Tours De Force

I walked out of the house in my black ghost shirt and my waterproof blue overcoat. Paul followed me as far as the porch steps.

"Back later tonight, little man," I said. "Gonna see how my new bike works, and give a haunted tour. Make some money for the library."

"Yeah!" he cheered. "Haunted tour!"

"Yeah!" I cheered back.

"Yeah!"

"Yeah!"

"YEAH!"

"YEAH!"

Michelle and Tif came out onto the porch. I said,"Hopefully I'll be back before bedtime."

"This is gonna be every night for a while, isn't it?" asked Tif.

I nodded. "Due to COVID, I'm only allowed ten people per tour. So I had to split them into two weeks' worth of tours, pre-paid. Tonight's the first---I get out among the ghosts. I admit I'm a little jumpy. It's been a long time since I did a tour."

"Good luck, Dad."

"Let's hope it works," I said. "You wanna haunt this town? Then tonight, you work for me."

Monday, October 19

"Thank you for coming," I said to the young couple. "Thanks for braving the rain to support the Ross Library. Have either of you ever been on one of my tours before?"

The woman raised her hand. I said,"Okay, well, this one has some new stories and some old stories. My name is Lou, and I'm field leader of the Lock Haven Paranormal Seekers. It's important to note that I can prove everything I say---All of this is researched. I take pride in that---If I say someone died in a house, I can show you a document that proves it. Our first story is right here, the Ross Library, haunted by our founder, Annie Halenbake Ross. You guys ready to have some fun?"

Tuesday, October 20

"Hundreds of years ago, the Native Americans called the Susquehanna River Valley 'Otzinachson'," I said to the crowd, which included three children. "It meant 'The Demon's Den,' and they believed the area to be haunted. Much later, when Lock Haven was settled, a lot of it was built over their burial grounds. One of the sites was the Catholic school, right over there."

I pointed, and the kids got all excited. The little girl said,"That's our school! We go there every day!"

"I'm gonna tell all my friends!" said one of the boys.

"If you'll follow me, we'll talk about some more haunted sites in Lock Haven," I said. And I walked to the sidewalk, everyone following. 

An hour later, I got to the final stop on the tour. "This church, in 1905, was the site of a haunting, when the ghost of the murdered Vincent James Sesto appeared at his own funeral to accuse his killer."

The kids got all excited again. "That's our church! We go there every Thursday!"

"I wonder if Father Orr knows!" said the little girl.

I forced a smile as I continued the story, and murmured,"I'm gonna get hate mail from the Catholics again."

Thursday, October 22

I walked into the back room, where Zach and Tracey were working. "As of tonight," I announced,"I broke my old record."
"That's great!" said Tracey, who somehow manages to still sound appreciative when I get like this.

"Back in 2016, I set a record of four hundred and fifteen dollars," I said. "With the money coming in from all the tour bookings, I'm now over five hundred, and still going. I might even break six hundred by the time it's all done."

"That's not bad," said Zach. "A pretty good profit."

"Especially considering nobody, including me, has to work all that hard for it," I said. "All I gotta do is walk around and talk about ghosts, and honestly I'd do that for free. This is gonna be a hard one to beat, though, but that's next year's problem."

Friday, October 23

"....And if you're wondering if the Fallon Hotel is on the haunted tour, don't be silly," I said. "Of course it is." I stopped on Water Street, turning to face the crowd, the old hotel behind me. "Built in 1854 for the Queen of Spain, the Fallon has had plenty of people die within its walls. Some of them have been unidentified, and buried in potter's fields in the county. Now, it's important to note that the queen never stayed here, but several famous people did. In the 1870s, one of those was Mark Twain, and---"

Several people in the crowd gasped, looking up. I glanced back. "What's up? We having some activity?"

One woman pointed. "The curtains on the second floor just moved."

"No kidding? Looks like we may have some company tonight." I smiled. "Could be a draft. But it could also be we have a visitor on the tout---Maybe the fact that I'm talking about the place every night has made them active. Keep your eyes open, okay?"

I unlocked the staff door to the library and walked inside, counting the money. I had thirty-five dollars to add to what I'd already taken in. I walked up the steps and into the main library.

I looked up. At the end of the hall I saw a light---The elevator was rising by itself. I was alone in the building, but something had started the elevator.

I smiled.

"Hi, Annie."

Saturday, October 24

"Another in the category of 'obviously on the haunted tour,'" I said as I stopped in front of the building. "The Simpson House."

The house behind me rose three stories, towering above the street. It looked genuinely haunted, as if it belonged in an old black-and-white movie where the young couple's car breaks down out front. I said,"What you're looking at is two buildings in one. This started out as the Jackman House, a small, square, plain-looking brick building. D.K. Jackman sold it to Wlliam Simpson, who took some teasing from his so-called friends for being a lumber guy and having a brick house. So he had wood panels carved, and built up around the Jackman House. He didn't damage the structure at all, just basically wrapped it up. Now, I understand we have two women with us tonight who lived in this building, and I'd be an idiot to pass up this chance. I'm going to give them the chance to talk about what happened to them here. This is called 'Getting the public to do my job for me'."

Monday, October 26

"Thank you for coming out and supporting the Ross Library," I said to the crowd. "I hope everyone's ready to hear some ghost stories tonight. Now, I'm making a little change to the tour from here on in---I'm bringing along some of my equipment. As I give the tour, I'll be doing a little investigating." I held up the laser thermometer. There was a homeless guy on the patio behind me.

Everyone gasped, a small round of applause rippled through the crowd. I said,"We had a little activity at two of the sites the other night. I think the ghosts are getting a little more active. So I'm going to do a few tests, and see if we can catch any evidence."

Tuesday, October 27

"What time you need me tomorrow?" Tif asked. "Noon, or one?"

"One, tomorrow," I said, walking beside her on the sidewalk. "Gotta give a tour after work. I have a \n author coming on my tour---The guy who wrote the Pennsylvania Fireside Tales series."

"Well, that's cool," she said. 

"It feels weird," I said. "I mean, he's a really nice guy. But the famous ghost writer is coming on my tour? Who the hell am I?"

Tif laughed. "You know people feel that way about you, right?"

"Yeah, that feels weird, too."

Thursday, October 29

"Hi, I overheard a guy the other night saying someone died in the building? I wondered if I could hear more about that?"

"You want History," Zach said. "Guy at the desk back there."

The homeless guy from the other evening came around the corner. "Hi," he said. "I overheard you the other night....You were giving a tour or something? Said someone died in the building?"

"Well, died while still living here," I said. "Annie Halenbake Ross and Mary Elizabeth Crocker both died while still living in the building. Annie's funeral was held about here, at my desk."

"I was playing with an app on my phone at the time," he said. "It reviews radio frequencies. And at the time, a voice came through. A female voice that said,'I'm aware you're here.'"

"Oh, yeah?" I grinned---Not that you could see it behind the mask. "That's pretty cool. We've been getting some activity lately; I think my constant talking about the ghosts has riled them up."

"I thought you'd like to hear that," he said.

"Yes," I said. "Thanks for letting me know."

Friday, October 30

I stood in the library's restroom, drying my mask off under the hand dryer. It's incredible how damp those things get after you wear them all day. When I was done, I shoved it in my pocket and walked to my desk. 

I could hear the elevator going up and down, all by itself. Again. I smiled, and checked the weather. Gonna be a cold night.

Pulling on my coat, I went outside.

To my delight, SaraLee was waiting outside when I got there for the final tour. I gave her a hug.

"I know we're supposed to be socially distancing, but...."

"I know," she said. "Screw COVID."

I turned to the crowd. "We have a special guest with us tonight. My partner SaraLee, from the Lock Haven Paranormal Seekers, came along tonight to join us. Now, I'm hoping for more activity tonight---We've had plenty this week. I just saw the elevator moving on its own inside the building." I smiled at the crowd. "Thank you for coming out to support the Ross Library. I'm a member of LHPS. My name is Lou."

Exhausted, I unlocked the back door and walked into my house. Duke and Gwen were curled up, asleep on their dog beds. I dropped my pack in the corner and dumped my coat on the chair.

I walked up the stairs, quietly, and changed my shirt and my sneakers. I glanced into Paul's room.

My son was asleep, sprawled out in his bed. I leaned over and gave him a kiss while he slept. He stirred just a little bit, and then settled.

I looked at my son for a moment, my little growing boy, sleeping in his room.

Home.

Sasquatches In The Mist

"Lou? Phone's for you."

"Thanks, Zach." I set down a stack of books on Pennsylvania hauntings, and picked up my line. "Hi, can I help you?"

"Hi, I was wondering if you have a book about Bigfoot sightings in Clinton County."

It was an older voice, female. I said,"Specifically Clinton County?"

"Well, yes. I have a brother who moved to West Virginia. He's really interested in that, and I was hoping to send him a book about where Bigfoot has been sighted around here."

"Well, that's pretty specific, ma'am," I said. "We have plenty of books about Bigfoot, and some on Pennsylvania, but nothing I'm aware of that's localized to Clinton County."

"Oh....I was hoping you might have written one."

"Haven't gotten to that yet," I said. "I have done a few articles. If you'd like to stop by, I can print off a few for you."

"I can do that," she said. "I'll be there in an hour."

I sat down at my desk and opened my e-mail. It was packed---I deleted all the junk mail, and then was left with three messages forwarding me a Bigfoot sighting not too far away. Several people had considered that worthy of notifying me. Apparently when Bigfoot comes up in conversation, I'm the guy who comes to mind.

This happens. Someone writes about a local ghost, a monster, a buried treasure---And my network of friends all have to send it to me. It's one way I stay informed on these things.

I did a search on myself---Yeah, I google myself, get over it---And found a couple of my old articles about Bigfoot. I printed them off.

"Anything new and interesting, Lou?" Zach asked as I walked to the desk.

I shrugged, picking up my printouts. "Bigfoot sighting. The usual."

A woman stopped at the desk. She was wearing a mask with panda bears on it.

"I'm looking for Lou?"

"That'd be me," I said.

"I called," she said. "About the Bigfoot articles."

"Oh, yes. Here you go." I handed her the articles. "Hope this helps."

"I was hoping there was a book that I could send him," she said. "He's really interested."

"Well, that's a fairly narrow topic, ma'am," I said. "I mean, there are Bigfoot books, and books about Clinton County in general. But I can't think of anything that combines both."

"Oh. Do you have nay Bigfoot ones for sale?"
"Not here, no. But you might want to look into 'Weird Pennsylvania'. That's a pretty good one about Bigfoot in a lot of areas."

"But not Clinton County."

"Not specifically, no."

"Well, I don't believe in this, but he does."

"You never know," I said. "Panda bears were considered mythical, until a live one was captured."

She looked at me in surprise. "Really? I love pandas!"

"I noticed the mask. Yeah, early explorers to Asia came back with stories of black and white bears, and they were told there was no such thing. They were considered a myth. Until the first one was captured. Now we know them to be actual animals. So don't discount Bigfoot, offhand---New species are discovered every day."

I parked my bike in the garage---New bike, a jet black thing with blue and green trim, and I was being careful with it. Carrying the grocery bags, I walked up to the haunted house. You get used to it when the haunted house is yours.

I walked in the back door. A little elderly Schnauzer was lying on the kitchen floor, crying because he couldn't stand up. I set the bags on the counter.

"Oh, Kasper," I said. I knelt down and picked him up. He nestled his head into my shoulder. 

Almost three years ago, we'd taken in two sweet little senior Schnauzers who'd needed homes. Mickey and Kasper. Mickey had died from cancer a year ago, and Kasper was getting older and older. I'd been resisting thinking too much about that. More and more, he'd been unable to stand and walk.

I laid him down in his bed. "Here you go, little guy. Take a nap. I love you, little buddy."

He was still lying on the bed the next morning. His breathing was shallow, and he was barely moving. I was glad Paul wasn't awake to see this. I sat down on the couch and looked at him.

"I love you, Kasper," I whispered. "I've always loved you. Ever since we got you, you've been a good dog." I started to cry. "We're gonna take you to the vet, and he's going to make it so you're not hurting anymore, okay? You'll be happy and playing with Mickey soon. I love you, Kasper. I love you. You've been a good dog."

That night, Kasper was gone.

"Daddy?" Paul looked around the corner of the doorway. "I can't sleep. Can I sit with you?"

"Five minutes," I said. "Then back to bed." Paul hates to sleep. Anti-bedtime is his only actual strong political position. We go through this practically every night.

He crawled into my lap. "I miss Kasper."

"I miss him, too," I said. "I miss the little guy a lot."

He began to cry. "All I want is for Mickey and Kasper to still be here."

It doesn't sound like much when you put it that way, does it? I hugged him. "I know, little man. Me, too. But they knew we loved them. And maybe they're playing together now."

He cried for a little while, and I held him.

"Are you working tomorrow, Daddy?"

"No, I'm off tomorrow," I said. "I'll have all day to spend with you."

"Can we do something fun?"

"Sure," I said. "Maybe a hike?"

"I love hikes."

"Well, about three different people have sent me an article about Bigfoot down in Bald Eagle State Park."

"Where's Bald Eagle State Park?"

"Remember when we went to that firefly program? That's where."

"Okay," he said. "Let's look for Bigfoot."

"Tomorrow," I said. "Right now, it's time for bed."

"Where was this Bigfoot sighting?" my wife asked as we drove through Bald Eagle State Park.

"Hard to tell," I said. "I'm a little dubious on the reliability of it, in all honesty. The witness mentioned Pine Creek, which isn't even in the same county. But I know he was camping in Bald Eagle State Park, and got up to go to the bathroom. He said he saw the Bigfoot walking near the creek that night."

"This is really remote," said Michelle, looking around.

"We oughta camp here sometime."

"I don't know," said Michelle. "What about bears?"

"Bears are a concern anytime you camp anywhere. The trick is knowing what to do."

"Well, then, you need to teach us what to do."

"Paul?" I said. "What do you do with a wild animal?"

"Lift me up," said Paul. "And pick up your jacket so you look big."

'There you go," I said. 

"There's restrooms up here," said Michelle. "Should we park there?"

"As good as anyplace, I suppose," I said.

We got out of the car. The weather had gotten colder, and I was wearing my black Bigfoot Saw Me But Nobody Believes Him shirt and my lack leather jacket. I said,"All living things need water. We'll walk down toward the lake. There's a path over here that's not listed on the map."

Paul looked at the sign. "Log....Slide....Trail," he read carefully.

He started walking down the trail. Michelle said,"It is safe to let him run ahead like that?"

"He's wearing a Rainbow Dash jacket and pink tights," I said. "Kid dresses for visibility. He's also loud as hell pretty much constantly. We're not gonna lose him."

We walked down the trail. I said,"Look at all this rocky terrain. It's not a surprise I don't hear more reports of footprints out here."

"I heard a noise, Daddy," said Paul. 

"What did it sound like?"

"Sort of like arrrrrrrrooooooo."

"Well, that does sound like Bigfoot, allright. And what does the Loch Ness Monster say?"

"Three-fifty."

I stopped on the hill and looked into the woods. Michelle said,"What is it?"

"Probably nothing." There were broken branches propped up against a tree in a more or less conical fashion. "I've heard reports of Bigfoot shelters, where people find sticks propped up in the woods. Almost certainly campers or hikers, but it doesn't hurt to check."

I took a couple of photos of the branches, clearly deliberately placed against the tree. I walked around the tree, examining the ends of the branches. 

"What are you looking for?" Michelle asked.

"Well, any indicators," I said. "These branches weren't sawed off, they were snapped off. Which doesn't prove anything, actually. Obviously it was done by someone without access to saws, but that doesn't rule out a camper up here."

"But nothing says it wasn't Bigfoot," said Michelle.

"No," I said. "That's true. Nothing rules it out."

"Daddy? I can't sleep."

Again. It was every night lately. Paul was having a hard time dealing with the loss, which is understandable when you're six. I said,"Come here, sit down a minute."

He curled up with me on the couch. He said,"I wrote this."

He handed me a torn piece of paper. On it, he'd scrawled I LOVE YOU TOO MUCK MICKEY AND KASPER.

"Oh, buddy." I hugged him. "You can't love someone too much. There's no limit. We loved Mickey and Kasper, and we made them happy to live here. We're going to miss them, but it was good to have had them here. I'm sad, too....But things will get better again."

"Daddy? Can I sit here with you for a while?"

I nodded. 
"For a while, little guy. Sure."

The Fall Of The House Of Fishburn

There weren't supposed to be kids in the Tiger Den.

I was on my way home from work after a busy day with a three-hour webinar from hell. Last year at this time, I'd have stopped to lock up the Tiger Den, the local playground in my neighborhood. But that was in the Before Times, when Coronavirus hadn't closed everything down. The Tiger Den was supposed to be locked to avoid spreading the virus.

But I was seeing it---Gate open, lock missing, and kids playing on the swings. I stopped for a moment and watched. One of the girls from the grocery store across the street was watching, and she said,"I thought the parks were supposed to be closed."
"Yeah, they are," I said. "I should call the mayor." I always feel pretentious saying stuff like that.
I dug my cell phone out of my pack. Five minutes later, Mayor Joel was getting out of his car.
"What the hell?" he said as he approached the gate.
"Yeah, I know," I said. "Lock's completely gone."
He looked it over. "Someone just took it off the chain," he said. "Could be someone making a political statement."
"Yeah, I thought about that."
"I have a temporary one for now," he said. "I'll send somebody to replace it with a better one in the morning." He clipped one on. "I mean, who would do this? Makes me mad."
"Yeah, I knew you wouldn't be thrilled about this."
Joel laughed. "Nah, you did the right thing by letting me know. Thanks."
"You know how to find me if you need anything," I said. "Gonna go home and tell my son how I teamed up with the mayor to save the Tiger Den."

"Dutcavich....Etters....Fegler..."

I stood in my office, filing the obituary cards for the Pennsylvania Room. The Ross Library has newspapers going back as far as 1813, and a new part of my job was to file the new index cards as they came in. I'd been at it maybe an hour.

So I took a break for a moment. Messing with history wears you out. I sat down at my desk and checked my e-mail, and I was surprised to find a message from someone I hadn't heard from in a while.

I flipped through the index, and then stopped, looking at one of the cards. I laughed. Pulling it from the drawer, I walked over to my co-workers at the desk.

"You guys gotta see this," I said. "Death of a kid in 1876. Look at the name."

Mel squinted at the card. "Fishburn. Edgar Allan Poe Fishburn."

"Edgar Allan Poe Fishburn," I repeated. "The perfect find for October. I wonder if his parents were fans."

"You have to assume so," said Barb. 

"Let me guess," said Tracey. "You're going to dig into this a little more."

"I think I will," I admitted. "I might find something I can use on a tour, actually, or write about. I mean, how do you not look into a kid named after Poe? I'll see if I can find his grave, but personally, I'm hoping he's buried under floorboards, or sealed in a wall or something."

"Got an e-mail from John today," I told my wife.
"John...."
"Piper Museum."
"Oh, right, the president," she said. "They want you back?"
"He asked if I'd be willing to take on the Piper newsletter again," I said. "They haven't had one since I left, and he said it was often a pretty good fundraiser."
"You gonna do it?" Michelle asked.
"I'm thinking about it,"  I said.
A few years ago, I'd been curator of an airplane museum on the east end of Lock Haven. Though I'd loved the work, I'd felt I wasn't spending enough time with my son, and I'd resigned two years ago. Since then, I'd gone on to some other things that took up less time.
"I'm going to meet with him," I said. "Sometimes I miss the museum, though not as much as I'd thought I would, and I really miss John. We'll sit down in his office like we used to, and talk things over."
"Are you taking Paul down?"
"Thought I might," I said. "He always loved the place. It'll be good to see the Aztec again."

It had been two years.

I hadn't seen the inside of the Piper Museum since I'd resigned in 2018. I hadn't realized just how much I'd missed it until I walked inside with Paul, seeing all the artifacts and displays again.

"They still have the Super Cruiser model," I said. "I hung this up myself."

The receptionist, Stacey, came around the corner. She was visibly surprised to see me. "Hi, Lou," she said. "What can I do for you?"

"Came to meet with John," I said. "Is he around?"

"He's out to lunch. You remember how that goes."

"I do. I'll get with him later if I have to. Okay if I go walk through the hangar?"

"Sure. Help yourself."

Paul and I walked down to the hangar, and strolled around the planes. I touched the Aztec, which had always been my favorite plane.

Hello, old friend. I've missed you.

"Daddy, don't touch stuff," said Paul.

"Yeah, you're right," I said. "Look. This green one is new---A new Tri-Pacer. This wasn't here when I was."

"Cool," said Paul.

I started with the newspapers.

It took me a while, with the microfilm. The further back you go, the screwier it gets, but I'm probably the person in the county who is most used to that. Finally I found it in a blurry column at the top of page four, the son of Dr. J.H. and Rebecca Fishburn, with a scribble of poem included.

I checked the cemetery records, and to my surprise found most of his family buried in Highland. His mother, brother, and sister were buried in Section 11, over the top of the hill. I checked the rest of the county---Sometimes weird things happen---And didn't find Edgar anywhere. His grave was unmarked, which was probably about right for a kid named after Poe.

So I grabbed a city directory and looked for the houses. Interestingly, his brother had grown up to live on my street, and married the daughter of Mayor William Elliott, who lived next door. His mother had lived at 315 East Main Street.

Every one of them had died young, including Mayor Elliott.

Nevermore.

"Maybe there will be people on top of that building again," Paul commented as we sat down at the table with our Chinese food.

"Maybe." The city had been opening up downtown areas for outdoor dining on the weekends---One little positive effect of the pandemic. Michelle dug into the bag and passed out our food.

"I chose something to surprise you," she said. "Picked it from the spicy menu."

"Looks good," I said. "I could use a little bit of spicy today." I opened the egg rolls. "When we're finished, you want to take a ride up to Highland Cemetery?"

"Yay! Highland!" said Paul.

"We got nothing else to do," Michelle agreed.

After dinner, we rode up to Highland Cemetery in the Prius. Michelle said,"Where are we going?"

"Section I."

"I have no idea where that is."

"Take the lower loop, the back way around to the hill."

"Just tell me when to stop."

"Turn left."

We pulled up along the back end of the cemetery, and I got out. A moment later, Paul was following, wearing his black dress.

"I'm sinking, Daddy," he said.

"That's because you're wearing high heels."

"What are we looking for?"

"Graves with the name Fishburn." This kind of thing is a little easier now that Paul is learning to read.

I saw it almost immediately. Partway up the slope, I spotted the graves of Rebecca and her other children. "Here they are," I said.

Paul came over. "You found Fishtail?"

"These are the ones I needed," I said. "And here's a space, right here...."

"What do we do now?" Paul asked.

I knelt down. "This is where Edgar Allan Poe is buried," I said.

"How do you know?"
"I can tell by looking. See how there's a space here? The grass is a little greener, and the ground takes a dip. This is the grave of a child."

"It looks like I won't be going back to Piper, after all," I said, sitting down at the table. "They hired a new weekend guy, and the board thinks he can do the newsletter."

"Ah, sorry, Dad," said Tif. We were on the third floor of the library for my lunch break. "I know you were looking forward to that."

I unwrapped my sub. "Well, I'll survive. Spend more time at home with Paul. Write another book. Find a few adventures. But it was good to go and visit the place again."

Paul looked over at me. "If they need you to help sometime, will you?"

"Probably," I said. "I always did love that place. If they asked, I'd help."

"Can I come, too?"

"Sure," I said. "You can always come along and help."

"And see the planes?"

"And see the planes."

Deader Than Ever

FIVE WEEKS LATER

The imprint could have been a Sasquatch print. Could have been a puddle. It was kind of hard to tell.

I knelt in the mud, looking down at the ground in the Wayne Township forest. Upon completion of the new nature trail in the township, they'd suddenly gotten Bigfoot sightings. The township supervisors had capitalized on it by putting a wood carving of a nine-foot Sasquatch along the trail. I was doing some investigation.

"Daddy? Come look over here."

I stood up and pushed my way through the brush. I was wearing my new professional paranormal outfit---Black Bigfoot shirt with day-glow yellow stripes, yellow bandanna around my right ankle, and a black jacket with all sorts of zippers and buckles on it. I walked over to my son along the trail.

Paul is six. He was wearing his gray shirt with "Queen of Everything" written on it, and blue terrycloth shorts. I looked at what he was pointing at, in the mud.

"A Bigfoot print!" he announced.

"Hunh," I said. "You might be right, little man." The print was indistinct, but visibly a footprint. I could clearly see toes. It appeared to be about fifteen inches long---Not impossible for a person, but unusual. 

"Here's what we do," I said. "If you don't have a ruler, you lay something down beside it before taking a photo. That way, you can show how big it is." I set down my Swiss Army knife beside the footprint and fished out my camera. "Just call me Jack Link, because I am messing with Sasquatch."

"Also, I think Bigfoot went to the bathroom over there," said Paul.

"Get a sample," I said.

My name is Lou, and I live in Lock Haven.
Don't ask me what I do for a living. That's hard to describe.
I'm sort of the history expert at the public library, but I also do a lot of paranormal investigation. I write about it all for the local newspapers, a website, and the occasional magazine.
There was no box for this on the college applications. I kind of fell into it over the years, as I discovered I was really good at it.
If you got it, haunt it.

It was a cool, pleasant morning. The colored leaves were falling as I rode my bike down West Bald Eagle Street. I turned and headed toward Bellefonte Avenue, where an exercise class was doing stretches outside the local coffee shop. The instructor saw me riding by, and waved. He called out,"It's Lou! Hi, Lou!"

I waved back as the whole class turned and called out greetings. I rode into work---The Ross Library.

I put on my mask, walked in and took my temperature, and then headed up to the third floor. I walked into the monthly staff meeting. 

"You're late," said the New Boss.

I frowned. "We're supposed to be here at a time?"

"Hey, Lou," said Holly. "We took a vote while we were waiting, and we decided that the last person in should take the minutes."

I sat down. "Well, you'll definitely regret that."

"Let's talk about the annual book sale," said Mel. "It's coming up next week."

After the meeting, I walked down the back way. It's my favorite route to my desk. As you leave the third floor, you can enter the oldest part of the building, an old mansion built in 1887. I can disappear in the twisty hallways upstairs. I passed the attic door and cut past the Sloan Museum Wing, going down the back stairs to my desk.

Our founder, the woman who gave us the library, was Annie Halenbake Ross. Her funeral was about where my desk now sits, which I've always found cool. I sat down at my desk in the old, haunted building, and to type up my half-assed meeting notes.

"Let's find the brick sidewalk, Daddy!" Paul said happily as we walked down the street in the dark. It was our usual Alien Patrol---Since sometime last summer, we'd been going out at night and checking for possible UFOs. Protecting Lock Haven from aliens since 2019.

"I think it's right up here," I said. "One of my friends on city council asked me to look into it. He wants to know if the brick is original to the city, or placed later." I shined my flashlight down on the corner. "I think this is it, right here."

We knelt down, looking at the sidewalk. Down below, near the corner, it was ragged, almost randomly placed bricks. But as it went uphill, it was better preserved, and formed an actual walkway, all dark brown brick.

"Daddy! Look! This one has words on it!"

I shined my light on the brick. Stamped on it, it had the words PENN BLOCK CALDER PA. "That's a pretty good clue," I said. "We gotta look that up."

Back at the house, I pulled out my Pennsylvania map. There was no Calder on it, which was interesting. I got online, and searched the term. I found it on a page run by the Cameron County Historical Society.

I found Paul back downstairs. watching TV. I said,"Guess what, little man?"

He looked up at me. "What?"

"Those bricks came from Cameron County, way up past Kettle Creek," I said. "The town on them, Calder? It doesn't exist. A guy named Calder built the Penn Block Brick Works, and wanted to found a town with his company homes. He started making bricks with the name Calder on them, but then couldn't get the license to start the Calder Post Office, so his plan failed. So he wound up with a bunch of bricks with the name of a nonexistent town on them. When the place went out of business in 1920, a local bank bought them and sold them at a deep discount. Those bricks have probably been there a hundred years."

"Cool," said Paul.

"I'm gonna do some more digging," I said. "I can probably get an article out of this."

I used to hate meetings. Then COVID-19 hit, some asshole invented Zoom meetings, and now I hate those even more. Whose idea was it to take terrible meetings and mix them with technology so you can now do them from home?

I sat down in my office, turned on my computer, and brought up the link. The camera came on, and I saw SaraLee sitting there, wearing her gray ghost-hunting shirt.

At least this one was with someone I like.

"Hey!" she said with a smile. "How are you doing?"

"As well as anyone," I said. "How about you?"

She shrugged. "So, you said you had some ideas about the team?"

"Kind of, yeah," I said. "I think we're gonna have to start getting back out there. Things are opening up, and we have clients who've been waiting like forever. I think we're gonna need to start investigating again, but with some precautions."

"Agreed," she said. "What did you have in mind?"

"Small and limited," I said. "Maybe two of us at a time, for shorter investigations, on a volunteer basis. Masks and gloves. It's not ideal, but it's way better than nothing."

"I think you're right," she said. "Let's pitch it to the others."

"I feel bad for you, actually," I said. "You just got on the team, and then this shit happens, and we have to go on hiatus."

SaraLee laughed. "I know, right?"

"I'll contact a few clients on the waiting list," I said. "See if they're still interested. If we can't manage that, we'll go do some exploring on our own."

"Good."

"Hey," I said. "I misjudged you. I really did."

"How's that?"

"You know I had reservations about you joining the team," I said. "You know how I am about the psychics. But I was wrong. You're smart and you're active. You're exactly what we need right now. I misjudged you, and I'm sorry."

SaraLee smiled. "You mentioned that back when we met in February. You were forgiven then, and you're forgiven now. Let's do this thing."

"Hey, Ari," I said, leaning over the table. "You know those posters you made to advertise my haunted tours in October?"

Ari, our new tech person, looked up at me. "Yeah?" she said.

"Can you make a smaller version?" I asked. "Four to a page, so we can cut them and hand them out at the book sale?"

"Let me check," she said. "I think I can. I'll definitely try, and see what I can come up with."

I smiled. "I have every faith in you, Ari."

I walked through the lobby and out the library's back door, into the book sale on the patio. It was insane---People were in the aisles, staying six feet apart, and still managing to form a crowd. We had mask rules in place, arrows showing people which way to go.

I walked through the sale. I was wearing my new black sweatshirt with the little alien on it. It was easy to forget, for a little while, that we still were in a pandemic. But everyone was wearing masks, and the library staff had been ordered to be cautious.

Ari came out, holding out a stack of little flyers for the tours. I took them.

"You're a genius, Ari."

I think she smiled behind her mask. "Let me know if you need more."

I put them on the table, and went inside. I walked into the Pennsylvania Room and sat down---I had the whole place to myself. I pulled History of Cameron County and looked through it. 

Nothing on Calder or the brick works. But I found a huge entry on the Dent's Run gold.

Dent's Run was the supposed place that some gold had been lost during the Civil War. I'd dealt with this before---It was the first article I'd ever done for the Pennsylvania Wilds. I'd become a little dubious of the existence of the actual gold, in fact; a lot of the details didn't make a ton of sense. I read through the story.

It contained more detail than any account I'd yet seen, which was interesting. I had to wonder where some of this had come from. Dates, names, and a detailed description of the route, which I hadn't thought existed.

Zach looked in. "Lou, can you cover the desk a little early? I gotta get out to the sale and run the register."

"Oh, sure," I said, and stood up.

"Sorry to interrupt you---"

"I can do this at the desk as well as here," I said. "It's cool."

"So I was looking for information on bricks, but I found a long entry on the Dent's Run gold," I said. Then I mixed the chicken into the casserole.

"There's gold?" Tif asked, sitting at the table. Paul was outside, running around with his little friend from next door. I think both of them were wearing black dresses. Meanwhile, our senior Schnauzer, Kasper, was wandering around the kitchen.

"Well, maybe, but I'm a little dubious," I said. "The story is that during the Civil War, a shipment of gold was taken through Pennsylvania, but the crew largely died. The one remaining guy, Connors, made it as far as Lock Haven, and the gold never turned up. I worked on this one a few years ago."

"Has anyone found it?"

"Nah, not yet. I'm not convinced there's anything to find. Efforts have been clownish and badly researched. The earliest mention of this was in a magazine from like the fifties. A lot of details don't match up. I've begun to think it's most likely a myth."

"Be cool if you could find the gold, though," said Tif.

"I think it's more likely I'm gonna find proof it never happened," I said. "Which would also be cool. With the details I have from the Cameron County book, I should be able to track some things down. It would have made the news at the time. If there's a total absence of news, that'll tell me something."

"I mean, how can you tell?"

"With this new information, I have the date Connors supposedly came to Lock Haven. That'll be big news if it really happened. If I go through the newspapers and don't find a mention of it, that tells me a lot. If I do find something, even better. Either way, I can get an article out of it."

"And your title?"

"Baby, It's Gold Outside."

"Jesus christ. That's the worst one since the one about the guy who tried to blow up his girlfriend in Renovo you called An Explosive Romance. It would be cool to go to Cameron County and look for treasure, though."

 I put the casserole in the oven. "Well, keep next Friday open. Not Cameron, but we're going up to Potter County."

"What's in Potter County?"

"After dinner, we're gonna take a drive up to Cherry Springs State Park. It's the furthest place away from any streetlights in Pennsylvania. Darkest place in the state. We're gonna sit and look at the stars."

"Sounds good," said Tif.

 In the morning, I walked into work, hung my backpack on the hook, draped my jacket over the chair, and immediately was hit with a question.

"Lou, do you know where we can find the book Doctor Nina and The Panther?" Barb asked me.

I rolled my eyes. "Are you serious? This again?"

"A book club wants to read it."

"It should be in Pennsylvania Biographies, but I wish they'd knock it off with that stupid book. It's supposed to be about a woman doctor who lived in this area, but historically, none of the details check out. It's likely a fraud, and people come to me all the time asking when I'm going to write about it. At this point, I'm sick to death of hearing about Doctor Nina and the Goddamn Half-Wit Panther."

Barb went to check biographies. I went to the card file. 

Speaking of things that probably weren't true. Nothing under Connors or Castleton. I checked the biggest books---Linn, Meginness, Furey. No mention. I went to the newspaper archive.

We have a little card file that nobody knows about but me. I keep telling people how to use it, and everyone keeps forgetting that it's there. It shows what newspapers we have from which years, and where to find them. It saves me tons of time.

I flipped through it, checking to see what newspapers we have from 1863. I know newspapers got a little sketchy during the Civil War, and it could be chancy finding them. To my delight, there was one entry for the Clinton Democrat, with spotty issues throughout the year. It had a notation.

ASK STAFF FOR ASSISTANCE.

That meant the attic. I was the staff they'd ask for assistance, so I knew roughly where to look. I walked up the stairs and into the attic, in the newspaper room. The shelf was all pulled out and rearranged from my attempt to get into a secret door back in May. Sometime I'd have to come and straighten that up.

I dug around---The newspapers in the attic aren't in much of a discernable order---Until I found the ones from 1863. I unwrapped the brown paper around them, and started paging through.

When I got back downstairs, Barb was back at the desk. "Someone filed it under fiction," she said.

"Probably a good idea," I said. "It wasn't in the attic. I checked."

"Is there someone on that roof?" I suddenly asked, looking at the Larsen Building across the street.

Tif, Michelle, and Paul all turned and looked up. We were sitting in one of the city lots, eating subs for dinner. Michelle said,"I don't see anyone."

"There was someone there," I insisted. "They ducked down. Can't see them now."

"What would someone be doing on the roof?" she asked.

"Personally I'm hoping sniper. It would liven things up around here."

"They'd definitely be after you," said Tif.

"Fair," I said. "Been doing a lot of work on the Dent's Run gold."

"Does it exist now?"

"Likely not," I said. "I pulled the old---There he is!"

We all looked up. Looked like a couple of young people were doing something on the roof. Michelle said,"Huh. There is someone."

"I told you."

Paul stood up and shouted,"THANK YOU FOR ENTERTAINING US!"

We all laughed. I said,"So, no mention of the lone survivor of the Dent's Run incident in any of the best books, for one thing. No mention of a guy staggering into town and then later being claimed by the Army."

"Which would have been big news," said Tif.

"Right. With the new date I found, I checked through the newspapers at that time. We have them for June and July 1863, which is allegedly when it was happening. No mention of any of it, which is telling as they reported all sorts of other Civil War stuff going on at the time."

"They would have said something," noted Tif.

I nodded. "With all the Civil War news, they'd have said something. I noticed something else, too---There was a lot of recruiting being done, but they all were catching a train to Harrisburg. If there had been an actual Army outpost in Lock Haven at the time, the way the legend says, they'd have signed up right here. There's nothing supporting this legend."

"So there's no treasure to find," said Tif.

"No digging required," I said.

Paul was waiting on the sidewalk with me when SaraLee's car pulled up. Rolling down the window, she said,"Hi, Paul! How are you?"

Paul, who to the best of my recollection had never met SaraLee before, cheerfully said,"Good!"

"Are you doing school online?"

"Yeah," said Paul. "It's fun."

I hugged him. "Back soon, buddy."

"Will you be back before bedtime? You promise?"

"I promise."

I got in SaraLee's car. I had a black mask with a single ghost on it. Hers had ghosts and bats and stuff all over it. We were both wearing our gray ghost sweatshirts, and I had the jacket with all the buckles and zippers on it.

"Right around the corner," I said.

"On Highland," SaraLee said. "I remember."

"Right, I keep forgetting you grew up in this neighborhood," I said.

"Paul's cute," she said.

"He's a great kid. We're having some clinginess problems lately....Since the lockdown, he doesn't want me out of his sight. He gets scared when I have to go to the grocery store."

She nodded. "I've been feeling like a terrible parent, when I need five minutes alone. I get it."

"Right up here," I said.

By 7:30, we were set up and investigating the house. The clients had left us alone---Occasionally clients do, though it's uncommon. I looked at SaraLee and said,"Bring any of your equipment?"

"I have a recorder, but I forgot it," she said. "With my kids home, I wasn't as organized."

"Understandable," I said. "Here, you can use my spare laser thermometer and EMF detector. Let's get started in the living room."

We sat down on the floor. I turned on the recorder. "Is there anyone here?"

"Can you say your name?" asked SaraLee. "Do you have a message to pass on?"

There was a sound, a little tap, near the stairs. SaraLee looked at me and pointed, and I nodded. I leaped up with my camera.

7:53 PM. We were upstairs in the hallway. Recorder running. "I mean, I just wanted to get out and do my thing again, you know?" I was saying. "It's been so long since we got to do anything."

"Sixty-nine degrees," said SaraLee, aiming the thermometer. "I know. Believe me, I'm so over this."

8:16 PM. Down in the kitchen. 

"You know what really drives me nuts? The bags at the grocery store---You can't get them open anymore! You can't lick your fingers with a mask on...."

"Oh, I know," said SaraLee.

I said,"I mean, during the lockdown, I felt so useless, you know? All I could do was sit at home and teach Paul survival skills. And I love the little guy, but I wanted to get back to work. And that made me feel guilty, too."

"I know. I felt bad going back to work....Instead of being home, spending time with my kids. My son asked me when he got to spend a day with me."

"And doesn't that just stab you through your heart?" I said.

"Having a night out is good," said SaraLee. "I needed this."

I nodded. "Me, too. We should get back to doing this more, even if it's just me and you."

"Agreed."

I looked at the recorder. "Might as well wrap this up. I did promise Paul I'd be home before bedtime."

She slid the laser thermometer across the counter at me. "Here you go."

I slid it back at her.

"Keep it," I said. "You've earned it."

It was dark in Potter County. I mean really, truly dark. You may think you know what dark is. I assure you that you do not. Not the kind of dark that comes with being miles and miles from any available streetlights.

We sat in the dark, looking up at the stars. The Prius was parked in the middle of the field at Cherry Springs, and we had lawn chairs set up. Tif and Michelle sat in two of them. Paul was running around in the field, and I sat on the ground. I was wearing my dark blue sweatshirt with the rainbow alien on it, and my backup paranormal jacket, black denim with white spots.

"Daddy, I'm scared," said Paul.

"What are you scared of?"

"There might be ghosts."

"I've never heard any stories of ghosts at Cherry Springs," I said. "Besides, what are you worried about? We look for ghosts all the time."

"Yeah, but it's really dark here."

"It's too bad Biz couldn't make it," said Tif. "She's not feeling well. At least we're still doing this tonight."

"No way I was missing out on this," I said.

"I can see the Big Dipper," said Paul. "And I see Cassiopeia!"

"Very good, little man," I said. "Hey---What's that?"

There was a bright white light above, moving through Cassiopeia toward the horizon. It began to stop, hover, and then continue, growing brighter and dimmer as we watched it.

"What the hell?" said Michelle.

"It's a UFO," said Tif.

"It is a UFO," I said. "It's not identified. I don't know anything that behaves that way. Heading north-northeast. Eight-thirty five PM. I can't think of what that might be."

It hovered, dimmed again, and then disappeared.

"Wow," I said.

"We just saw a genuine UFO," Tif commented.

I crossed my arms. "This turned out to be a pretty good night."

Half an hour later, we were riding home along Route 44. It was dark, Michelle driving, Tif in the seat beside her. I was in the back with Paul, who had fallen asleep with his head on my shoulder.

Yeah. This is why I adopted a kid.

As we rounded a bend, he stirred, opened his eyes briefly. "I lv you, Dy," he murmured.

"Love you, too, little guy. You have fun tonight?"

"Mhm."

"Last few days, we've looked into Bigfoot, ghosts, a buried treasure, and a UFO. Been a pretty busy time, huh?"

I looked down. His eyes were closed.

He was asleep again.

Designation Green: Ida's Deathday

"The Brady Bunch is over, Daddy," said Paul. "Can we go out on Alien Patrol now?"

Currently, Paul is obsessed with two things: The Brady Bunch and quality time with me. I said,"Get your sneakers on. We have time for an Alien Patrol before bed."

Last summer, we'd begun going on walks at night to check the skies for UFOs. We'd actually seen a couple, given the caveat that "UFO" means "unexplained light in the sky" and not "little green men." It had become something of a nightly ritual for us, going for a walk in the dark. Paul had seen and learned about constellations and other planets, bats and slugs, global directions, and some of the local buildings.

We'd started just walking up and down Fairview, our street, but lately we'd branched out. Mostly these days our route went up and around on Highland Street, around the block and returning home.

"Look, Paul, there's the Big Dipper," I said. "It's a clear night out; we can find the North Star."

"And that points north," said Paul.

"Right." During the quarantine, he'd learned a lot of survival skills, and retained most of it. "Look, up by the moon---I think those two lights are planets. Jupiter and Saturn, I think."

"Jupiter's back?" Paul said excitedly. We'd seen Jupiter last year, and he'd gotten fond of the concept.

"I believe so. I think I remember hearing that we might see Mars this summer, too. Could spot some Martians."

"Martian, Martian, Martian," said Paul.

We turned the corner and walked down Fairview. Paul pointed and said,"Dad! A UFO!"

I looked up. It was a bright white light, unblinking, appearing very high up, moving east at a fast pace. Not a commercial airline. Not atmospheric. No sound.

I said,"I'll be damned. What is that?"

"Let's chase it!"

The thing was already moving rapidly toward the mountains. "We'll never catch that thing, little man. It's going too fast."

"What is it?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Sissy and me heard Ida yesterday," Paul announced as we stood on the back porch.

"Oh, yeah? What happened?"

"We heard the door open, but nobody was there."

"Yeah, that sounds about right," I said. "She does that." Ida is the ghost in our home. She committed suicide at seventeen in 1905 by drinking acid on the back porch. I leaned down and picked up a cardboard box. "I suppose I better clean up this porch so we can do some investigating sometime."

I picked up a few things, and about ten bees flew up into the air. Before I could react, one of them had already stung me on the wrist. "Ow! Shit!"

"What happened, Daddy?"

"Off the porch. Now."

We rushed in through the kitchen door, and I held ice on the sting. I said,"Got stung by a bee, little man, and I'm mildly allergic. Gotta treat this."

"I'm getting a stick!" Paul declared, and ran out the front door.

He was back in two minutes, carrying a stick and two of my bandannas. I didn't know where this was going until he began wrapping them around my arm, making a splint. I'd taught him that a while back, during the quarantine.

"There," he said.

I laughed. "Okay, that'll help. Thanks, little man."

"I think you should wear it to work," he said.

We were outside on the sidewalk when Tif showed up, half an hour later. Me, still holding the ice pack on my wrist, Paul wearing his black dress, and Kasper the Schnauzer.

"Daddy got stung by a bee," Paul announced.

Tif looked at me. "You're not gonna pass out or anything, are you?"

"If I made it this far, I'll be fine. Stay away from the back porch for a while."

"Well, I'm not allergic. If I get stung, it's no big deal."

"I don't want either of you to get stung. Not so hot on myself getting stung, either, but here we are. Paul mentions you guys encountered Ida yesterday."

"Might have, yeah. We heard someone come in the back door, and nobody was there."

"That's the door her father carried her in through when he found her dying on the porch. It makes sense; we're coming up on the anniversary of her death. This month it's a hundred and fifteen years."

"And you're celebrating by getting stung by bees."

"I was cleaning the porch in anticipation of investigating. I think the takeaway here is to never clean the porch."

Years ago, when we'd moved into the house, I'd done the research on the property and come up with Ida's story. As time went by, I'd filled in bits and pieces, gathering old documents. I'd learned where she was buried, how her father had been charged with neglect, who her relatives were.

Some parts of this had always been unknown to me. I had very little information on her mother, Lydia. She'd died four years before Ida had, but I'd never learned the details. Fortunately, things had been a little slow lately. Even as the county went Green, the library wasn't working to capacity.

I picked up the genealogies from the Pennsylvania Room before my lobby shift. There were two genealogy books that covered Ida's family. It had been a while since I'd taken a look. I went out to the lobby.

"Hey, Jim," I said. "I'm your relief. Any more ghost sightings?"

"Nope, not today," said Jim.

"I'll check back. Paul and I saw a UFO the other night."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Nothing like, you know, actual aliens, but we saw a bright light we couldn't explain. It was really high up, and going really fast."

Jim considered it a moment. "Could have been the International Space Station."

"I never thought of that."

"We can check that on the NASA website," said Jim. He picked up the tablet---We were supposed to be using it for library business, but we all surfed the internet during lobby shifts. He brought up the website awfully fast; I suspect he had it bookmarked. "Would have been visible around nine-thirty, and been heading roughly northwest."

"....Yeah. It was. That's a pretty good possibility."
"Mel said she was going to go out and see it."

"Well, we didn't mean to, but Paul was really pleased when he saw Saturn and Jupiter," I said. "He's going to be thrilled."

I sat down and began looking through the genealogy. There was a photo of Ida, sitting with her sisters. It had been a while since I'd looked at it. I spent a couple of minutes looking at her, this young girl who'd come to be part of my home.

Then I backtracked, working my way back to her mother and grandparents. I found a little bit of history for Lydia, and the will of both of the grandparents---All reprinted in the book. I'd never really gone that far back before. There was some interesting stuff.

When I got home that afternoon, the kids were out back. Paul and his little best friend from next door were splashing in the pool, and Tif was sitting in her wheelchair nearby and watching. I pulled up a lawn chair and sat down next to Tif.

"You notice no matter where you sit, you get splashed?" I asked. "I could be indoors; the water would hit me."

"I have noticed that." said Tif.

"You think I'd look good in ripped jeans?" I asked her.

"You have this way of starting a conversation in the middle, did you know? Most of your jeans are ripped at the knee anyway."

""They're not, actually," I said. "I guess I just look like the kind of guy who wears ripped jeans."

"Really? Huh. Well, I guess it would work for you, then. You thinking of a style change?"

"To my professional ghost-hunting outfit, yeah. You know the one---Black shirt with the LHPS symbol, black jeans, tactical vest. It works for me, except I've seen my photo in magazines and newspapers. I look like an action figure. It has a sort of cop, military look. And in the current political climate...."

Tif nodded. "With people protesting the police, that's bad."

"Yeah. I look like a Portland Homeland Security officer. Gonna get shot reaching for my thermometer. So I'm thinking of going as hippie-like as I can. I considered growing a beard, except...."

"You can't grow facial hair."

"Yeah. I can't grow a beard by the time Trump leaves office. If he gets re-elected, I still can't grow a beard by the time he leaves office."

"Get a motorcycle jacket."

"You know Ida's mom died here, too?"

"You just did it again, you know."

"I did some research today. Ida's mother, Lydia Yost, lived here. Turns out her father died in 1890, and left his money to his wife, to be dispersed equally among the kids on her death. But she changed the terms---Left the money to only one of her kids, and it wasn't Lydia."

"Holy shit. That's low."

"For nine years, Lydia lived here with that abusive asshole, George, in the hopes of getting enough money to maybe make things better. Then her mother died, and she got nothing, and was stuck. Lydia died here two years after, at age forty."

"And Ida committed suicide, what, four years later?"

I glanced at the porch where Ida had died. "Yeah. Lydia died young, too. I think we may have more than one ghost in here."

"Too bad there's no way to find out."

I looked up at the house.

"Maybe there is."

"Hey, I got one for you, Dad," said Biz, looking at her cell phone. "You ever hear of the Squonk?"

I laughed. "I love the Squonk. Creature only found on Pennsylvania."

"Oh, you know it!"

"Oh yeah. The Squonk is in my Field Guide to North American Monsters, which I use more than most of my college textbooks."

Tif looked up from her dinner. "What's the Squonk?"

"A forest creature in Pennsylvania so ugly that it cries all the time," said Biz. "If you see one, it'll cry so hard it dehydrates. Look, here's a picture."

"There are stories of lumbermen catching one in a bag, and bringing it home to find the bag just filled with Squonk tears," I said. "Now that you mention it, I need a Squonk T-shirt. Why do I not already have like six of them?"

Biz did a quick search on her phone. "They make them," she reported.

I laughed. "I'm gonna have to order some of them. Yes, we can go on a Squonk hunt sometime."

"Oh, yes," said Biz.

"Bedtime," declared Michelle. I gathered Paul up off the couch, and we started up the stairs.She was ahead, and she turned into the hallway. And then she screamed and ducked into a crouch.

"What the hell---"

"Bat!" Michelle shouted, turning and running back downstairs. "There's a bat!"

I could see it, flitting back and forth in the hallway. Michelle and Paul ran downstairs. I walked up, staying low. It flew into my office, and I followed it, closing the door.

Okay. Now I was trapped in my office with the bat. I stayed in a crouch and crawled across the floor. The north corner of the house had two windows, and I opened them both, letting the cool night air in.

I turned around. The bat was hanging on the curtain, between me and the exit. I picked up one of my Bigfoot slippers and threw it in the general direction of the bat, which disturbed it enough to start flying around the room again. I ducked under it and moved out the door, closing it firmly behind me.

I walked downstairs.

"Bat's sealed off in my office," I said. "The windows are open. Chances are he'll fly out on his own by morning."

"Should we sleep downstairs?" Paul asked somewhat hopefully.

"Nah, it's okay," I said. "The bat can't get out. He'll leave; he doesn't want to be in here either."

It was the first thing Paul wanted to do the next morning. "Dad, can we check and see if the bat's still there?"

"Jesus, Paul, I haven't had my coffee yet." I considered it, and relented. "Okay. Give me a minute, and we'll check."

I threw on some clothes, and we carefully opened the door. The room was cool and breezy; the windows had been opened all night. We stepped in, looking all around. No bats.

"Looks like it worked," I said. "The bat took off overnight. He's outside now, and probably a lot happier."

"Will he come back?"

"Probably not. That's only the second bat we've had in this house, and we've lived here since 2003. I gotta get dressed for work."

I walked into the library in my new outfit. I took my temperature and checked the box---New post-COVID procedures---and then dropped my stuff off at my desk.

Zach looked up, and looked me over. 

"I like it!" he said.

I was wearing the new professional outfit. Ripped jeans, tie-dyed bandanna, my new Squonk shirt, and a new jacket with all sort of buckles, zippers, and metal decorative pieces. I said,"I'm making a few style changes to my ghost-hunting outfits. Glad this one passed the Zach test."

"Are those real metal, or just plastic?" he said, looking at the bits on my shoulders.

"They're real metal," I said. "This thing weighs like twenty pounds."

"It looks good," Zach declared.

I went to work. I had some publicity work to do, and obits to look up, and I was working on cleaning out my desk. But I pushed all that aside and went back to the Yost genealogy.

I flipped through, starting with Ida and working my way back, the way I had before. There was a photo of Lydia I hadn't seen before, standing in a group shot. She looked just like her daughter. I made a photocopy.

I checked the index file for Lydia's obit. It was in a September issue of the Clinton Republican, which we did not have on microfilm. God is my co-pilot. I got on Findagrave, which I despise, but you gotta go with what you have. Someone had found an obit from a different paper, and listed it.

It showed her as dying from "a short illness," which wasn't very specific. She was buried in Highland Cemetery, which I knew. 

Looked like I had everything I was going to get this time.

Dinner was Cuban food that my wife brought home from a restaurant near work. Afterward, I went up to my office and gathered a few things. On the advice of SaraLee, I picked up an old copy of Black Beauty that had once belonged to Ida. I strapped on my leg rig, which didn't look too military---Mostly that looked like a middle-aged guy trying to be cool, which was accurate enough. And I gathered up all my equipment to take my son and search for the girl who'd killed herself in my house. You know, wholesome family shit.

Paul was putting on pajamas in his room.

"You ready?" I asked him.

He nodded. "Yeah."

We set out a couple of trigger objects, little dogs I'd gotten out of a gumball machine. Gumball machines are a great source of trigger objects. You set them on a piece of paper, trace around them, and see if anything moves them. Then we went out to the porch....The porch where Ida had killed herself.

I set my recorder on the railing and turned it on.

"Start recording, nine-thirteen PM on South Fairview Street, August 19, 2020. It's been a hundred and fifteen years since Ida Yost died on this porch. Lou."

"Paul."

"Is anyone here? Ida? Lydia?"

"Any ghosts here?" asked Paul.

"Check the EMFs," I said. We each pulled out a detector and checked around....Nothing yet. 

"Thermometers," I said. 

We got out our laser thermometers, and checked around. Paul reported,"Seventy-one, sixty-eight...."

I said,"Paul. Look at this."

He leaned over and looked at my little screen. He said,"Twenty-two."

"Yeah, Twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit."

"That's like winter."

"Yeah. It is; it's cold like winter. That's way too low. There's something going on here."

Later, after everyone had gone to bed, I had a moment to myself.

I went upstairs and set my leg rig on the desk. I let the recorder run, which was something of a tradition on the anniversary. Back downstairs, I got a beer out of the fridge. On a team investigation, that was a big violation of the rules---No drinking. But in my own home, alone, I figure it was forgivable.

I sat down on the couch. On the stairs, I heard it---The sound of soft footsteps. I stood up and looked.

There was nobody there.

"Hi, Ida," I said. "You're a hundred and thirty-two now. You want to have a beer with me?"

The next morning, I woke up and opened my eyes. I crawled out of bed, trying not to wake up the pugs. I was wearing my Justice League pajamas.

I walked down the hall, and glanced it the door to my office. The leg rig was lying on the floor, where I hadn't put it. It had been moved overnight.

I smiled.

"Well, Ida," I said. "Good morning."

Designation Green: Death By Bicycle

"There's the paper factory," I said, pointing it out to my son. "We really should start checking it nightly for the Jersey Devil. It's been a hundred and eleven years since he showed up there, but you never know with the Jersey Devil."
Paul was shining his flashlight on the sidewalk, checking for slugs. It was about nine, and we were doing our nightly Alien Patrol. Thanks to my son and I, the Hill Section of Lock Haven had not been invaded by aliens in at least two summers.
"No aliens at the moment," I said. "They're all social distancing. They're scared of Coronavirus."
A few bangs went off, up the block. I said,"Fireworks. I hate these people who start celebrating the Fourth of July until about August twenty-ninth. A lot of people mistake fireworks for UFOs; it happens in Renovo practically every year."
We rounded the corner onto our street, and Paul collapsed onto the sidewalk, because he is five. Lying on the ground on his back, he pointed up into the air. "Look! A alien ship!"
I turned and looked. A small thing with red and blue lights was lowering over the three hundred block. I said,"That's the first thing I've seen in the sky in like three months."
"It's landing!" said Paul.
"It's a drone," I said. "Sometimes they get mistaken for UFOs. Let's chase it."
We ran up and around the corner, into Finch Alley, but the drone was gone. I said,"First thing we've seen in a while. Good sighting, little man."
"Can we go and tell Mommy?" he asked.
"Yes. Let's go tell Mommy."

"How's it going, Lou?" Adam asked as he came into the lobby to take over the shift.
"Pretty slow," I said. "I got so bored I discovered a secret code here in the lobby/"
He set his stuff down on the table and turned to me. "Okay, I'm bored too. I gotta hear about this."
I pointed to a metal plaque on the wall.
"This plaque was for Wilson Kistler, who established a membership-only library in Lock Haven," I said. "Kistler was a big deal in the community. First board president here. Involved in everything. I investigated his house once."
"Okay."
"You'll note that there are leaves and berries carved in it, up top," I said. "All the times I've walked past this, I never noticed before. Now, the Victorians had this flower language, involving plants and trees. I'm embarrassed to admit I learned about this from a Batman comic."
"Cool."
"So these leaves and berries look like cherries to me. I looked it up, and cherries are the symbol for education. Wilson Kistler was big into that. It makes sense to commemorate the man who helped create the library with a symbol that means education."
"That's cool, man. I'm gonna have to look into that."
"This stuff's all over, if you know where to look for it."
I walked inside and sat down at my desk. Chris came in a minute later---Chris is an old friend. He'd trained under me about a decade back, and gone into local tourism himself.
"Hey, Chris."
"Hey, Lou. Just gonna get a few old articles for the Record. The microfilm working?"
"Yeah, I was on it earlier. It's good."
He sat down at the machine and began searching. "So, how's things? Been up to anything good?"
"Not as much as I'd like." I stood up and leaned against the index file. "Been doing a lot of working from home. I'm lucky to have some archives stocked up over there. But man, it's getting old."
"Oh, yeah. I think everyone wants to get out and do something."
"I get it. I mean, we need to be careful. We're not out of the woods yet. But man, I need something. I been indoors looking at familiar ghosts and historic tidbits for months. I want a good, solid UFO sighting. I want a water monster. I want to chase Bigfoot."
"I can fake a sighting for you."
"Technically unethical. I don't mean to be a whiner about it. I realize people are dying. It's just that I haven't been able to do anything really good in a while."

I walked into the library, took my temperature, and sanitized my hands. Procedure. I was wearing aliens on both my shirt and my mask. Mel was working the desk, and her husband Jim was standing nearby.
"Well, since this happened twice," Jim said,"I may as well say something."
"Oh, this again," groaned Mel.
"What's up?" I asked.
"This has happened twice," said Jim. "I've come in early, been working alone in the building. At the staff door, I've heard the sound of a key, and someone coming in on the steps, but when I look, there's nobody there."
I grinned. "Ah, I see why you came to me with this. I've had something like the same experience; I've been working alone in the building and heard footsteps over in the stacks. This about nine, nine-thirty?"
"Earlier. I get in about seven."
"Okay, so real early."
"Working alone Saturday morning is gonna be fun," commented Mel.
"There's generally no threat," I told her. "Ghosts were people too."
"I just don't want to see anything."
"I'll check into it," I told Jim. "It's been slow lately. I'll see what I can find, and let you know."

I was carrying one of the big scrapbooks when I went out to the lobby to take over from Zach. He asked,"Doing a little research?"
"Jim heard a ghost."
He nodded. My co-workers are pretty much used to this. "What're you trying to find out?"
"I want to know when the staff entrance was built."
"Good luck," he said. "I mean, if anyone can find out, you can."
I started paging through the scrapbook. The Ross Library's scrapbooks date back to when Annie Halenbake Ross died in 1907, leaving her home to the city. Every article since then had been cut out and pasted into these things. Yes, in recent times, that includes my own articles.
Zach returned a little while later, on his rounds picking up the trash.
"Find anything?" he asked.
"Yeah, dad you know this place served as a shelter after the 1936 flood? I just discovered that. Also, it looks like the stacks were built in 1963."
"I always heard the fifties."
"I always heard that, too, but I'm seeing newspaper photos of that wing being built here, and they're all 1963. Our estimate was a little off. The staircase seems to have been built about the same time, which means that it happened during the term of Isabel Welch, the longest-lasting director this place ever had. New Boss is about fourth from the bottom, at this point."
I pointed at the scrapbook. "Now look. Isabel was also the first director to live off-premises---She had an apartment on Park Street, where the laundry stands today."
"Did she? It would be interesting to see if that's haunted, too."
"It would, at that. I'll check one of these nights. But this means she'd have been the one to have the staff entrance built, and the first one to routinely unlock that door and come in. She worked here for a long time. If there's a ghost there, it's likely to be Isabel."
"Didn't she establish the Pennsylvania Room?"
"Yeah, so often when I look into a haunting I use her work. She also got married while she worked here....I hear when she met her husband, she would come in to work all giggly and happy."
"Awwww...."
"Yeah, it's really kind of sweet, isn't it? They were really in love. I checked them both on Findagrave, and it turns out that he died the year after she retired in 1984. He was killed in a bike accident."
"Oooh. So if this was a warning....You and Adam...."
"Right," I said. "Me and Adam."

When I walked in the next morning, I was all in black. My black T-shirt had a large ghost on it. I'd considered wearing my LHPS uniform,but this wasn't team business, so I'd worn the personal one. (My mask still had an alien.) When I got into the building, Mel said,"Be right back, Barb. I understand Lou figured out some stuff about the ghost, and I want to hear him tell Jim."
We walked down into the lobby. Jim was there on his shift. I said,"I'm still looking into it a bit, but right now, I think you have encountered Isabel Welch, you lucky bastard."
Jim laughed. "Okay. Who was she?"
"Longest-lasting director we ever had. Big into local history. She was the one who had that door installed, and lived off-site, so she was the first to use it every morning. Given all that, it's logical that she's the one you heard."
"So she was cool?" Mel asked.
"She was. The usual suspects would be Annie Halenbake Ross or Mary Elizabeth Crocker, but the door didn't exist during their time, so they had no reason to be using it. I'll be down later to install some trigger objects in your office, Jim."
"Trigger...."
'Toys. You put a tiny toy on a card, circle it, and see if it moves."
"If you hear me scream, you'll know it worked."

An hour later, Adam came down to take over the lobby shift from me. I said,"Hey, Adam. This is gonna sound weird, but it's me, so I'm doing it anyway."
"Sure, man. What's up?"
"Jim's been hearing a ghost at the staff entrance."
"Sure, man, that happens."
"I think it's Isabel Welch, whose husband died in a bike accident. Could be she's trying to warn others away from the same thing." Many people would scoff at this, but that's not Adam.
"Dude."
"Be careful when you're riding out to Beech Creek, okay?"
"Always am. But thanks. I'll be extra careful."
"Me, too."

I usually have a few pieces of ghost-hunting equipment in my pack, and I always have trigger objects in my desk. I grabbed a little alien and a tiny dog, and put them in my pocket. Then as an afterthought, I picked up the little alien that had sat on my desk the entire quarantine, and put him back on my blotter.
I walked out to Jim's office, which is in the garage. I placed a small card on one of his shelves, put the little toy dog on it, and traced around it with a pen. Then I walked out into the stairwell, and after a moment of consideration, I put the alien on the table with our thermometer and hand sanitizer, and traced around it, too.
Then I got out my laser thermometer, and swept it around the stairwell. Everything had a baseline in the mid-seventies---No big dips. I checked my ring, a new one that registered temperature. It showed thirty-six degrees---It only worked in Celsius. But thirty-six was about right.
I got out the EMF detector. As I pressed the button, it blipped. It continued to make a sound every few seconds, which was interesting. There was no reason to think the stairwell was filled with electricity. That was worth noting.
I left the trigger objects to sit overnight, hoping to catch a ghost.
Just another day at the office.

"Got the alarm?"
"I got the alarm. Was anyone on the third floor?"
"Just up there."
"Let's do this."
I hit the buttons to set the alarm, and Zach and I walked out of the building. As the door closed behind us, he said,"See you tomorrow."
"Have a nice night, man."
I climbed on my bike and rode down Erie Alley. The bike was a used one I'd gotten for about ten bucks. Paul and I had painted it various shades of green with leftover spray paint I'd found around the house, and it had come out roughly the color and texture of a reptile. We called it the "Lizard Bike." The thing was a tank, though, solid and unstoppable.
I rode to the end of the alley, and turned left. Then I slammed on the brakes and skidded to an abrupt stop---A car flashed past me, going far too fast. I hugged the edge of the alley, up against the building, as it missed me by inches.
As it sped away, I stopped for a moment and breathed. Jesus. I'd nearly been killed---It had been close, but I'd stopped in time.
I recovered and looked up---Across the street, at the laundry on Park Street. What was once the home of Isabel Welch, right near where I'd almost been hit.
"That was close," I whispered. "Thanks, Isabel."

I had my coffee. I had my mask on. Looked like I was going to be able to be productive any minute now.
I sat at my desk with my Sasquatch travel mug. It was first thing in the morning, and I was having more than the usual trouble focusing. Finally I stood up and walked into the Pennsylvania Room.
The room itself was named for Isabel Welch, though nobody ever referred to it that way. Her portrait hung in the short corridor that led into it. I stood for a moment, drinking my coffee, looking at her picture.
And then, for the first time, I noticed the frame it was in.
 It was a big, decorative thing, wood with a gilded covering. I reached out and ran my fingers along it. The pattern of the carving showed what appeared to be English ivy.
I thought about the secret codes I'd mentioned to Adam. I went back to my desk and looked up what ivy meant, in the Victorian flower language.
It translated into marriage, dedication to being married.
Representing a woman who had loved her husband so much, she was still trying to protect people from dying the way he had.
"I'll be goddamned," I said.

Designation Green: Dead Man Camping

My son and I were checking the upstairs hallway for ghosts when the phone rang.

It was my wife. "What are you guys up to?"

"Just doing a hunt upstairs," I said. "Paul thinks he heard Ida roaming around up there."

"Hey, do you want to go camping for a night at Little Pine this year? The weekend of the Fourth?"

"Sure, I guess," I said. "Check the availability."

"I just did. They have one site available."

"Go ahead and book it. We haven't been camping yet this year."

I hung up and turned to Paul. "You've been asking to camp at Little Pine this year instead of Kettle Creek, kiddo. You ready to go next weekend?"
"Yeah! Are there playgrounds at Little Pine?"
"I'm sure they have playgrounds. Yes."

Little Pine State Park is over in Lycoming County. Most summers, we took a trip up to Kettle Creek here in Clinton County, and I'd grown very used to the place. I knew every mystery, every path. This year, we'd been discussing trying out a new park. Little Pine had come up.
When I got to work, I started checking around. Paul has his playgrounds. I wanted the historic and paranormal information.
I began with the DCNR website. Cryptids---No. UFOs---No. Well, damn. I checked the maps; I'd been up to Little Pine before, but only to hike the Carsontown Trail a little. I wasn't intimately familiar with it. I checked the history over; Little Pine had been in sawmill territory. There were two communities in what is now the park area, Carsontown and English Mills. Also, I learned, a Native American burial ground someplace, which had potential.
I looked over the maps. We had Site 46 booked. It took me a moment, and then I found it in the camping area. It was very near a portion of the Mid-State Trail, which cuts across half of Pennsylvania. And I saw a notation that there was a cemetery.
Ah. Now we're getting somewhere.
I went into the PA Room and pulled the Lycoming County Cemetery books. When I got back to my desk there was a guy walking past, without a mask.
"Sorry, sir," I said. "We require masks to enter the building."
"I don't have one right now," he said. "Can I just look up an obit really quick?"
"It's a firm rule, sir," I said. "Not my rule. It's required by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries."
"I'll come back," he said, and left.
I'd been rapidly losing patience with mask-free morons lately. I opened the book and checked the Old English Cemetery, one of two inside Little Pine. It was very near our campsite. There were twenty-eight people buried there, including the first settler in the area and several people who had died young. Which meant that there was history there, and every reason to assume the place might be haunted.
This gave me something to work with. Gonna be a good camping trip.
I shot my editor for the PA Wilds an e-mail, pitching the idea of a Little Pine article. She'd go for that---My trips with my family had made good articles before. As long as Paul kept being cute, I was good.
Many of the burials had taken place in or near 1890. There's a little trick I've learned over the years. When I see a lot of graves with the same year in a cemetery, I go to Google. Then I type in that year and the word epidemic, and see what comes up.
It came up instantly---A worldwide flu outbreak. You can always tell. So, assuming the place was haunted, it was reasonable to want to check---Victims of a flu outbreak might just get active during another outbreak.
Paranormal investigation. When your life ends, my workday begins.

"Happy birthday, little man," I said. "You're six now. Hold on, I got a present for you."
We'd just finished dinner. For his birthday, I'd let Paul call the menu. So Tif, Michelle, Paul, and I had eaten hot dogs, broccoli, and macaroni and cheese. I handed Paul a small box.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Open it and see."
He carefully pried it open. Inside was a small pink pocketknife. He gasped.
"Daddy! Thank you! I love you!" He hugged me.
"You've earned it," I said.
Michelle looked at me. "I thought you said you wanted to wait until he was older."
"He deserves this," I said. "I was seven when I got my first knife." I didn't mention that I'd been about seven and one day when I got my first cut. Mothers didn't need to know that stuff. "The way he learned during the quarantine showed me that he's ready."
Paul hugged me again. He was actually crying. "Thank you, Daddy! I'm so happy! I love it!"
"After dinner, you and me can go out and I'll teach you safety," I said. "We'll cut up a stick for practice. And you can take it up to Little Pine this weekend and use it there."

"Which site are we in?" Michelle asked me as we pulled up along the road.
"Site Forty-Nine," I told her. You'd think she might recall the number, as she was the one who'd made the reservations, but no, that was my job. "Should be up ahead."
"There it is." We pulled in, to see a tent already there. I got out and stared at it as a method of solving the problem.
"Did someone not check out?" Michelle asked.
"They should have," I said. "It's almost three now." I turned and flagged down a passing DCNR ranger in his truck. "Just checking, sir....We had this one reserved, and someone seems to be here."
"Let me call it in and check," he said.
Meanwhile, Michelle was on her cell phone, checking the confirmation e-mail. "Site Forty-Six," she called out the window. "We're in Site Forty-Six."
"Ah. I got it wrong. Sorry, sir," I said to the ranger.
He laughed. "I recognize you. I'm not surprised."
I grinned. "Yeah, my writing skills are way better than my math."

It took a little while to get our campsite set up. Michelle and I had been using the same tent for about eighteen years, and I'm going to be a little sorry one day when it inevitably needs to be replaced. We'd bought it years ago, and I'd joked at the brand name "Fast And Simple E-Z Tent" before finding out that it was genuinely fast, simple, and easy. I had the tent up in four minutes, and the cooler out and ready soon after that.
"Can I go down to the playground?" Paul asked.
"If you want," I said. "I think I'd like to go find the abandoned cemetery. Want to come?"
He shook his head. "Later. I want to go to the playground."
"Okay, little man. See you in a bit."
Michelle was reading a book. She waited by the picnic table as I walked down the path. Checking the map, I turned right at the fork. And there it was, dammit.
The Old English Cemetery was right there---Practically across the street. I could still see the campsite from where I was. It was the first time I'd discovered a lost cemetery within sight of my wife.
I walked around the cemetery a bit. It was a pleasant place, a little overgrown. I snapped a few photos. I found the grave of James English, the man who had founded the village. I checked over all the stones---It wasn't hard; there couldn't have been twenty graves in the whole place.
After a while, I walked back. Michelle was still reading.
"I found it," I said.
"Yeah," she said,"I saw you."

The sun went down over the mountains in the evening, and the heat dropped. I didn't have much of a problem starting a fire for dinner, and we roasted some hot dogs. To my surprise, Paul ate four of them. It got dark a little after nine, and we put him to bed.
My son had yet to sleep with any cooperation when we're camping. He's not too hot on bedtime at home, either. Michelle and Paul lay down on their sleeping bags, and I sang him his usual songs, and then I went outside to the picnic table. I was wearing my Area 51 shirt. The campfire was still burning down. I turned on the lantern and scribbled a few notes for the PA Wilds article. Then I lit a cigar, and sat down to read a book I'd borrowed from the library.
Fifteen minutes later, the tent unzipped, and Paul came out.
"I can't sleep," he said.
"Did you actually try?"
"It's a long story."
I'd actually been sort of hoping for something like this.
"You want to go check the cemetery for ghosts?"
"Sure."
"Let me get my stuff."
I have a black satchel that I tend to carry investigative stuff in on trips. I pulled it out of the car and got out the leg rig, strapping it around my right leg. Hanging from my belt, it held most of what I'd need for smaller, less involved investigations.
"You want the laser thermometer or the EMF detector?" I asked him.
"Both," said Paul.
I handed them to him. I carry extras.
We walked down the path and around the corner, back to the old cemetery. As we entered through the fence, Paul looked things over. "I think those are footstones," he said.
He'd learned about footstones not long ago when we'd been to Youngwomanstown. "You're right. They are. Very good. Do we have a baseline temperature?"
"Eight-five. Now seven-nine."
Temperatures in the seventies up into the eighties. That was about right. I said,"Let me know if it drops to six something or lower."
We walked among the stones, looking them over. I said,"This place was once a village. It was founded by a man named James English. That's his gravestone here. He's buried here."
"Did he build it?"
"The village? Pretty much. But now it's a state park."
"Now it's Little Pine."
We walked around a bit, and I took some photos. I was sure I was going to get orbs, but they were certain to be dust or bugs. "Anything on the EMF?"
"Nope." I could hear the little blip noise as he pressed the button. This model made a little sound every time the button was pushed, and it happened all the time when the thing was packed. It had grown to drive me crazy, which was why I always kept it in my less frequently used leg rig.
No temperature drops, nothing with the EMF. I patted Paul on the shoulder.
"Bedtime, buddy. No ghosts tonight."

On every camping trip, there's a moment in the morning when I open my eyes for good---I know I'm not going back to sleep. This time, that happened around five AM. I crawled out of the bag wearing my chupacabra pajamas, walked across the road to the showers, and then came back and got a fire started. We had eggs and toast for breakfast.
Paul was up a little while later. He ate one of the remaining oranges.
"So, little man, which one is your favorite?" I asked. "Kettle Creek or Little Pine?"
"Uh....It's a tie," Paul declared. "Can we go look for the other playground before we go home?"
"Sure," I said. "Let's take a walk."
We walked around the camp for a while, checking the map, until we discovered the playground halfway up a hill near the entrance bridge.
"That's lame," said Paul. "It's just swings. There's no slide."
"We might as well check it out anyway."
Paul and I walked up to the swings, and he climbed on. I gave him a push, and then go on one myself.
It wasn't lame. It was amazing. The swings went out over the whole hillside, so you felt as if you were much higher than you really were. I  felt like I was swinging between the mountains at a dizzying height like a Thunderbird, and I laughed. A slide would have been unnecessary---Any kid who slid on this slope would shoot four hundred feet clear down the hill.
"This is great!" shouted Paul.
I laughed again. "Yes it is! I love this!"
And that was how we spent the morning. We shot up into the air, swinging together, my son and I.