Unidentified Fly-In Object

I've always thought that if I were to get a tattoo, I'd get the outline of Clinton County, right on my shoulder. Maybe with the shape of Pennsylvania. Then I remember---I'm forty-seven. I get a tattoo and it legally constitutes a midlife crisis.
But that wasn't preventing me from going into the tattoo place downtown. For work reasons. That's why my job is weirder than yours. (No matter what it is you do for a living, my job is weirder than yours.)
Jazmyn was there. "Hi, Lou! Want to see my new tattoo?"
Jazmyn is a sweet kid, one of my junior paranormal investigators. She was currently home after being away in basic training. I've grown very fond of her. I looked at her tattoo, which showed a design involving compass points.
"Nice," I said. "It gives me sort of a feeling of adventure."
"Does it? That's pretty cool!"
"I'm looking for the owner," I said. "If he's got a moment."
"Lou!" The owner looked up from the back of the room, where he was tattooing a guy. "What's up?"
"I actually wasn't aware you'd recognize me." I've been a local writer for about ten years now, but it's still a surprise when someone knows who I am. There's a significant part of me that feels six years old, scribbling two-sentence pencil articles for my grandmother, who will look at them distractedly and say That's nice.
"Oh, sure. You recently wrote that piece in the Record about the antique chair."
"Chair and Chair Alike. Yeah, that's me."
"So what can I do for you?" he asked.
"Well, I've been told by a couple of people that you think your place is haunted."
He laughed. "Well, I don't, but some of the guys do. They say they've had some stuff happen in the back."
"I wanted to offer a free investigation." I handed him the LHPS business card. "We'll be happy to come in anytime. We don't charge, and we'll keep it as confidential as you like. Of course, me saying this in a roomful of people wasn't the most brilliant plan...."
He laughed. The guy getting the tattoo said,"My lips are sealed, man."
"Cool. Anyway, think it over. We'd be happy to do an investigation for you."
"I'll consider it. Thanks."
I grinned at Jazmyn. "See you at the library, kid."
And that is how we do that.

First thing when I got into the museum, I checked my e-mail. Nothing new---Appointments at Piper, meeting notices, a comment on my latest column, and a UFO sighting. The usual.
As there was nothing pressing, it was a while before I got to reading them. I spun in my chair at the Piper Museum, and walked out onto the floor, where there had to be about fifty people.
Stacey, our office manager, was in the gift shop. I said,"How's it going? What can I do?"
"We have a tour at ten," Stacey said. "John will say a few words about the planes, and then you can take the tour. The Fly-In is always busy. Don't forget, you have a board meeting at one."
As a kid, I'd dreamed of an exciting life. Adventures, mysteries, and all sorts of excitement. And I've managed to achieve all that. And, in a supreme effort at balance, the universe also makes me sit through endless committee meetings.
"Got the agenda ready," I said.
Stacey nodded. "The annual Fly-In is always crazy."
The Fly-In is an annual event held on the airport grounds. It's a big deal, and the museum opens for it. Crissy, the office assistant, approached me with a note. "Lou, the airport just called. They want to move your eleven o'clock meeting to the Fly-In grounds; they'll have trouble getting over here."
"Not my problem," I said. "I did not request this meeting."
"We don't have anyone else to take over the tour," said Stacey. "Can you...."
'Yeah. I can handle the tour."
After the tour, I went down to the hangar. I almost always detour through the hangar on my way to board meetings, mostly because I love working in a hangar full of airplanes. Sometimes I go and sit in the Piper Cheyenne just to do paperwork. We'd just gotten a new plane in, a beautiful, bright red Piper Coupe. I admired it for a moment before going into the meeting.
"Okay, around the table," said President John, banging his gavel. "Lou? What do you have?"
"Just one thing," I said. "This week is the one year anniversary of when I first became your curator, and it's been wonderful. Thank you all."
John nodded, banged the gavel again. "Meeting adjourned."
I went out into the hangar, and sat down in the Cheyenne. The two back seats were barely visible from the outside, and I leaned back and closed my eyes. Took a deep breath for a moment.
Then I went upstairs to my office using the secret back staircase. I finally got a chance to check my e-mail.

"A red airplane!" Paul said, pointing up into the air.
I walked through the Fly-In with my family, my wife and son, Paul Matthew, and daughters Tif and Biz. There were planes all over the field, taking turns flying into the air. I love the Fly-In, and being with the museum, I can be right in the middle of it. My wife said,"I'm going to get him some ice cream. Do you want to sit down with the girls?"
I nodded. The girls and I found a spot at the picnic tables, and sat down.
I glanced up at the sky. "Got a UFO sighting on this end of town," I said.
"Where?" asked Tif.
"That's the problem, I can't narrow it down geographically much. I get e-mail notifications from a couple of sites, but as you can imagine, some of them aren't exactly professionally run. They lack details. What I know is that somewhere down around here, on a Tuesday night two weeks ago, about ten PM. A light in the sky that moved and stopped several times, heading northeast."
"Who saw it?" Tif asked.
Tif's been listening to me a long time; she asks all the right questions. "Again, don't know. The site's anonymous. But I figure I'll look into it. Drones have upped the UFO sightings by about eighty percent, and this is typical drone behavior they're describing. So I'll check into drones first. It'll give me something to do."
"Yeah, I noticed how you haven't been busy enough lately."
"Got to review a play out at Millbrook tomorrow night," I said. "You available to babysit the little guy?"
"Oh, sure," said Tif. "I'll bring some glow sticks, and he'll have a bath in the dark. He'll love that."

The Fly-In is crazy from start to finish. I walked in at nine AM and immediately got swept into a committee meeting with two other board members about the new kiosk. One of the board members was an old biology professor of mine at Lock Haven University, twenty years ago, and if you don't think it's weird to be serving on a board with your old teacher, you'd better think that one over again.
The meeting was in my office, so I got my computer on and surreptitiously searched for drone operators in the Lock Haven area.
I found one guy who ran drone lessons. His name was Doctor H. Shook, and he gave lessons right on the airport grounds. I scribbled the phone number on a post-it.
"Be right back," I said, and ducked into the secret staircase by my office, and disappeared into the hangar.
I sat down in the back of the Cheyenne. It was quiet in there.
I called City Hall first, for some property research for the museum, and then tried calling the drone guy on my cell.
I got his answering service. "Hi, this is Doctor Shook. I'm not available right now, but---"
I hung up. I could try to get him later. I climbed out of the Cheyenne and walked further into the hangar. President John was sitting near the L-4 Grasshopper.
"Hi, John. Hey, I was thinking yesterday---What if you and I teamed up for a guest speaking event? I do a little Piper history, and you talk about the good old days."
"Sure, we could do that," he said. "A lot of people love that story about how the fiberglass department guys used to use the modeling clay to make fake food." He laughed to himself. A lot of the time, when an old person starts talking about the past, it's time to run. But John is really entertaining. I've been known to get him started deliberately. "It looked realistic enough that people would try to eat it. Old Doc Shook used to get a laugh out of that. He was just telling me today before his program."
I stared at him. "Wait....What? Doctor Shook is here?"
"Oh, sure, he's giving a talk in the conference room."
And here I'd been sitting in the Cheyenne trying to call the guy, and he was right here at Piper, in the next room over.
I asked,"When's the program end?"

I was waiting in the hall outside the conference room when the program let out. Late. I slipped in as the guest speaker was cleaning up.
"Doctor Shook?" I asked. "You may have a call from me on your cell; I've been trying to call you. My name is Lou; I'm on the board here."
He shook my hand. "Yes, that's me."
"You're the drone guy."
"That's right, I am."
"If you have a moment, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your lessons."
"Too bad you weren't in yesterday. That was the topic of my talk."
"Well, this shouldn't take long. Is there any chance you'd have been flying a drone around here two weeks ago, on a Tuesday evening?"
He shook his head. "Not me, no. My class always ends at four. That sounds like a group from Williamsport who comes in on Tuesdays in the evening. They'd be the ones."
I smiled.
The UFO was a drone.
"That answers what I need to know, then. Thank you."

I stood in the small room near my office, where I had my secret UFO research station. I'd discovered it a few months ago---A small room, reachable only through my office. When considering what would be the best use of the space, I'd immediately decided on UFO research. Maybe the occasionaly flying monster; I'm not a one-trick wonder. But UFOs for sure. I had a dry erase board with the dates and locations of sightings scribbled on it. I looked at 6-6-2017: NE LH PA.
Then I erased it.
I took a file, wrote a label on it, and tucked the paperwork inside: A printout of the original notification, and a note with my conclusions. Then I put it in one of the file cabinets.
Case closed.

Bottle Episode

On Father's Day, my family decided to go out and look for some lost whiskey that was buried during Prohibition.
Hallmark doesn't really make a card for that.
We were in my wife's car, a white Prius, doing our exploration to celebrate Father's Day. My younger daughter Biz had suggested this, because it's something I enjoy doing. My wife was driving, with daughter Tif in the front seat. I was in the back, sharing space with Biz and Paul Matthew in his car seat.
I'd taken the kids out a few years ago, doing the same thing. We'd found a field where we'd dug up a bottle of high-quality bootleg whiskey, based on a lot of my research. It had been a great time, hiking into the wilderness and hunting for buried treasure.
Ever since, Biz had been on me to do it again.
The family that explores together, adores together.

"Prince Farrington was America's most notorious bootlegger," I explained from the back of the car. "He was from North Carolina, but he lived right here in Clinton County. He had a reputation for churning out a high quality, excellent whiskey, not that rotgut stuff that would blind you. A lot of his stills are still out there, and probably a lot of his whiskey, as well. He had a habit of burying some of it to be found later. Turn left up this road, Michelle."
You might think there's not enough room for us all in a Prius. You'd be correct. We were essentially wearing the car.
Why am I bothering to write all this down? Of course that's what you're thinking. People want to read about something interesting, not my plans for Father's Day. That's a valid point, except here you are reading this.
"How'd you figure it's in Farrandsville?" Biz asked me.
"I checked the documentation on Farrington," I said. "There are lists of every place people think he had stills. This one didn't look to be much of a drive. There used to be some farmland up here, plus a creek known as Whiskey Run. Farrington liked to set up in limestone country, so I checked a geological map."
"What was the deal with the limestone again?" asked Tif.
"It filtered the taste out," said my wife.
"But you'd want your whiskey to taste like whiskey," said Tif.
"Not the whiskey, the water," I said. "Bootleggers needed to set up by springs because they needed a steady supply of fresh water to distill whiskey. The feds figured out that the process left a faint whiskey taste in the water, so they'd taste the streams to find the stills. Farrington caught on, and discovered that limestone would filter out the taste. The man used geology to bootleg."
"This is fun," said Biz as we went over a bumpy road. "I love doing this."
"Keep your eyes open for water," I said. "The stream over there is actually called Whiskey Run, most likely after Farrington's work. Somewhere along there stood one of his stills."
We watched out the car windows as Michelle drove up the rocky road. Tif commented,"This is really pretty. It makes me wish I could get outside and hike more."
"There was a spring over there," said Biz.
"There was?" I asked.
"Yeah, one of those ones with a pipe stuck in the ground for fresh water."
"Stop the car, Michelle," I said.
My wife pulled to a stop along the deserted road. Biz said,"It wasn't a natural-looking spring; it had a pipe...."
"Yeah, the pipe's man-made, but the water isn't," I said. "That spring has always been there. Which would make it perfect for a Farrington still. Let's try it."

"Have to go potty, Daddy," said Paul.
We climbed out of the car. My wife said,"He needs to go. Can you show him?"
"Yeah. Come on, little man."
We walked off the trail, out of sight of the girls. I said,"Okay, little man. We're going to go potty right here."
"We go potty outside?"
"That's right." I tugged down his pants. "That's the great thing about the outdoors; it's all one big bathroom. In the forest, you can go outside, just like inside."
It's one of those unexpected parental moments. We'd adopted Paul three years ago. When you're getting a child somehow, you tend to anticipate the big stuff. You except sleepless nights and hospital visits. I was totally ready to save for college. But this kind of blindsided me. Nothing manages to prepare you for the moment you teach your son that he can whiz in the woods.
"Now listen, little man. Here we go, this is how we do it. Now, just for the record, I don't want you doing this in the backyard while the neighbors are watching."
"O-Kay."
There isn't going to be a photo added to this entry.
"Wow! I go outside!"
"That's right, buddy. You never forget your first time."
And on that note, I'm kind of relieved we got a boy.

"I want to explore too," said Paul
We walked up the road. Paul was staying near Tif. Michelle was guarding the car, which we could see from where we were. Paul stopped to pick up a few rocks. I asked,"Where did you see the spring, Biz?"
"Right up here," said Biz. She pointed. "There." There was a pipe with running water sticking out of the ground jsut off the road, in the woods.
"Okay, we'll look around here," I said. "This is perfect." I crossed the road and stopped at the edge, looking down at the run. Paul joined me.
"I find a rock, Daddy!"
"I see that. Okay, wait here---Stay with Sissy."
"We havin a adventure!"
I climbed down the bank and stood by the creek. There was a slat area---Most of the old stills are gone now, though a few still remain. I didn't figure I'd find any trace of this one, but the flat spot was basically perfect for a location.
Biz was climbing down the bank after me. She slipped and tumbled into the dirt, and then got up. Paul laughed at her.
I knelt by the stream, looking it over.
Shallow, cool water....Flat rocks....
I reached into the water with one hand, splashing around a bit. I felt the soft mud underneath, and then felt around the rocks. Finally, I grabbed the biggest flat rock, flipped it over, and stuck my hand underneath.
It was only later that I thought about the possibility of getting bitten by snakes, fish, or water monsters. At the time, I just felt around under there.
And I felt something flat and smooth.
Glass.
Gently, I pulled it out. I'd found a broad, flat bottle with a glass and cork topper. It was about two-thirds full of tan liquid.
I stood up.
"Hey, Biz!"
She looked up, still coming down the bank. "Yeah?"
I held up the bottle, and she grinned.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously. It was hidden in the stream."
I carried it back up to the top, and handed the bottle to her. She carefully popped the glass plug out, and sniffed it.
"It's whiskey, allright," she said. She turned it over in her hands, examining it. "Uneven seam on the bottle, which makes it about the right age." I was ind of proud of her. You know those guys who brag that their kid made the winning home run or whatever? Yeah, the hell with those guys. My kids can find ancient artifacts.
"We found it!" Biz said.
I smiled.
"We did."

We walked back to the car. I held up the bottle to show my wife, and she raised her eyebrows and shook her head.
"How do you always get so lucky?" she asked.
"It's not luck, not really," I said. "I'm very good at what I do."
"We go home now?" asked Paul.
"Yep," I said. "We're going home now. I got some food to cook on the grill."
For Father's Day. Almost as if we were a normal family.

Paint Misbehaving

Henry Wharton Shoemaker never had to attend staff meetings.
Well, probably he did. But history doesn't make a big thing about that. He's better known for his explorations and his recording of paranormal legends. Like I am.
And yet, here I sit.
"....We received a grant to help us fix the windows after the recent storm," the library director said. "So our maintenance department will be working on that soon."
That's right. The storm. Forgot about that.
I sat in the back of the reference room, among all my co-workers. Zach and Adam were always in the back with me. Diane, the director, sat up front. My other co-workers around the table.
"That's about all I have," said the director. "Full-timers, I need you to stay. Part-timers can go."
I threw my hands in the air. "Woohoo!"
Outside the library, I got on my bike and rode southeast. I'm a part-time library staffer in Lock Haven. I could also be considered a part-time paranormal investigator, writer, historian, tour guide, museum curator, and urban explorer. I don't sleep much.
There are the ruins of an old railroad machine shop along Liberty Street. People walk by it all the time without really looking; they think it's just a flat concrete pad and some girders there for no discernible reason. But a few years ago, I'd looked it up on the 1925 Sanborn Map, and learned that it was a railroad shop, built sometime around 1915.
It had been built from local brick. Sometime around the 1950s, it had been demolished, but a lot of those bricks were still lying there underground, waiting to be found. Often, after a hard rain, they get partially uncovered.
I check every couple of months. It's a form of public service.
I parked my bike and walked in, along the tracks. I found one---An unbroken, good-sized brick with the writing carved in it. LH B&T CO, LOCK HAVEN, PA. At least a hundred years old.
It was too heavy to carry in my backpack. I biked across the church parking lot to the local grocery store and picked up four plastic bags along with my dinner.
I rode back to the ruins, I knelt down and pried the brick from the ground. It was heavy; I hefted it with some effort. I placed it in three bags, doubled up, slung it over my handlebars, and rode off toward home.
Shoemaker would have been proud.

So what's the quickest way to investigate a ghost on your lunch break?
Asking for a friend.
There was this seminar. Historic archiving and preservation. It was held at the Taber Museum in Williamsport, next county over from where I live. And my my boss and I decided we were going to attend it together.
These things are a lot like a train going uphill: They start off okay, but it doesn't take long before they get really slow.
"So, this seems like a good time to break for lunch," said the instructor. "We'll meet back here in an hour."
Everyone stood up, stretched, got in line.The director said,"I'm going to eat outside in the car. See if you can network a bit. I'll be back in an hour."
"Can do," I said.
 I wound up next to a woman named Carly, from Allentown. I was wearing my shirt that said Historian: You'd be more interesting if you were dead.
"I grew up not far from Allentown," I said. "In Slatington, on a small farm."
She brightened. "Oh, yes! I know Slatington."
"You know, one of my big heroes from this area visited out there," I said. "Henry Wharton Shoemaker. He wrote a book about his trip. A Week In The Appalachian Mountains."
"Really? That's so cool!"
"You can get it on Amazon," I said. "I got a copy."
Lunch was a sandwich and chips, pretty easily wolfable in five minutes or less. Which left me with almost an hour to go and explore the museum. I strolled out into the lobby, and found Gary, the director of the Taber Museum.
"Gary, I been dying to know," I said. "A couple years ago when you were on the ghost-hunting show The Dead Files, how badly did they edit you?"
Gary rolled his eyes. "It was awful. They kept trying to get me to say things that were untrue."
"I got that impression," I said. "My team was called in on that one before the TV people. Did you get to meet the homeowner?"
Gary shook his head. "I mostly met the boom guy."
"The homeowner was nuts. I mean, she claimed to have been assaulted by a ghost. She couldn't stick to a story. Later when I interviewed her neighbors, they told me she'd been seen in the backyard wearing a tinfoil hat."
Gary laughed. "I thought that was just an expression."
"Yeah, so did I, until that time."
I headed out into the gift shop, and picked up a couple of pretty rocks for Paul. My son has an interest in rocks lately. They don't have to be brightly colored and shiny, but it helps.
As I paid, I saw the postcard on the counter. Nellie Tallman. The haunted portrait.
That's right....I'd forgotten about that.
"So, tell me about the haunted painting," I said to the woman ringing me up.
She smiled. "Oh, yes. That little girl fell off the stool and died while her father was painting her. It hung in their house for years, but kept falling off the wall. Finally he gave up and stored it in the attic. The first night it was donated here, a car smashed through the museum and knocked it down. After that, we've had times when it won't stay on the wall---It's always found in the morning, propped on the sofa."
I nodded and picked up the postcard. "Add this in, please."

I walked through the museum, looking at all the neat stuff. Sketches by John Sloan. The cell door of William Hummel, who'd been hanged for killing his family---I'd gotten a four-part series of articles out of him a while back.
Got the whole museum to myself, more or less unsupervised---This is excellent. You'd think I'd be used to that by now, but this one is bigger and doesn't have as many airplanes.
Many of the displays were sectioned off to look like rooms---An old-style kitchen, a bedroom, a cabin. There were cavemen and Indians. I rounded a corner and saw the Victorian living room display, and there it was. Nellie's portrait.
So, Nellie. There you are.
I got a laser thermometer and an EMF detector out of my pocket. I usually have a little ghost-hunting equipment on me. I checked around with the thermometer---The place had an average temperature of about seventy-three in this wing, which dropped to seventy around the portrait. Notable---Not too significant.
I took a couple of photos, which I wasn't so sure was allowed, but nobody was watching.
I pressed the button on the EMF detector. Mine is a little thing shaped like a wand, about five inches long. They're for finding electricity. Mostly they're made for not drilling into a wire and killing yourself, but they've been adapted to ghost hunting, too.
I walked around the area a little, waving the detector. No readings. I checked the back side of the wall, in the hallway. Nothing. No electricity was leaking from the wall; there was no reason to suggest there was any there.
Then, cautiously, I sidled up to the exhibit, right beside the railing.
I leaned over the railing a little, which I was pretty sure I wasn't allowed to do, and reeeeeached in to the painting. Trying to look very, very casual, I held up the EMF detector, getting it to within a couple of inches.
And it beeped once, just for a second.
Got something!
My eyes widened, and I immediately withdrew it. I shoved it in my pocket and scampered back down the hall.

It was early in the evening when we got back to the library. Adam was on the desk. I walked in and dropped my pack, checking my mailbox.

"Hey!" Adam said. "How was the seminar?"

"Not bad," I said. "May have picked up a few new preservation tricks. And I got to explore the museum a bit."

"You learn anything good?"

I grinned.

"Yeah," I said. "I may have."

Profiled In Courage

It was a slow day at work, so I decided to go through the old newspaper archives. You can do this when you're a sort of paranormal historian, which most people aren't. I essentially created my own career; there are no rules. I was wearing a T-shirt with aliens on it, captioned It's cool. We come in peace.
I got into the library's microfilm and began looking through, hoping for some idea for a newspaper column or tour. There's always something---The library where I work has several different newspapers, and they go all the way back to 1813. I don't worry about running out of ideas much.
A few minutes later, I was at the desk, showing an 1877 article to my co-worker Barb.
"Check this out," I said. "I got a neat one here."
The article, from the Clinton Democrat, was headlined What To Do With The Indians.
Barb skimmed through it. "Oh, my god."
"Yeah. A man named Isaac Packer had a farm in Woodward Township, and he found out that it was built on an Indian burial ground. So he ground the bones up and used them to fertilize his corn."
"You're not actually going to write about this, are you?"
"Well, I'm about fifty percent on that. I'd have to be sensitive. I don't even know where this is yet. Maybe I'll save it for a Halloween column. No way there's not a whole bunch of pissed-off Indian ghosts over there."
I looked up the name Isaac Packer in the index file. He was listed---There was an obit, and a Historic Resource Survey Form. with properties, that's helpful. I pulled the form and looked it over.
Oh....I know this place.
It was in Woodward Township, midway up the Farrandsville Road. I'd biked past it a bunch of times; there was a barn and an old farmhouse, with an ancient lime kiln by the road.
And, apparently, the remains of ground-up Native Americans all over the fields.
Just another day at the office.

"Sissy very upset," Paul Matthew said, sitting at the table.
"Sissy was very upset?" I said. "Why?"
"Bad man made Sissy upset."
I looked at my daughter, who was getting Paul some milk from the refrigerator. She shrugged. "I wasn't going to tell you," she said. "A guy yelled at me while we were down at Hoberman Park today."
Paul can't keep a secret. "What happened?"
"We were on the ball field, and there were some tracks from bikes. I was letting Pip run. A guy in a truck came, and he started shouting at me. Told me to get a job and pay taxes like everyone else, that it was obvious I don't work. He said that he has to work all day, and then he has to come and fix the field because of people like me. We weren't even doing anything!"
She sat down at the table.
"You got profiled, hon."
"What?"
"He took one look at a woman in a wheelchair and a little black child, and immediately jumped to the conclusion that you were unemployed vandals." I was feeling myself get angrier as I said it. "I'm calling City Hall."
"Dad, no. You don't need to do anything."
"This is wrong," I said. "I do need to do something."
I walked into the other room and picked up the phone. I dialed City Hall and got the Parks Department.I said,"I'd like to report something. This is Lou; you may know my work with the Express and the Record. My children were at the ball field in Hoberman Park today and a man came and harassed them. He said he was working, doing maintenance, and he told me daughter to get a job and stop being a drain on society."
"Okay," said the parks director.
"My daughter is in a wheelchair, and my son is black. I'm angry about this, and I'd like something done. Because right now, what I'm tempted to do is write a scathing newspaper column about how my children were treated by a maintenance guy." I don't bring out that routine much, but I'm not above it.
"Well, sir, I agree that they shouldn't have been treated that way," said the park director. "That was out of line. Our ball fields are maintained by the Little League, with volunteers. I'm going to get in touch with the Little League right now. We will get to the bottom of this, and reprimand the person responsible."
"Thank you, sir," I said. "I appreciate your taking this seriously."
I don't pull strings a lot, but I do have them to pull.

At the library, the next day, I sat down at my desk and wrote an editorial about the incident. Being able to write can be like a super-power. It's nothing I ever dreamed of as a kid, and it's not exactly X-ray vision, but it has an impact. The trick is in knowing how to use it effectively. When it comes down to it, talking to fish isn't anything special, either.

Everyone is aware that I love Lock Haven. I talk about it, I’ve written about Lock Haven many times. I’m proud of this community, and flattered to have become such a well-known part of it. It’s my home, and I feel happy and safe here.

Except for those rare occasions when I don’t.

Clinton County has wonderful people. The majority of them are lovely, great people that I’m pleased to live with. But, like everywhere else, we do have the occasional unpleasant person.

My children encountered one of those recently.

On May 12, my daughter took my son out to Hoberman Park. They were running around in the baseball field beside Prospect Street. Now, for context, my daughter is in her thirties and in a wheelchair. She babysits my son while I’m at work. He’s almost three, and he’s African-American; my wife and I adopted him when he was less than a day old.

The field was a bit wet from the heavy rains recently. There were some tracks on the field, because some of the local children like to ride their bikes there. So my daughter and my son were having a good time, just playing outside.

Then a man showed up. He was talking to someone on his cell phone as he approached. He said,”I have to go, there’s a b**ch on the field.”

Then he began to shout at them and berate them. He told my daughter that she should get a job and pay taxes like everyone else. “Get off your a** and get a job, because it’s obvious you don’t work,” he said. He said that he works all day and then has to come and get the field ready for the children to play on, and blamed them for the tracks on the field. He was rude and cruel to them both.

They both came home crying.

“Sissy very upset,” my son told me later.

I called to make a complaint with the city, and spoke with Jack Bailey, the director of the parks. He informed me that the fields are maintained by the Little League, and he called the person in charge of that. Both the city government and the Little League have been very supportive and helpful, taking the incident seriously. They’ve assured me that they’re going to look into what happened and reprimand the person responsible.

And the person, whoever he is….I’m ashamed to share a community with him. This was bigotry. It was subtle, but it was bigotry. He took one look at a handicapped woman and a black child, and jumped to the incorrect conclusion that they are vandals leeching off society.

I am angry. I love my city, but I am angry at this person. Days later, my son is still afraid to go back to the park, and he’s still talking to me about the “bad man who upset Sissy.” Both the city of Lock Haven and the Little League have been very helpful about this whole thing, and as I write this, they’re still looking into it.

Most of the people in this area are wonderful people, very warm and supportive. But somewhere out there, there’s a man who hurt my children and made them cry.

I hope that, eventually, he learns the decency to feel ashamed.

Bigots will come to fear my journalism powers.
I typed it up, and looked it over. Then I sent it in to the Express, the Record, the Sun-Gazette, and every other local paper I could think of.

The piece ran the next morning. I read it over while I was drinking my coffee, Paul playing at the table. "Need bagel please, Daddy."
"Okay, little man, I'll make you a bagel. You want cream cheese on that?"
"Yah. I like cream cheese."
The phone rang. It was the parks director.
"Hello, Lou," he said. "I saw your column this morning. I'd like to thank you for giving credit to the city and the Little League."
"Well, my problem's not with them," I said. "You guys have been very good about this whole thing, and I appreciate that."
"I was calling to tell you that we know who this was," he said. "After seeing the newspaper today, he called and confessed. The head of the Little League says he's going to be dealt with pretty severely. I could have him call and apologize to your daughter, if you'd like."
"I'll ask her," I said,"But I know my daughter, and I think she'll say that's not necessary. You guys have been square with me, and I'm content to let you handle it."
"The head of the Little League isn't happy about this," he said. "He's going to be pretty harsh; he told me this guy will get worse than a talking-to. He doesn't like how this makes the Little League look."
"I don't really blame him."
"Well, I'll keep you updated. If there's anything else we can help you with, feel free to call."
"Thank you. I will."
I hung up and set the phone down. "Guess what, little guy? Daddy got the mean man from the park."
"Good," said Paul. "We play now?"
"Yeah, we can play, little man," I said. "You want to hear about an Indian burial ground?"

Here There Be Monsters

Wayne Township, Pennsylvania, was founded over two hundred years ago. I had about fifteen minutes to research it.
As soon as I got back from lunch, Zach had handed me a phone message. Looking it over, I recognized the number. It was one of the people from Wayne Township, a committee that had hired me to write a history book. I nodded. I'd been having a day slow enough to make corpse races look fun; I'd gone out specifically in an effort to make the phone ring.
I called back on my cell, not wanting to tie up the library's line. "Doris? It's Lou. What can I do for you?"
"Lou! I'm so glad you're there. We need a document. Any document that goes back to the 1800s, and shows that Wayne Township was named that then. Something that specifically says Wayne Township, as old as you can find. And we need it tonight." Then she said the four words that tend to explain everything, always: "It's for the lawyers."
"So you just need some document, any document, that says the date and Wayne Township?"
"That's about right."
"Let me see what I can find," I said. "There has to be something. I'll dig around and call you back in an hour."
I disconnected my cell and set it on my desk. You'd think a township that's been around since 1795 could give me a little more notice, but I'm used to that. You know how it is, at work: Ancient documents, hidden mysteries, and ridiculous deadlines.
Or maybe that's just me.

Index. Right near my desk. I pulled the W drawer and checked under "Wayne Township." I found a mention of an 1855 tax journal in the PA Pamphlet file. I checked the file. Nothing. God is my co-pilot.
I checked the photos upstairs, and found one that was form the 1889 flood, labelled "Wayne Camp Meeting." Possible.
I ran up to the attic, mainly because I love going into the attic. The Ross Library's attic was built in 1887 and looks like something from an out-take of Harry Potter. I checked around and I found an 1876 copy of a Pennsylvania history book. I checked the index. There was a mention of Wayne as one of Clinton County's original townships. Even better.
I want to bitch about this. But mostly I deal with people who have been dead for a hundred years. I don't get too many of these "stop the presses" moments.
Then I checked in the Pennsylvania Room. I love the Pennsylvania Room. It contained unbelievable volumes of information on Pennsylvania in general and Clinton County specifically. To be safe, I photocopied the Wayne Township chapter from Linn's History. Then I re-checked the index, and found a reference to documents in the file on the Sour family.
Genealogy section. I grabbed the bound file. Paging through, I found a six-page document, an act to establish the West Branch Ferry. Wayne Township, right on the first page. Notarized. Signed by the governor. And dated May 22, 1867.
No more calls. We have a winner.

I was working the desk in the library. When I say "working the desk," I actually mean I had a map of southern Pennsylvania stuck to the bulletin board, and I had yellow and green pushpins stuck into it to figure out the locations of triangle-shaped UFO sightings in relation to local Army bases. I was coming to the conclusion that the triangle UFOs I'd been hearing so much about lately were actually tests of some sort of secret Army drone. It had been a slow shift.
Two of the regular patrons came in, two local newspaper carriers. One of them asked me,"Hey, Lou, are there any recordings of the Giwoggle that might tell us what it sounds like?"
"Not that I know of," I said. The Giwoggle is a local monster legends from the late 1800s, a sort of artificial werewolf created by a witch. A few years ago, I'd had it declared Clinton County's official monster. "Why, you hear something?"
"Yeah, this morning around five AM. Around the river, down near Dunnstown. Sort of a howling sound. And I thought, you're into this....You wrote that article about the UFO sighting...."
"'Roswell That Ends Well.' Yeah, that was me."
I get this sometimes, people coming to me to tell me about hauntings monster sightings. You get in the newspaper a few times for paranormal investigation, and nobody ever lets you forget it.
"I'll check it out," I said. "Down that way, it might not even be the Giwoggle. There's another option there. I've written a couple of times about the Susquehanna Seal."

I'd gotten a couple of good columns about the Susquehanna Seal. In the 1890s, there had been articles in the Clinton Democrat about a big, snaky creature living in the Susquehanna River. It had overturned lumber rafts, no trace of it had ever been found, and yes, it had made a howling noise at night.
Little Paul was playing on the floor when my daughter arrived. He said,"Hi, Sissy!"
"Hi, Pip," said Tif.
"We can play outside in the rain!"
"I'll be down at Piper," I told Tif. "Got a busy day coming."
"Yeah? What's up?"
"Meeting with the Piper Foundation. I have to start the paperwork on the J-4 Cub that's being donated, and work on some signage for a display. Also I'm investigating a sea monster. The usual."

I had my blue shirt with an alien mowing a crop circle on, and my black satchel as I walked through the third floor of the Piper Museum. Once, long ago, I'd worked up there when it had been a market research firm. Now it was cleared out, a big, open space. It's for rent, if you know anyone who's interested.
I took a pair of binoculars from my satchel---Small folding things. I unfolded them and stood by the window, which faced north toward the river.
I couldn't see anything helpful from where I was, and I hadn't really expected to. You have to check out the site, even if there's going to be nothing to see. It's part of the process.
Even in paranormal investigation, there are rules. There are good ways and bad ways to handle it. If you skip looking because you think there's nothing to see, that's the bad way.

Downstairs, I found Stacey in her office. Stacey is the office manager at Piper, and pretty much runs the place. Messages basically went through her to me, and then back the other way around.
"We need to call the donor for the J-4," Stacey said,"And arrange for the appraisal and documentation."
"Did that this morning," I said. "I got your e-mail. I'll have the paperwork ready, and he doesn't sound too hysterical about using this for tax purposes. He said he'd think about the appraisal. I think he jsut wants somewhere safe to keep it."
"Well, we can promise that. Unless the bear gets into the hangar somehow."
I looked up. "Bear?"
Stacey laughed. "You hadn't heard? We have a bear out back, getting into the dumpster. He seems to eat everything he can find over in the Gardens, and then come over here to find more. Maintenance found trash scattered all over the other morning."
"Really? This may answer a question for me. A patron reported hearing a howling sound down this way, thought it might be a monster of some kind."
"Well, maybe you're on to something," said Stacey.
I walked back to my office, a huge room with archives going back to 1937, and a small alien on the desk going back to 2016. I hate finding answers online, but sometimes the question is so obscure....I sat down and googled "Do bears howl?"
Several videos showed me that they do, or can. I listened for a while, letting my office fill with bear noises, and then turned it off and picked up the satchel.
Check out the site.
I walked down the catwalk stairs and through the hangar, past all the airplanes. The Cub, the Comanche, the Vagabond, the Aztec. I've never yet lost the thrill of being in that place. Outside the back door, I looked around the dumpster on the southwest side of the building.
The back corner was covered with bear prints. I knelt down to get some photos. There were a few raccoon prints, as well, but mainly bears. I had a semi-CSI moment where I figured out where he'd put his paws, and how he'd been reaching for the bags inside.
Not the Susquehanna Seal, after all. Just a random bear, which was honestly alarming enough.
I like finding answers, even if they're not the answers I wanted.

John, the board president, was in the office when I got back upstairs. I said,"Yeah, there's a bear out there, allright. I got a couple photos of paw prints."
John laughed. "I put a game camera out there. I'm going to have video of you taking photos."
"If you get any of the bear, I wouldn't mind seeing that."
"It'll probably be over the weekend," said Stacey. "That's when the garbage gets full."
"That looks like the answer to my sea monster question," I said. "They heard a bear making some noise. Probably in competition with raccoons, who are also out there."
"Bears don't usually make much noise," John pointed out.
"No, but it's more likely than a sea monster," I said.
John laughed.
"I'll be in my office," I said. "I solved the sea monster mystery faster than I thought. So I even still have time to get some actual paperwork done."

Clubbed Dead

It started as a normal day. I went into work, made coffee, and started solving a murder from over a hundred years ago.
That hadn't been the plan. Initially, I'd intended to find out about women's voting rights. But then I got sidetracked into a murder from 1903.
Like that's never happened to you.
"What's up?" my co-worker Barb asked at the front desk. "You're not wearing your ghost-hunting uniform. Didn't you have to investigate a demon tonight?"
I looked at my T-shirt. It had an alien on it, and said Roswell, New Mexico: Green since 1947. "Yeah, they called. My demon cancelled out on me."
"I hate it when that happens."
'Barb," I said,"You still looking through the archive index? Let me know if you find out anything about suffrage. I'm looking for just about anything on women voters in the early 1900s."
"Okay," said Barb. "You working on an article?"
"If I can find out anything, yeah," I said. "It's been a bit lacking."
"I'll let you know if I find anything."
"Thanks. Meanwhile, I'm going to go through the microfilm at random, and hope to stumble on something by accident. It's worked for me before."

I sat down at the microfilm machine and began scrolling through the Clinton Democrat. I started in January of 1910 more or less at random, and began looking at front pages. I did find something by accident, which often happens, but not what I'd meant to find.
On March 10, 1910, there was a front-page story about a railroad robbery that delved into an old murder. One of the local police officers had made the statement that he'd known who committed a 1903 murder, but the killer was dead, so there was no point revealing it. It was a murder I'd written about before, but I hadn't heard this part, with the big clue seven years later.
There's luck and there's skill. Luck is when you stumble on something like this. Skill is knowing what to do with it.

That afternoon, Chris stopped by to do some research. Chris is a friend of mine who had interned under me several years ago. He was working on some research into Northumberland County, and I was describing to him what I'd found.
"The Clendennin murder," I said. "It happened in 1903. Telegraph operator in Wayne Township. He was found bludgeoned to death with a spike maul."
"A spike maul?" Chris asked.
"Yeah, it's a kind of sharp hammer that they used to----"
"Oh my god."
"Clubbed to death with the thing. They never solved it. Arrested one guy twice, but never found the actual killer. But I found a clue."
"I love when this happens to you. What's your clue?"
"In 1910, seven years after the murder, there was a similar crime. That one turned out to be faked, but it led to one of the cops discussing Clendennin. He said that an informant had told him about the guy who committed the murder, and he believed it to be true, but they never arrested him because there wasn't enough evidence. He said the killer died tragically."
"So how would you find out?"
I didn't even have to think about it. "I'd start by going through the Wayne Township cemetery index and finding people who died between 1903 and 1910. Have to be an adult, and probably male---Woman don't tend to beat people to death with spike mauls. When I had a list of people that fit, I'd check their obits---See which ones died young and tragically. Find all the people who fit the profile."
"That makes sense," said Chris.
I took a drink of coffee, and he laughed. "Nice mug." It was my mug that said Bigfoot saw me, but nobody believes him. "I've been trying to explain to my girlfriend how you do this stuff."
"Hell, I don't even know how I do it most of the time. I mean, I get what I do and why I'm good at it, but if I had to write out step-by-step instructions, I couldn't really do it. It's sort of internal, you know? Like Aquaman." I shrugged. "I mean, it's not like I'll be bringing anyone to justice, this whole thing having happened in 1903. But maybe I can get some answers."

Thursday night was slow. Sometimes I have programs and meetings on Thursdays, and sometimes nothing. I fill in by writing my columns, but I currently have them done up until mid-June. So there was no point in speculating on news-column futures. I dug into the 1903 murder, which, as a time-killer, is better than Solitaire.
A few years ago, the Clinton County Genealogical Society had compiled listings of every grave in the county. They'd worked hard at it, and published it in book form. This was crap for anyone who'd died after 2008, but for my purposes, it was really helpful. I got the Wayne Township book and looked through.
There were fewer than I'd thought, and by ruling out all the children, I could narrow it down considerably. I wound up with one guy who'd died in 1909.
His named was Arthur Mitcheltree.
I pulled his obit. He'd been forty-six, and died of tuberculosis. That fit. During the investigation, he'd actually been suspected, and had sued two different newspapers for mentioning him in connection with the murder. That fit, too. I found the articles in a 1904 Clinton County Times.
Slow, average Thursday night. I got a Facebook message from Jazmyn, and took a moment to reply. I missed the kid.
On the way home, I stopped at the grocery store and bumped in Ashlin, one of my friends from LHPS. She works over there. "Hey, Lou," she said. "How's it going?"
"Pretty good," I said. "Slow night. I just worked a couple hours trying to find a murderer form 1903."
"I wish I could find a murderer from 1903," she said. "I just spent a couple of hours trying to decide what kind of Triscuits to buy. You want a ride to the next meeting?"

"You do come up with some good ones," Savanah said. We were in my office at Piper, looking through the files. "A murder from 1903."
"Yeah, I've put in some time on that one," I agreed. "I didn't actually mean to spend that much time solving it; I just got real interested."
"But you think you've solved it?" Savanah is a rainbow-haired pixie who is one of my junior paranormal investigators. She was doing her senior project with me at Piper.
"I think maybe. Arthur Mitcheltree fits the description. He may have been the actual killer. He is almost definitely the guy the cop was talking about. Mitcheltree died at the right time, and more or less tragically. He was even connected with the murder at the time. He sued two newspapers for mentioning him in connection with the murder."
"Why would he have done it? Do you know?"
"It was always suspected that it had to do with a woman. Clendennin was known as a ladies' man. Mitcheltree was married at the time, but....He had daughters."
"Aaahhh."
"Yeah, it makes sense. They were even single at the time; I checked the marriage records. So there's motive."
"Wow," said Savanah, looking through the file drawers. "I hate people who say this city is boring."

"That's due on April tenth," I said, scanning the book. "Thanks a lot, and have a nice day."
Monday. It was busy at the library, and the weather was basically miserable. But the museum had gotten a new plane, so there's that. As I checked people out at the library, an older man approached the desk. "I liked the article you wrote about the bear that you saw during one of your tours."
"Grin And Bear It? Yeah, I got some comments on that one."
"Have you ever heard anything about a peddler that disappeared? It would have been over a hundred years ago, and there was a man named Hurwitz who may have been involved...."
"It rings a faint bell, but I can't place it."
"You may want to look into it. It sounds like something you might be interested in."
"I have to admit, it does."
I went to the index and checked the name Hurwitz. There was an obit, and I brought it up on the microfilm machine. The obit did, in fact, mention the disappearance of a peddler, and noted that horses wouldn't go past the spot where he was thought to be killed.
Another mysterious death from the past.
Well, huh.
Business as usual, then.

You Can't Handle The Tooth

I knew it was a good day when the skull came in the mail.
I was getting my coffee in the back room when Sue called to me. "Lou? Guess what's here."
She had a large plastic container on her desk. I walked in and opened it, lifting out a skull. I said,"Oh, yes. This is going to be great."
I'm actually not a psychopath. I work for the library.
In addition to standard library duties, I'm a paranormal investigator. I teach a class for teenagers on how to investigate the paranormal. I'd ordered a forensics kit from the Williamsport Library to help teach them about lost societies and archaeology. It included the skull and two leg bones, plus the guides to figure out who they'd belonged to.
"Oh, yeah," I said, turning the skull over in my hands. "Male, that's easy....Caucasian...No, wait....Asian. Adult, but young adult---The lines are fused, but the teeth show little wear. Look! They included extra teeth! The kids are gonna love this. I'll have them figure out all the details."
"Now, don't tell them," Sue said. "No hints."
"Oh, no," I said. "They're gonna sit and pass around this skull and figure it out on their own, like my teacher made me do."

"You're the person I was looking for!" the woman said at the front desk. "I was hoping you'd be here today."
I get some variation on this about eleven times a day. My career is a little hard to explain, but it involves history, paranormal investigation, library work, museum work, and freelance writing. I never know what box to check on surveys. People read my columns, and they come in to talk to me about stuff. Some of it even winds up making sense.
"Well, what can I do for you?" I asked.
She handed me three envelopes and an old tintype photograph. The envelopes were stuffed with letters. I unfolded one and began reading it; it was dated March 1917.
"This is a hundred years old," I said.
"I found them in the wall of my house," she told me. "Up on the hill on Bellefonte Avenue. I didn't see much point to keeping them, but I didn't want to throw them away, either. I was thinking you might be able to use them for something."
I skimmed through one of the letters. It was from someone named Jack, to a woman who appeared to be someone's mother. A lot of old handwriting gives you a migraine just walking past it, but these actually weren't too bad. The letter talked about gossip, and things that he'd found out.
"Wow," I said. "This guy seems to be blackmailing someone."
"I thought you might want these," she said.
"You thought right," I said.

"Daddy!" Paul Matthew came running to me when I got home, like he always does. I hugged my little guy.
"How was your day, little man?"
"Good. I find rocks wif Sissy."
"How was the library, Dad?" my daughter asked.
"Busy day. I got a donation. Check this out." I handed her the letters, which I'd placed in acid-free sleeves. These things were a century old; I wanted to be careful with them.
Tif skimmed through the letters. "Wow. How come you get all this good stuff?"
"Well, I'm the guy in the paper all the time. People know where to find me. To sum up, we have a teenaged girl named Claire a hundred years ago, who fell for an older man named Jack, a teacher at Bucknell. She was seventeen, he was thirty. They had a lost-distance thing for a while, and then she found out he'd been married before and hadn't told her. Her mom wrote to him and told him to stop contacting her; her parents wanted to send her to boarding school. Jack sent a letter blackmailing her mother, saying he had information on the mom he'd found out. Fascinating." Jack had, in fact, presented a singularly unappealing picture historically, involving controlling behavior, chasing an underage girl, and blackmail. If Monday were a person, it'd be Jack.
"And someone gave these to you?"
"Yep, found them in the wall where it happened. Jack and Claire did get married the next year; I found their certificate. Her obit says he predeceased her; I think they were still married when he died."
"I wonder what he blackmailed her mother with?"
"That would be one question. It's something I'll have to look into. I may get a column out if this."
"Looks like you have enough information for one."
"Yeah. A lot of it's going to depend on whether Jack and Claire have any children still living. She died in 1978, and I don't want to get hate mail from descendants."

Okay. I got half an hour before the library opens, and I gotta look up these obits, marriage certificates, and cemetery records. So it all comes down to how fast I can do what I do.
Let's do this thing.
I started with the obits. Jack didn't seem to have one. I got Claire, her mom, and her dad, who had actually once served on city council. Claire herself was buried out of the county, which cut out cemetery records for her and Jack. I found her parents in Highland Cemetery and made a photocopy. Claire and Jack had a marriage record. So did her parents. I photocopied those. Claire had been married to Jack in September 1917, about six months after Jack had blackmailed her mother. Claire's parents had been married in 1897, when her mom had been twenty-three.
None if this gave me any indication of what the blackmail drama had been all about.
I looked at my watch.
Five of two.
Did it.
I was just under the wire. I went to the desk and got the key, opened the doors, and did my job.

Four hours later, after my desk shift, I returned to the letters. I was wearing my Giwoggle T-shirt---Clinton County's official monster. I read the letters through again, looking for anything I'd missed the first couple of times. Because, as everyone knows, randomly staring at stuff is exactly the way to discover something new.
The clue turned out to be not in the letters, but on an envelope.
The blackmail letter to Claire's mom was addressed to Mrs. "Doc". Which seemed odd to me---Claire's father was a carpenter; there was no reason anyone should be referring to him as Doc. I just happened to notice this as I flipped past; this is a common research technique known as "getting lucky."
"Doc." Hnh.
I wondered if it was a hint at the blackmail. Back a couple of pages, in a February letter, Jack had mentioned to Claire that he'd gotten a visit from a Doc Mark, and spent some time having a meal and watching a basketball game with him. I read through that part again.
I checked our index. Doc Mark was there---He'd been a local dentist who had also acted as a football coach at Claire's school, at about the time all this was going on. I pulled his obit---Doc Mark had fixed teeth in Lock Haven while playing football games. There was a photo of him in the Clinton County Times.
I took a look at the tintype that had been in the wall with the photos. It showed two men. One of them might have been Doc Mark.
I walked to the desk. "Hey, Sue, you're female."
"Huh? Last I checked."
"Take a look at this. I need a woman, someone who think there's a difference between cream and eggshell paint. Tracey, you look, too. Do these guys look like the same guy to you?"
Tracey got out a magnifying glass. Both of them studied the newspaper photo and the tintype.
"Could be," said Sue.
"It's hard to tell," said Tracey,"But maybe."
"I'm kinda thinking so," I said. "I think it explains a lot about these old letters. Claire's mother may have had an affair with this dentist."
"People haven't changed much in a hundred years," observed Tracey.
"Not as much as you might think. I think the dentist told Jack about it, and Jack blackmailed her over it. She hid the letters and the tintype in the wall, where it didn't turn up for a hundred years. I love being me."

The tintype photo ran in the Express on Thursday. I'd stopped by the newspaper to have them scan the photo and write a caption, asking for anyone who could identify it. The UPS guy, who is used to seeing me at both Piper and the library, saw me on the way out. ("How many jobs do you have?" he'd asked incredulously. "All of them," I'd said. "In Lock Haven, I have all the jobs.")
I was hoping that someone would recognize the men in the tintype, and come to me with a name. Ideally, they'd confirm my impression that it was Doc Mark. On the first day, I received two e-mails telling me that the tintype showed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which seemed unlikely. This is why I don't go to the general public for answers.
And nothing else. What I had already was it.
So on a Monday, I sat down and wrote it all into a column.
Sue saw me writing at my desk.
"Working on an article, Lou?"
"Yeah, I'm writing up the blackmail story. I'm changing the names, though. I hate doing that, but these people have grandchildren who are still alive, and I don't wanna be getting hate mail from relatives. I've had enough of that lately."
"And you're sending it to the Express?"
"Well....Probably. You never know. Maybe I'll just print the whole thing out, and stick it in a wall for a hundred years." I grinned. "Now, where'd I put my skull?"

The X-27 Files

I'll never not love this.
I let myself into the Piper Museum through the side door, rode my bike through the maintenance room, and parked it in the hangar. Then I walked among the planes, looking at them all as I went for the stairs.
I've been here for over a year. Been the curator for nine months, and the thrill hasn't worn off. I don't think it ever will.
I walked past the Vagabond, the Aztec, the Cub, the Grasshopper. I paused a moment to touch a couple of them, looking them over affectionately before walking up the stairs.
How could anyone get used to this, ever? How could I ever take it for granted? Being here, among the planes....Being a part of this history....Having a whole museum to explore? How could you ever lose this feeling?
I climbed the metal stairs to the second floor, and walked inside. Through the display area, to the heavy door in the back of the building. I unlocked it with my key, and walked into the archives. Row upon row of old artifacts and files, A toy alien on my desk. A couple of black jackets hanging on the rack.
I'm home.

"Hi, my name is Lou. I'm the county historian out in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, and I have a sort of weird question for you."
I heard the woman on the other end laugh as I walked around the archives with my cell phone. "Well, try me and let's see."
"I've got a request out here---I get these sort of questions all the time, you know how it goes. A woman says she was visiting your museum a few years back, and saw signage that says that New Harmony, Indiana and Lock Haven, Pennsylvania have a connection. Someone was involved with designing both, or something. She says they're considered sister cities. I know nothing about this, and have found nothing in my archives. I wanted to cover all my bases, so I'm calling to check. I'm told you're the person to talk to."
"Well, I do study the area's history out here. But I'm not familiar with Lock Haven. I never heard anything to suggest this. Of course, it might be a connection I don't know about. but...."
"Yeah, I know," I said. I began to dig through a stack of recent donations on the table---Old sketches of Piper prototypes. Looked like the Saratoga, the Cheyenne. "I'd probably have heard this, too. Chances are one of us would know. I believe you; I know how I'd react if I got this call."
One of the sketches caught my attention. It showed a plane that didn't look like a plane---It was weird-looking. Sort of rounded, with stubby wings and not much of a window. Nothing I'd ever noticed before---Probably one that never went into production.
"Well, good luck," she said. "I hope you find what you're looking for."
"Actually," I said,"I think things are looking up."

"Daddy! I make surprise for you!" My son, two years old, held out a picture he'd drawn. Green scribbles on purple paper. Paul Matthew is currently somewhat abstract.
"Thank you, Paul! I like it." I took the paper and set it on the table. "Daddy's going to work now."
"Go to library?"
"Today I'm going to the airplanes," I said. Paul loves the airplane museum. "Daddy needs to track down some UFOs."
"Aliens!" said Paul.
"That's right. And what do aliens say?"
"Take your leader."
"Did someone call you with another sighting?" my daughter asked. Since we'd adopted Paul, Tif is our go-to babysitter. Tif is in her thirties and has cerebral palsy, and Paul adores her.
"Not this time....Piper Navajos see UFOs all the time. The damn things are UFO magnets, but that's not what I'm working on right now," I said. "I got a donation of sketches of odd prototypes, and some of them are weird-looking. I'm wondering if they may have caused some sightings in the old days."
"Were there actually sightings?"
"There were. I found an article. Five men in 1952, down around the airport, spotted a UFO over the mountains. Metallic and round, it floated for a while, and then shot southwest out of sight. Could be a Piper prototype."
"How would you prove that?"
"Good question. I'm going to go through the files and see what I can find---If I can discover a prototype that was tested around them. We should have the documentation."
"Well, have a good day with it," said Tif. "We're going to make cookies here."
"Cookies!" said Paul.

At work at the library the next day,  I dug into my research job a little. I didn't really think I was going to find any connection between Lock Haven and New Harmony---I'd have known about it already---But a former mayor of Lock Haven has sent someone my way for this, so I had to try.
I checked the newspaper indexes. I checked Linn's History. Nothing. I spent about an hour looking at any documentation I could find, and came up with about what I'd figured: No connection.
There was a letter from Jazmyn in the mail, which brightened my day up considerably. She was looking forward to coming home in the summer, and working with me on some of these research projects. I sat down and read it at my desk, where I have files labelled Here There Be Monsters and Illegal Aliens. I can't believe I get paid for this.
I paced in the lobby for a few minutes. In the stack of magazines, I found a copy of Young Salvationist, a religious magazine. The cover story was "The Supernatural: Discover The Truth!"
I picked the thing up and read it out of sheer morbid curiosity. The "truth" seemed to be that ghost don't exist because the bible says, and simultaneously, demons can kill you.
I threw it in the recycling bin, along with my notes from the New Harmony job.
Some days you're the Austin Dam. Some days you're the flood.

It was Monday when I went into the museum. I was wearing one of my alien T-shirts, the one that showed an alien mowing a crop circle on it. I hadn't realized it was President's Day; I had the entire building all to myself. Which was good, as I'd decided to dedicate the morning to finding UFOs.
The first thing I did was to look through the airplane files. My office has a set of cabinets with files on every airplane Piper ever designed; I'd spent hours looking through the Aztec and the Navajo. I worked my way through the drawer with experimental planes, figuring it was a good bet.
And I found the file marked X-27.
It had two photos, both showing a long, metal craft sitting in the development building. I recognized the building at Lock Haven; no way this was taken somewhere else. The device was long and shaped kind of like a Sharpie, with wings and wheels. And, yeah, it could easily be mistaken for a UFO.
Every aspect of history has one book that is basically the bible for that research. In Piper's case, that would be Piper Aircraft, which the museum has about ten copies of. I looked up the X-27, and found a short entry.
In the early 1950s, the Navy was creating the X-27, a top-secret towed target. Piper put in a bid on the landing gear, but didn't get the job. One of these had, however, been at Piper---The photo proved it. It was likely that it had been tested, and almost certain it had been kept classified.
I looked for plans. The shelf in the archives has a whole bunch of rolled tubes, but nothing labelled X-27 or anything close. Some cool floor plans, though. Next I went downstairs to the shed.
The hangar has a small shed on the east end, where a lot of old parts and files are kept. There are large flat files, and I dug through those, looking for something that looked about right.
It was about half an hour before I found it.
A design for a landing gear, one wheel on a swivel. No date, no labelling at all. Just the print.
I took it upstairs, and set it next to the photo. It was a match; it was the same landing gear.
That was my UFO. The X-27.

The museum's conference room used to be part of stock and fabrication---They'd created airplanes in there. These days, we held board meetings in it. I was in for one the next morning, sitting across from John, the board president. He was an ex-Piper engineer, and I'd never had problems getting him to answer my questions. It was a bigger problem getting him to stop.
"John, question for you," I said. "I came across something recently about a classified Navy contract for Piper. How much of that would there have been? Did Piper do a lot of top-secret military stuff?"
President John smiled. This guy is like having the world's coolest grandfather telling you stories. And I realized later that he'd managed to answer the question in a roundabout way, without really answering it.
"Well, let me tell you. When I came here in 1960, I was classified as an A-1 draft dodger. I told this to Walter Jamouneau when he hired me, and he wrote a letter to the government. I didn't see the letter until years later, but they wrote back and deferred me because they said I was working a critical job in a critical industry. What we did was necessary to the war."
I nodded.
"What I needed to know. Thanks."

I found a frame in my office and slipped the X-27 wheel plan inside it. The whole east wall of my office is some kind of corkboard, and I stuck a nail into it, and hung the plan up. It showed the design for a wheel that had never gone into production. But sixty-five years ago, a few men had seen it....And talked of UFOs.
I stepped back and looked at the design on the wall. Nobody would ever know why I'd hung it up. But I appreciated it.
I'll never not love this.

Lou: Pilot Episode

I didn't know I was causing an international incident. All I did was look under a buffalo.
But I'm used to that. I was looking for a topic for my newspaper column, and I picked up the buffalo sculpture by my desk and looked underneath it. And I wound up getting into a mystery that has been part of America's history since 1949.
Some people call this exciting. I call it Thursday.
My name is Lou. I work for the Ross Library, in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. But that's a little like saying the Pope sometimes says a prayer. I handle a lot of the local history in my community. I write about it for the newspapers, and I help to manage a small airplane museum, and I'm a member of a paranormal investigative team. I've been called the County Historian, which, as far as I can tell, is a title made up only to apply to me.
So I was looking for a column, walking around my office. Well, my office is basically a desk in one window of the oldest section of the library, the part that used to be Annie Halenbake Ross's house. Her funeral was held right where my desk is. For a paranormal investigator, that's pretty cool. I dream of one day having walls.
So I picked up the buffalo sculpture and turned it over, and I found the old newspaper article taped to the bottom. April 1, 1949. Using my Swiss Army Knife, I cut it loose.
Hello....What's this?
I looked over the article. It described how the buffalo had come in on a French train in 1949, been unpacked at the local newspaper office, and then donated to the library.
Huh. I think I have my column.

"Welcome back," I said to the boss as she walked in the door. "What do you know about the buffalo back by my desk?"
She frowned. "The buffalo? That one on the shelf? Nothing."
"Great. You want to hear something really cool?"
"Sure."
"I found an old article taped to the bottom of it, and I did some research. Turns out that buffalo was part of a shipment called the Merci Train, a gift from France in 1949. It contained forty-nine boxcars worth of gifts that got sent all over America. We got the buffalo. The staff named it Jake, after local inn owner Jake Kohlberger. Someplace else in the county, I don't know where, are a French figurine, a book about French life, and a photo showing the German surrender from World War Two. Thing is, nobody ever kept track of this stuff, so the location of all of this is a mystery. There's an organization that's been trying to track all this stuff down for years. They've found some stuff in Blair County, and some in Lycoming, but our buffalo has been among the missing. They had no idea where it went....And all this time, it's been sitting about six feet from my desk."
"Are you going to contact them?"
"Already did. And now I been getting e-mails from all over America and France. They're all thrilled, and they're looking for more information."
"And I'll bet you got a column out of this, too."
"Already written."

"Jazmyn!" I saw the girl coming toward my desk and jumped up to give her a hug. "I'm glad you stopped in! How have you been?"
Jazmyn is one of the kids I train in paranormal investigation. She's eighteen, very bright, and we've gotten very close. She's been away in Basic Training but still makes time to write and visit.
"I'm good," she said. "I love the Army. I mean, I hate it but I love it."
I smiled. "Yeah, I can understand it." She sat down near my desk. "I discovered a secret room down in the Piper Museum the other day."
"You said that in your letter! What are you gonna do with it?"
"I'm thinking UFO research center."
Jazmyn laughed. "That is so cool. I really miss this stuff with you guys."
"You're getting back in, what, the summer? You and me can have some adventures then. Solve a few mysteries and spend some quality time together."
"Yeah, I'd like that. Hunt some ghosts."
"LHPS is doing an investigation at Piper this month. It'll be cool---I'll let you know what happens. If you think of all the people killed in Piper crashes...."
She thought it over, looking amazed. "Yeah, they could be haunting the place, couldn't they?"
"And get this....John F. Kennedy Junior died in a Piper. It was a Piper Saratoga....You're too young to remember, but he went down in Massachusetts in 1999."
"Oh, wow."
'Yeah," I said. "We could be investigating the son of a dead president."
"I think you should teach me all this stuff," she said.
I smiled. "This summer when you're home, we're going to have a good time."

The Lock Haven Paranormal Seekers have been around since about 2007. At the time, they'd approached me about some historic research. I'd known the area well enough I was able to give them the information from memory, and the leader at the time had asked me to join.
Our team leader is Theresa, who is really, really good at electronics. Millie is our case manager, and she's a grandmother, but doesn't look like one. Charlie has blonde, curly hair and a fondness for cats. There are a couple of other members, but that's the nucleus.
And me.
When I'd been invited to join the team, I'd told them that I was busy, but could serve in a limited advisory capacity. That had lasted about as long as it took for me to get fascinated with the whole thing, and these days I was second in command. We got together once a month for a meeting, and went out on investigations when we got the chance.
Hey. You only live twice.

Piper Aviation had been making planes in Lock Haven from 1937 to 1984. In one of the old factories, a museum had been created in the late nineties. These days, I'm there all the time.
I got into the museum early and got some of the lights on. I turned up the heat a bit, and got out my equipment. I turned the lobby light on, so they could see when they got here.
With some time to kill, I walked around the museum for a while. I love the museum---I've been with Piper a little over a year. I started out as a volunteer, and quickly became the curator, and in June, I was invited to be on the board. These days, I keep a spare jacket in my office in case of adventure---Black, all tricked out with equipment in the pockets. My office is on the southwest end of the building, where they used to make the Navajo. It's got the archives and a cool concealed staircase leading downstairs.
It's not the first time I've had the whole museum to myself. There's something lovely about it. I walked through the display area, and then down to the hangar. I walked among the planes---The Tri-Pacer, the Aztec, the Cub.
And then the rest of the team arrived.
"It's your place," Theresa said to me. "Where do you want to start this?"
We were all wearing the black uniform with LHPS and the ghost symbol on it. I put on my additions: A black tac vest with my equipment in the pockets, and fingerless gloves. "Hot spots seem to be there and there. I'd like to check out the hangar. It's possible we have the ghosts of some pilots who died in crashes. Let's start up here."
"Let's get set up," said Theresa.
We put out the cables and infrared cameras, and turned on the recorders. Theresa said,"Piper Museum investigation, January 22, 2017. Seven-thirty PM. Theresa, Lou, Charlie, Millie."
 I started taking photos, and then frowned at my camera.
"Battery's already dead. I just charged the thing this afternoon."
"Maybe some activity," said Charlie.
I got my backup camera out of my backpack. Charlie said,"Should we split up? Millie and I can take the room over there, and you and Theresa can go downstairs to the hangar."
"Good plan," I said. "Let's do that."
Theresa and I walked downstairs to the hangar. She said,"Where should we do this?"
"Let's do it in comfort," I said. "Let's go sit in the Cheyenne."
The museum has a Piper Cheyenne that will never fly again, but has been restored so children can play in it. It's an executive-class plane, which means nice seats and amenities. Theresa and I sat in the plane, letting the recorders run and asking questions.
"What is your name?"
"When did you die?"
"Were you a pilot?"
"Did you work with this museum?"
My recorder, sitting on the tray by my side, gave a beep and went off. I picked it up.
"Everything okay?" Theresa asked.
"Low battery. What the hell....?"
"Didn't you say you just charged these?"
"Yeah, I did. This afternoon."
"Could be something. Want to go back upstairs and find the others?"
"Sure."
We walked back up to the simulator room. Most of the lights were out, and I could hear Millie and Charlie talking. I shined my flashlight around the room. Where the hell....Oh. They're in the simulator.
The flight simulator is a reconditioned Piper Tomahawk that we keep in the east room. I climbed up the steps onto the platform, and looked in at them. "How's it going?"
"Not bad," said Charlie. "We're over Montana now."
"We had a hell of a time getting in this thing," said Millie.
"Yeah, it's a challenge," I agreed. "I just lost my recorder batteries downstairs."
They started getting out of the simulator. I glanced out at the lobby.
"I left that lobby light on," I said. "Did any of you guys turn it off?"
I looked at them all. They shook their heads. "It was on when we brought in the DVR," Charlie said.
"Something's messing with electricity in here," I said.
"While you were downstairs," said Charlie,"I thought I heard something. Just for a minute, I thought I heard sounds like an old factory. Like, just for a few seconds, it was in operation again."
I grinned at her.
"Tell me you recorded all that."

The next morning, I walked into the museum. I unlocked my office and sat down at the computer to check my e-mail. I'd received several responses to the column from the weekend, Jake And The Merci Train.
The committee looking for items had e-mailed. Using the information I'd given them about the buffalo, they'd managed to track down another sculpture from the Merci Train in Brooklyn.
"Well," I said to myself in the empty office.
I stood up and walked through the museum aimlessly. I love to do that. It's a place I feel good, the feeling you get when you're at home in a blanket. And if there are ghosts, then they're ghosts I feel comfortable with.
I looked through the window down into the hangar.
A couple of guys came in the door.
"Excuse me," one of them said. "Do you know anything about this museum?"
"Oh, sure," I said. "I'm the curator here. Do you want a tour?" I smiled. "My name is Lou."

Dead Santas: The Lou Christmas Special

The scrapbook was old. I'd found it underneath the index files in the Pennsylvania Room a few months ago, in the Ross Library where I work. I stood at the desk, paging through it.
I'm a library staffer at the Annie Halenbake Ross Library in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. I'm also a freelance writer, paranormal investigator, and board member at the Piper Aviation Museum. It's not what I'd ever researched back on career day.
"Gotta find a column," I said.
My co-worker, Adam, walked by and saw me paging through the book. "What're you working on, Lou?" he asked.
"I'm finding a topic for my Christmas column," I said. "In the Express, I always write about something warm and Christmassy for the holidays, I figured I might get something out of the Piper scrapbook---It's got a lot of old articles about when Piper Aviation was in town."
"Any luck yet?"
"Working on it."
I found a newspaper clipping, bottom of the page. It showed a Piper employee in 1949 dressed as Santa, handing out gifts from a sleigh. I nodded.
This might work. I'll need to find out some more, expand it a bit, but I can make this happen.
Usually I look for obituaries on the people in these situations, and see who they were and how they ended up. The caption said that the guy playing Santa was named John, so I checked the index for his obit. The Pennsylvania Room is the oldest part of the library, and it's where I work---My desk is right among all the historic archives and files. History is my office.
I found John's obit, and looked it over.
He'd died in jail ten years after the Santa incident. He'd been arrested for abusing his family, and hung himself in the old jail on Church Street.
That's not the warm holiday story I thought it was.

"Well, I still can't use it in a column," I said to Tracey, one of my co-workers. "It's too recent; he'll still have relatives alive. But it's fascinating. I've investigated the old jail, and it's definitely haunted. It's probably haunted by the ghost of Santa Claus."
"Yeah, that's interesting," said Tracey.
"Okay, yeah, I get it," I said. "I'm all excited over a suicidal Santa. I know. I need some professional help."
"Aren't you the one who wrote an article about a local nudist colony and headlined it The Haven Wears Nada?" asked Tracey.
"Yeah, that was one of mine."
"Any plans for the weekend?" she asked.
"I'm going to visit my brother on the family farm," I said. "Pick out our Christmas tree."

"Hi, Papa!" My little son, Paul Matthew, happily greeted his grandfather. Paul is adopted, a sweet little black boy of two years old. The whole family was in the kitchen of the old farmhouse where I'd grown up, on Green Valley Farm. My brother, my sister, my father. Paul Matthew was playing with his cousins, whom he adores.
"I got some presents," my brother said. He handed us each a piece of hardwood, with a small hanger on the back. Each one was engraved with NORTHERN LEHIGH LITTLE THEATER.
"These from the stage at the high school?" I asked.
He nodded. "They had some water damage, so they had to cut some of it up. They sold the pieces off for a fundraiser. I thought you guys would like them."
"You thought right," I said. "I grew up on that stage."
More than anyone knows. Thirty years ago, in 1986, I went through a suicide attempt at age sixteen. The school musical was what saved me---I was taking care of the Orphans, thirteen girls playing the parts in Annie. It was where I got my support, and what taught me to get through my life and try to do good things.
"I'm gonna hang this up," I said. "Thanks."

"We need someone for the personnel committee," President John said to me. "Are you willing? You only have to be in two meetings a year, and this is one of them."
"Sure, I'm in," I said. I was wearing my T-shirt that said Bigfoot: Hide And Seek Champion. "Got a question for you."
We were in my office at the Piper Museum. I'm a board member there, since last June---John, the board president, had invited me. I act as the curator there, and my office is a huge archive room in what was once an airplane factory. Piper planes were once made in Lock Haven, and the museum is dedicated to them. This means I basically have an office on each end of the city, which can be convenient.
"Do you remember a time about 1949 when they had a guy dressed as Santa Claus handing out gifts in the lumber storage area?" I asked. "He came in on a sleigh."
He shook his head. "Probably a union thing. I don't remember that. I do recall a time when the Beech Creek Parade was going on, and a couple of the pilots wanted Santa to parachute from a Tri-Pacer. When he opened the door, it threw off the air and sent the plane into a spin. The pilots shouted at him to jump already, but Santa froze and almost crashed the plane."
I laughed. President John is great; he has all sorts of cool stories about the old days, and requires almost no encouragement to share them. "I found an old article about the Santa thing. The guy who played Santa died in jail later. The coroner had your last name....Was he related?"
"That was my Uncle Roy," said President John. "He was coroner for about thirty years. He lived at the old jail all that time. He used to dress as Santa, too, every Christmas, and used to make appearances on WBPZ or Triangle Park as Santa."
"That's cool."
"He killed himself, too. Shot himself in the head in 1970."
"My god," I said. "Really?"

"So, you remember when we investigated the old jail a couple of years ago?" I asked Savanah. "Turns out it's haunted by the ghost of not one, but two suicidal Santas."
Savanah and I were sitting together in the graphic novel section of the library, which is also my territory. Savanah is a member of Teen Paranormal, the teenaged paranormal investigative group that I run. She's a dyed-rainbow-haired pixie with a talent for costume design, and she's been with the team for the past three years.
"That is so weird," she said. "It sounds like being Santa Claus is cursed or something."
"In the old jail, it is, for sure. I thought that was really, really interesting."
"So did you ever find a column?" she asked. "You're not going to write about dead Santas for your Christmas column, are you?"
"No, that's not exactly festive," I said. "I'm not going to use that. It's for my consumption only."
"Do you have something to write about?" she asked.
"Oh, yeah," I said. "I just got it done." I glanced back at my desk, where the article was still up on the screen.
The headline read SANTA CLAUS AND THE TRI-PACER.
"Come on, kiddo," I said. "Let's go on up to the Sloan Room. We're learning about Bigfoot tonight."