Saturday, October 22, 2016

Lots of Tyler, Texas Ghosts, Part Two



3/12/16 (Original Date of Planned Publication)


October 21, 2016

If you follow me on Facebook, you'll know I've had a lot of personal stuff going on the last few months. Even my blog, which I dearly love, fell by the wayside. I'm going to give it my all from now on to get back to writing a blog at least every two weeks. Cross your fingers and wish me luck!
Now back to where I left off last March, the second part of Tyler ghosts, with another part yet to go. This is an appropriate place to re-begin, since it's my favorite month. I also happen to know that George Jones and Jericho Tours of Tyler do awesome ghost tours this month.
~~~~
As I mentioned in the first part of this tale, we're not quite through with the Tyler ghosts. It was an awesome night with George Jones and his crew. Each time we thought it couldn't be any more fun, something else caught our attention.
"You're both gonna love this next place," I told Sarah and Floyd after we enjoyed the McClendon House.
"You've been there?" Sarah asked.
"Yep. That was a couple years ago, when I got to spend some of the time with Jason McLeod. You remember him, the author of those fantastic Dark Siege books?"
Jason McLeod and Me
We made sure we got the address for the GPS, since we'd lost sight of our guide on the way to the McClendon House and had to google the address. Following the mechanical GPS lady's directions, we drove to what they call the haunted railroad warehouses in Tyler. These buildings are spooky enough during daylight. At night, the entire area is something you would think twice about entering unless you had someone knowledgeable to lead you.
Though this was my second visit there, I only know a little bit about them, things I've picked up from George over the years I've been friends with him. I may be wrong on some of the details, but I'll pass on to you what I think I know.
There were originally five huge warehouses located, of course, beside a train stop. They were used to store goods unloaded from, or to be loaded onto, trains for shipment. There were several deaths connected to these buildings, but I haven't learned much in the way of details. As of now, they are abandoned and used by permission as a haunted location on George's tours and for a horror night show during Halloween month.
At times, homeless people have sheltered in the warehouses. One warehouses burned down years ago, and it's believed there were some homeless folks staying there when that happened. Some think perhaps the building caught fire from the men trying to keep warm with barrel fires. Now there is only a large bare place where this warehouse used to be.
At least one of the remaining four buildings, the one George uses for home base, is full of various horror props. There are masks and makeup scattered over the walls and tables, and tunnels lead through it, much like a fun house. Around some of the bends in these tunnels, you'll run across other horror scenes bent on scaring you. They're pretty realistically horrific, too. I won't spoil George's business by telling you what the scenes are, since I'd urge anyone who can to take one of George's tours, especially during Halloween month.
In 2016, George added what he calls the Puzzle Rooms. There are three rooms that have only one hidden exit. The players have to discover how to get out of the room by finding and solving clues. They are timed on how quickly they can all escape within the allotted hour.
Are these buildings haunted? Very haunted! I'd even say extremely haunted. And not only by friendly Caspers. There is more than one nasty malevolent, and George takes measures against these types of ghosts. Are there other entities besides ghosts here? Let's just say he has also run across more than one really bad entity. However, from what I've seen and experienced, I believe part of what happens is due to a mindset from some of the tour participants. Different types of people go on haunted tours.
One: We have those who are of the macho mindset (including some women), who are going to taunt the entities they encounter to show off their supposed superiority. I'll admit, I enjoy seeing this type of person get their comeuppance — and yes, it happens, more frequently than these people expect.
Two: We have those who want to be "scared to death" in order to (they hope) be able to brag to their friends and relatives about what happened to them. These types are the ones who usually end up having to be babied and soothed and taken out of the tour, since they claim they are possessed or freak out with panic. On this night, DoDad, one of the experienced Native American members of George's staff, had to take a woman out of the warehouse when she started hysterically hyperventilating.
I'm not very sympathetic to those types, either. No matter how many times you tell people that ghosts and demons and devils are real entities, they won't take mental precautions. They think it's all a fairytale. Well, some believe fairies are real, also, and most of Grimm's stories are ghastly tales full of mean and nasty people. So these types should take heed, but don't.
The third category includes two types of paranormal investigators. Some are part of those who taunt, only they claim to know what they're doing. Ninety-nine percent of them do not. The other one percent are serious and take precautions, plus show respect. The one percent gain my esteem in turn.
Sorry I went off on one of my soap box tangents. I know you're more interested in the ghosts we encountered.
George always has experienced and respectful paranormal people helping him out, so for the first couple hours, they led us through the warehouses. We started with the first one, the home base warehouse, which is sectioned off into tunnels. This warehouse did have electricity, and there were wires strung down the tunnels to provide light. However, whenever we used any equipment, we made sure it was kept well away from any source of electricity so we wouldn’t encounter any interference.
There were various stops along the way where our guide investigators had previously discovered hotspots, places where the lingering ghosts would interact. Anna Lee, my trigger object Raggedy Ann doll, got such a workout that we had to change her battery during the time we were there.
Our first stop was a place where I felt saddened. We had been informed by our guides that it was where a little girl sometimes made contact. If you follow me, you know I feel strongly that any child ghost needs to be crossed into The Light. However, since this wasn't my investigation, I couldn't take charge and intervene.
When we halted, I immediately felt paranormal energy around my legs, at a height that appeared to indicate a child ghost. I didn't get a sense of unhappiness from her, just a feeling of joy that she had someone there to "talk to." Still, I could imagine her loneliness when left to wander all on her own.
"She's here," one of the guides whispered, confirming what I felt.
I sat Anna Lee on the floor, and she immediately lit up. Over the course of the next half hour or so, the little girl truly did enjoy playing with Anna Lee. But several other pieces of equipment also activated, including KII's, indicating a few other ghosts making themselves known. I mentally communicated and relayed what I heard. It was pretty mundane conversation, nothing memorable that sticks in my mind as messages or warnings.
On into this warehouse, down a few more tunnels, we halted at a place where contact had previously been made with one of the workers who had been killed in a warehouse accident. This ghost was pretty darned strong, and while he wasn't interested in a toy like my doll, the KII's buried themselves several times.
The first time was when one of the guides asked, "Are you here, (name)?" (I'll admit, it's been a while since I made my notes on this experience, and I didn't write down names. So sorry.)
Anyway, we were inundated with flashing KII lights. There were more questions asked, and they were specific enough to this worker that there was no doubt we were connecting with him.
Communications at a few other stops in this warehouse indicated the ghosts we had already contacted followed along with us, two of which were the little girl and the warehouse worker. It was an interesting trip through the tunnels.
I kept waiting for some of the ghosts I'd met on the previous visit to pop in, especially the one with the ugly face who kept peering around a tunnel corner. On that trip, George had watched me do a crossover and experienced the wind rushing through that enclosed warehouse when several dozen lost souls went into The Light. He'd asked me if I could do that again, so his wife Heather could experience it, and I did. Hopefully the reason that homely-faced ghost didn't contact us is because he now resides in The Light, where he should be.
Unfortunately, the little girl wasn't one of the ghosts who went home. Child ghosts usually take special handling and coaxing, since they are usually very frightened of any sort of change. Our own crew has yet to fail in this type of crossover, especially since we have Sarah Brigdon with us. Sarah has a special touch with children.
We had three more warehouse to go through, and George also had the puzzle game planned. We'll talk about that in the next blog.
~~~~

Writing news is going to (hopefully) start picking up. I am back at work in spits and sputters on the next diary, Ghost Hunting Diary Volume VI. I'm probably a little over half finished, and Angela already has the cover done. When I get a little further into this book, I'll reveal it to you and explain what's behind it.
Thrall Bound is still available for anyone who signs up for my newsletter. If you have already received your copy, I hope you enjoyed it. If not, here's the signup url, which today's tech calls a "landing page." See? You can teach an old dog new tricks!


Or if you don't want to click through from the blog, you can also go to my web site (www.iseeghosts.com) and click the Newsletter button. That's where clicking the above url will land you, also.
As I said, this story won't be available for sale on line for a long while, if ever. Plus I have some more free things in mind down the road for the people who subscribe. Those will still dribble out slowly, since <knock on wood> the interference of stuff in my personal life right now has also slowed to a trickle. We won't talk about shopping and Black Friday seasons being on the horizon. I'll find the energy for those.
Our weather in Texas has gone through its hot season and it actually cooled down into the high eighties. Then on Friday, we hit the seventies. Yippee for us! We sure did have some cold, nasty fronts go through in the spring and early summer, though. The bluebonnet crop again was rather dismal. Perhaps next year we'll get a better bloom.

The fronts brought a lot of flooding, which repeated itself more than once. My sister Ann and I stayed overnight at one of the gambling boat hotels in Bossier City a while back. Ann was rather disappointed that the Red River didn't rise enough to float our beds the next morning, especially since our rooms were on the first floor <teasing on that>!
We were lucky in our choice of hotels (Boomtown), since the hotel and casino at the Louisiana Downs racetrack had to be evacuated, along with several subdivisions and businesses. I'm sad that so many people lost their homes and businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as now in the Carolinas. Mother Nature won't be denied, however. Please don't ever drive into water over the road. Remember:
Turn around, don't drown.
Fingers crossed I will see you sooner next time, with a report of a really scary situation that happened on one of George's tours.
Boo!
T. M.

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Lots of Tyler, Texas, Ghosts! Part One




I've had some serious ghost-hunting fun several times with George Jones of Jericho's Tours of Tyler, TX. A few weeks before Valentine's Day this year, George posted on Facebook about an overnight investigation on Saturday, February 13. Since it ran over into February 14, it was a legitimate Valentine's Day celebration.
Are any of y'all going to this? my friend, Karla Lang, posted to us. It didn't take long for three of us to respond a resounding YES. Since my friends and fellow crew members Sarah and Floyd Brigdon live here in Terrell, I was able to hitch a ride with them. And what a ride it was! The investigation, not the car ride.
Unfortunately, Karla wasn't able to go at the last minute. Also, somewhat unfortunately for the person who called me, we had a call from a homeowner a few days before the overnight. It was from a wonderful lady we had tried to help several times before and involved the only failure our team has experienced thus far. So we ended up going to Tyler a few hours before we were to meet George to spend some time with the lady. It's not something I can report on in the blog, due to confidentiality. I only mention it here because these homeowner cases don't always turn out to be easily solved. This one is still on-going.
George had kept the ghost hunt destination secret until we arrived in Tyler. We met some of his crew at a designated spot in downtown Tyler at 9 p.m. If you ever get to Texas, and for my friends who do live here, you need to visit downtown Tyler. There's some fascinating history and buildings there.
As to the tour with George, the first place we headed out to was the McClendon House, a historical old place built in 1878.


McClendon House
There's plenty of history on line about this wonderful old Victorian home (http://mcclendonhouse.net/history/), but three facts stood out for me.
One: Annie McClendon, the second owner, was very active in the women's suffragette movement, in addition to raising NINE children!
Two: The youngest of those children, Sarah, became a Washington, D.C. news journalist. Her career spanned Franklin Roosevelt to George W. Bush. I still remember seeing her in the audience of journalists at news conferences.
Sarah McClendon
Three: There is a room in the house that has no entrance! You can see it through a stairwell window, but no one can find anywhere at all to go into it. The owners don't want to tear down walls to examine this room, so for now, it stands as a house mystery touted on tours.
Yes, they do give tours. And yes, this house is haunted. I actually saw doors open on their own during our tour and felt more than one presence. The strongest was in the downstairs bathroom, located where we entered the house. I forgot my camera in the car, so I didn't take any photos myself. However, I was so fascinated with the history and the ghosts I sensed that I didn't miss it.
The next place George took us is an extremely haunted set of warehouses in Tyler. I had been there before, and proven to George that yes, I did communicate across the Veil. However, it may take me two more blogs to report on what happened this time! If you truly want a fascinating experience in the paranormal, contact George Jones at Jericho Tours of Tyler (http://toursoftyler.com/home).
~~~~
Behind the scenes in the writing world: I've been typing away, and Angela's been working away, also. I've actually finished a new short story, and when Angela gets things done on her end, I'll be giving this one away to everyone who signs up for my mailing list! I've been procrastinating building that list for far too long. Once it's done, you won't have to miss another new release from me, unless you forgot to open the newsletter I have Angela send out for me.
I'm not sure yet how we'll do it, but everyone already on the list will get a copy of this story, also. We may have to have y'all contact me so I can send it to you in whatever format you want. Angela's figuring that out.
The new short story is Thrall Bound, and it's one of my eclectic genre mixes. PK is the daughter of a Mage in a futuristic world, who encounters a vampire shapeshifter called Sammael.
Here's the gorgeous Angela Rogers cover and the gorgeous Sammael:

Now I'll get to work on the final tweaks (well, Angela will), and we'll see if we can have this ready for y'all and do another blog next week. See you then (hopefully).
Boo!
T. M.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Emergency Cleansing



Christmas Eve 2015 at the Simmons House
(I look almost small next to my men!)

"I think we might need to do cleanse my house again. Last night the kitchen kept getting mist in it. And just now one of my kitchen knives liberated itself from the knife block. Scared both me & Hannah."
Thus started our 2016 ghost activities. I got this note from Angela, early the morning of January 5. By 11 a.m., we were doing a cleansing at her house, although we had already crossed over the female ghost who was causing the problems as soon as I arrived.
Angela could sense the ghost, and I confirmed what she felt when I got there. It was a woman who had been trying to make contact, but her abilities weren't strong enough to come through clearly enough for Angela to understand what she wanted. What did she want? She wanted to cross over into the Light. Of course, Angela had a good talk with her before we led her into the Light.
"You didn't have to pull that knife thing on us to get our attention!" was one of the mildest things she said to the woman. We didn't allow her to hang around long enough to get her name or what had happened to her. A ghost like this one isn't one we care to get more familiar with.
The ghost had a little bit of trouble understanding how to go into the Light, and she was even a little leery after we showed her the golden pathway and the doorway. She was fearful of retribution, but she finally glided up the path. Like each and every ghost we've ever crossed over, she did remember to turn and say "Thank you" before she went through the door.
Which brings me to something I try to remember but procrastinate on far too much: Cleansing a home where you associate with that other dimension frequently, like mine, should be done a lot more frequently than I do it. I write about ghosts, I talk to ghosts, and I allow them to hang around here if they behave. At least until I do a serious crossover. There's not much difference in a serious crossover and an ordinary one, other than the fact that an ordinary one is like I just did a moment ago: While I'm busy with something else (writing this blog), I point out the doorway to the ghosts if I sense one or more here that might be looking for it. In a serious crossover, I usually make at least a brief contact with the ghost or ghosts and lead them outside, encouraging them to go and actually pointing to the doorway that's always open for them.
My regular readers will remember that Angela's house actually has a portal into the other dimension in it. Therefore, whenever a ghost manages to slip through into her actual house, we pay close attention. We also check that portal often to make sure it's still closed, since when it's open and active, it causes problems in the house, both physical and mental ones. This time, even though the portal was secure, we also put a new protection packet with the other items we keep there for blockage. We reconsecrate old protection packets and make up new ones periodically, which makes our materials stronger.
After we did Angela's house, we asked our friend Sarah Brigdon to join us and did a long-overdue cleansing on my house. Boy, could I feel the difference in the atmosphere! As active as I am in messing around in that other dimension, I should cleanse at least every six months. I think this time it's been at least a year, and the atmosphere was way too heavy. Now it's like a different house.
But yes, Howard is still here. He still refuses to cross over. Since he helps me maintain discipline around here whenever a new ghost shows up, I'll admit I enjoy his presence. Even when Howard intrudes on my concentration and materializes strongly enough to startle me, I usually only smile and shake my head. I love hearing Howard laugh when he "puts on over on me."
~~~~
The Holidays sort of whipped my butt this year. Do you think it's because I was approaching yet another birthday in my senior years? Hopefully, my discipline is back and I'll get things finished, like the short story I was working on for Halloween, the next Ghost Hunting Diary, and another Dead Man Mystery. Fingers flying!
My narrator, Shelley Lynn Johnson, has also started the last Dead Man Mystery, Dead Man Ohio. I have to hurry and get another one for her to read. I do truly enjoy listening to her bring my books to life.
I have a new great-niece who was born on my birthday, and I do hope to get away to see her sometime before she's walking. Welcome to the world, Victoria Mae Cantner.
My Best Birthday Present
 in 2016
Also, my sister Ann is coming for a visit with her little dog, L'il Bit. We're hoping L'il Bit and Dancer enjoy each other, rather than quibble over who is the most spoiled prima donna.
L'il Bit
 Ann is escaping the worst of the Minnesota winter and will return to the North country in May or June. She won't be too much of a distraction to my writing, except when we hit the "garbage" sales or take off to the casinos. I'll do my best to keep on track, though, and make 2016 a great year for new books.
Wishing all of y'all the wonders of love and peace in 2016.

Boo!
T. M.

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