Dark Dreary Night in Monticello

UPON THE HALF decayed porch of a small frame Old Catholic Church, we were waiting for the HauntedMonticello Ghost Tour to begin. One could tell that the Church was made out of a love for Christ, because of the detailed masonry and eye for perfection found in the sanctuary's design. 
Outside the church it was a dreary night.   Tallahassee was being washed out by torrential downpours, and lightning strikes every ten feet. Monticello was so far clear of any rain or any threats from lighting. 
The tour guests were arriving with expectations of seeing a real ghost.
"Do y'all find any actual ghosts on this tour?", said a man wearing an "Astro Boy" t-shirt.
"Well last night… one of our guests thought she fell into a spider web; but in all actuality it was a ghost." said the tour guide.
The tour guide, Margaret Defraud,  was dressed up in a Victorian style dress.  
She knew what the guests were thinking,  "history is spooky".  
But I will show these Yahoos, I will disprove their doubt that "History is bunk!" I will replace this notion with History is a living breathing thing.  History is a monster that stalks its victims." 


I will walk them down that darkened street damned street Stoneham.  Stoneham Street which served as a conduit for lost souls.  Stoneham Street which was always five degrees cooler compared to adjoining streets.  She had witnessed that the wind moved constantly there. 


Margaret Defraud  believed Stoneham Street was an express way for Lost Souls.

Ramblings of Greg 7.2.

I am not writing well today.  Nothing is really that bad, it’s just one of those other days.  It has been a lazy morning here in Florida.  It has been rainy and the clouds hang low like a present rumor.

My wife plays the guitar in the other room. Her soul soars on high.  

Sometimes writing is difficult, there really is not much going on. 

But you need to write every day, no matter what!   So today I sit here trying to think of what to say that might be somewhat positive.  

My arm hurts. Probably from cutting too much meat, filling customer orders, and cleaning up.  Why does ones ears not hurt from listening too much?  

Tonight I will be going to feed the homeless at Munn Park from old Chinese carry out containers, and food made by my friend Miguel Vazquez.  

Cheers to my Nederland friends, and the three guys I met in Israel.   We had a blast partying in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1997, London Underground, Arizona Bar, and spending all my money so that I had to borrow some to get back to Egypt.   I have never planned very well, and have had to rely on the courtesy of strangers.  I have learned  a lot from these adventures though. I am so happy that y'all beat those brats from San Paulo.  

Mayfair by the Lake: Haikus

Dad and I hike up

through dewy laid state park, 

gray slug crawls on moss.

                        - Gregorio Roth

Up way too early, 

have to put up the Artwork,

I need coffee now!

                 - Jessica Baylor Rothbard 

These Haiku were written by my wife and I, the morning of Mayfair by the Lake. The influence for Gregorio Roth's poem is a recollection of a hike my dad and I took at Ecola State Park, Oregon.   It was a rainy day and we witnessed a Slug slurping up a leaf; it was amazing to see something so slow, yet progressing steadily consuming a whole leaf.    I hope you enjoyed them.
Mayfair by the Lake

Outline of the Republic Leads us to Rediscover Heart of Darkness

"The offing was barred by a bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky-seemed to lead into the heart of an immune darkness." (Conrad 158) So ends Conrad's heart of Darkness.   Sidhartha Deb ends his book with an allusion, an implicit reference, to the end of Conrad's Heart of Darkness.  "I turned left , knowing that if I kept going I would come to the river." (Deb 318)  Deb points us again to the place that holds the heart of darkness, once described by Conrad, and that this place still remains in the twenty first century.  We have failed to become a modernized utopia.  A utopia where  the river now flows to the heart of heal-able light.