I was told numerous stories about the various strange goings-on inside the Museum Club and strange they were! (You’ll have to wait for Volume II of “Ghostly Tales of Route 66” to hear them, though.) The girl placing pari-mutuel bets for the patrons told me some that were especially convincing. (Stay tuned and hang on to that idea).
From the Museum Club patrons, we learned that the haunted places to visit in Flagstaff were Monte Vista Hotel (this place is REALLY haunted!); lots of stories— the Weatherford Hotel, and the Riordan Mansion, reputedly the oldest house in Flagstaff. As we stopped by the Visitors’ Information Bureau, located inside the old train station, I learned from Justin Connors, the Native American visitors’ information representative, that the old train station itself is perhaps haunted by a brakeman who died there in an accident.
From Jane Bliss at the Museum Club, we were advised to take the scenic route (i.e. Oak Creek Canyon, the 89A exit off Highway 17) to Sedona, rather than the route the GPS would map for us. It was a twisting, turning drive through canyons lined with signs that urge you to “watch out for falling rocks” (some of the canyons actually have netting on the sides to prevent drivers from being hit by these falling rocks) and, also, some very futuristic homes that made me wonder if Frank Lloyd Wright designed them during his Arizona phase.
We eventually reached our destination: Sedona, Arizona, a lovely tourist town carved from the glories of the Grand Canyon, where our room tonight has a fireplace and is right off the pool. Tomorrow night, we dine at L’Auberge de Sedona, purportedly one of the cities’ nicer resorts, but one that was full up for the 2 nights we will be here.
A local Flagstaff newspaper “The Lumberjack,” put out by students at Northern Arizona University, had a front-age story entitled “Nationwide Protest Denounces Anti-gay Legislation” by Ashley Barela and, right next to it, a story by Jill Hallquist entitled “Homeless Shelters Packed in Winter” that detailed how the Sunshine Rescue Mission in Flagstaff just celebrated 51 years of community service in September and serves breakfast at 6:30 a.m., lunch at noon and dinner at 7 p.m. to the cities’ less fortunate homeless folk.
Palmer Williams, one of the Sunshine Rescue Mission’s three full-time coordinators, who has worked there for 7 years, said, “It’s very hard to be homeless in Flagstaff, especially in the winter time.” Somehow, I think that sentiment would go double for a colder climate, like Chicago or Minneapolis. [Maybe triple if you’re in Fargo, North Dakota or International Falls, Minnesota.]
The evening newscast announced that unemployment in Arizona has hit 6.1% with 30,000 people out of work and that Mesa, in particular, is gearing up to make “significant reductions” in staff. Chris Brady, the City administrator, says that 389 positions will be gone within the next 18 months, with measures like reducing the number of responding officers to an emergency medical call from 4 to 2. The city of Buckeye (AZ) is also experiencing a budget crisis, and figures about the nation’s young people (ages 25 to 35) indicate that, between 1985 and 2005, their income dropped 30% while their levels of debt rose by 44%. On the radio as I type this, I hear reports that 1 out of every 2 businesses in the U.S. is going to announce lay-offs this year, coming from the cheesy-sounding voice of that guy who sings stuff like Yanni-style music (John Tesh) and used to do Entertainment Tonight with Mary Hart.
On the bright side, one Arizona resident who has a shot at upping her income significantly is Janet Napolitano, the current Governor of the state (the 25th Governor, but only the 3rd female in Arizona history). She has been offered a position in the Obama Administration as Secretary of Homeland Security.
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