Blue Ridge Parkway Terror Town and How Many Poets does it take to Change a Light Bulb?

 My Artwork

Summer Path at Rock Castle Gorge   Original 30"x40" Oil Painting   $2425

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at  KENDALL KESSLER ART

Violet Rocky Knob Evening   Original 16"x20" Oil Painting     $640

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at  KENDALL KESSLER ART

Wildflowers by a Blue Ridge Sunset  Original Painting has been Sold

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

Blue Ridge Parkway Terror Town

Located 1 mile past Zooland Campground on Pisgah Covered Bridge Road outside of Asheville (.5 mile past Forest Hills). There is old farmland there with a number of hauntings that have been reported over the years. The farm is made up of about 18 acres with several farmhouses scattered throughout.

A little girl's voice is heard deep in the forest. A boy who hung himself there haunts the upper farm.
An old lady and her husband haunt one of the houses. Her brother died in the woods near the house and can now be heard singing at night while he makes moonshine.

A shadow of a black horse has been seen running through the woods and then vanishes.

There is a company who uses the location now for a haunted attraction called Terror Town so it is very easy to access during hours when they are there working. One of the staff lives at the park so don't try to visit this one without permission.

I found this story on The Blue Ridge Parkway Guide online publication

Life with The Word and Bird Man -Clyde Kessler

THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE A SLUR ON MY HUSBAND OR OTHER POETS!  IT IS JUST A FUNNY INCIDENT.

How many poets does it take to change a light bulb?  In this case  - none.  An electrician was called in to do the job.

The other day my husband replaced the bulb in our porch light.   Later, he turned on the light and it didn't work so he turned the switch off so he could see if the bulb was broken.  As soon as he touched the bulb it shattered into a zillion little pieces.

As luck would have it we had already arranged to have an electrician over to work on a broken ceiling fan so he checked the circuit to make sure nothing was wrong with the light fixture.  It was just a faulty bulb!

Blue Ridge Parkway Moon Shine Tale and We were Barely in the Twentieth Century...

Winter Ridgeland Beauty  Original 8"x10" Oil Painting   $168

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

I still have a lot of paintings to post that I haven't already posted but I am running out of time today so here are some favorites!

Near Purgatory  Original Painting has been Sold

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

Evening Glow at Rock Castle Gorge   Original 30"x40" Oil Painting     $2425

Prints on Paper or Canvas Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

Old Jake 1983

Bootlegging, like the chestnut tree, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Only a few old die-hards persist today. Yet, there was a time when bootleg whisky was one of the few ways a mountain family had of getting cash. Not everyone participated but those who did were an independent bunch. They worked hard to provide for their families the best way they could during times many of us today would find impossible.

They were not the lawless hillbilly so many stories have been told about. They were, for the most part, honest, God-fearing family men who did what they had to do.

The articles about bootleggers in The Mountain Laurel will not be making fun of those who made whisky. They may be humorous but it is not our intention to make fun, just the opposite. We wish to pay tribute to the people and the era when independence was alive and times were hard but through it all, humor managed to ease the hardships, if only long enough for a smile.

Must have been 50 or 60 years ago when this story supposedly took place. Seems there was a fellow who had him a still set up down near Lover’s Leap. He was notorious as a “bootlegger” but his word was gold. If he told you something, you could count on it and everyone that ever drank his “corn” bragged on it. Word is that even the judge down at Stuart liked it so much that he kept a little “laid back” for his own use.

Well, it seems that whenever the revenue officers in these parts ran up on a slow time finding other stills, they would come looking for “Jake.” He was their ace in the hole, a “bonified bootlegger” to fill the slack time and their monthly arrest reports.

Well, on this occasion, “Jake” had his still set up down near “the Leap” and it was a model of “bootlegging art.” Just exactly what the revenue boys needed, since they had received instructions from Richmond the day before to dismantle a working still and send it to the capitol for display. The workmanship “Jake” had put into this still was the culmination of a lifetime of experience. He had spared no detail in its construction and it was just the thing for Richmond.

The officers were sorry they hadn't taken a picture of the still before dismantling it so Jake offered to put it back up so they could take a picture in the morning.  He rebuilt it and made moon shine all night long!

Well,  the boys were upset because they’d been tricked, not to mention born gullible and they told “Jake” he was under arrest again. “Jake” is the only man in these parts that’s ever been arrested for bootlegging two days running on the same still at that! But knowing “Jake,” it seems appropriate that he should have that honor.

The day of “Jake’s” trial, he was to be tried for two counts of bootlegging and since word had gotten out about the circumstances of his second arrest, the courtroom was packed. When the revenue boys walked into the room snickers and outright laughs noted their arrival. Since “court days” were pretty big doings in those days, the town was packed. Everyone wanted to find out how “Jake” would fare before the judge.

Well, as it turned out, he “fared” pretty well. The judge reckoned that “Jake” was guilty on both counts but since the revenue boys had told him to set the still back up and hadn’t told him not to run off any more bootleg, if he found “Jake” guilty on the second count, then he’d have to find the boys guilty as accomplices. This wouldn’t really be fair to them because they had already suffered enough humiliation by way of being laughed at by everybody in the county. (At this point, he had to threaten to clear the courtroom if the laughter didn’t cease. Immediately!)

So in the best judgment of the court, they would have to let “Jake” off on the second charge and only find him guilty on the first. This decision met with the approval of everyone including the boys and “Jake”, although he could never understand why a man couldn’t run off a batch of “corn” for his friends and neighbors without it being the “law’s” business.

I got this great story from the online publication, The Mountain Laurel

Life with The Word and Bird Man - Clyde Kessler

My husband and I have never been that great with technology.  When computers took over I didn't want to keep up which is a decision I regret since no one can escape now.  Anyway, my husband says we were barely with it in the twentieth century when it turned into the twenty-first!  Still catching up every day! Yikes!

Blue Ridge Parkway Pink Lady and Apple Turnover...

My Artwork

Evening Peace    Original 18'X23" Oil Painting     $843

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

Country Sunset  Original 8"x10" Oil Painting      $168

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at    KENDALL KESSLER ART

Huckleberry Line Trail  Original Oil Painting has been Sold

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at    KENDALL KESSLER ART

The Pink Lady of the Grove Park Inn

Asheville's Grove Park Inn has a reputation as one of North Carolina's premiere hotels. First opened in 1913, the Grove Park was built by Edwin Wiley Grove and his friend and Son-In-Law Thomas Seely. Grove had made a fortune selling Grove's Tasteless Chill Tonic throughout the South. Asheville and the nearby towns were popular health resorts at the time, and when grove visited Asheville on his doctor's advice he decided to stay.

Soon, he and Seely began construction on the inn, designed to rival the finest hotels in America. George Gerhswin, Harry Houdini, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and even President Obama have all stayed at the Grove Park. Known for its elegance and comfort, the Grove Park hosts several world-class restaurants and a superior spa on site.

It's a beautiful, relaxing, romantic inn that you would never want to leave. And, according to legend, one guest never did.

The Pink Lady is the Grove Park Inn's resident and much-loved phantom. This kindly spirit has been seen and felt in the halls of the Inn for nearly a hundred years. She is said to be the spirit of a young woman who fell to her death from a balcony on the fifth floor of the Inn in the 1920s. She is usually seen in the form of a pink mist, or sometimes as a full-fledged apparition of a young woman in a pink ball gown.

There are various stories about who this young lady was and how she met her end. Some say that she had come to the Inn for a clandestine evening with married lover, and who threw herself from the balcony when he called an end to their affair. Others say she was a young debutante who accidentally slipped and fell to her death.

Whatever her origins, The Pink Lady is agreed to be a good-natured, even a kind spirit. She seems to particularly enjoy the company of children, and seems a little more willing to reveal herself to them than to adults. She has been seen by the beds of children who were taken ill during a stay at the Inn, speaking softly to them and gently stroking their hands.

In one famous case, a doctor who had been staying with his family at the Grove Park left a note when he checked out asking the staff to thank the lady in the pink ball gown, and that his children told him how much they enjoyed playing with her during their stay.

The Ghost of the Pink Lady is also said to enjoy playing small pranks. She's been blamed for lights, air conditioners, and other electrical devices turning on and off by themselves. She seems to enjoy rearranging objects in the rooms.

It's also been said that she'll occasionally wake up a sleeping guest with a good tickling on the feet.

While she has been seen all around the Inn, the spirit seems particularly attached to room 545. According to tradition it was from the balcony off of this room that the young woman fell to her death.

The Inn's employees are used to the presence of The Pink Lady, and treat her as just another part of the tradition of the grand old hotel.

How to Get There

The Grove Park Inn is located at 290 Macon Avenue in Asheville. The Inn is open year-round, reservations are recommended.

I got this great story from Stories from the Mountains. I usually paraphrase what I find, but this time I printed the whole tale!  It is such a great one!

Life with The Word and Bird Man - Clyde Kessler

When you live with a writer, word play is the order of every day.  We were watching the news when a commercial came on about apple turnovers.  

Of course, my husband couldn't resist saying, "Why did the apple turn over?  That cracked me up and I wanted to include it in my blog but, as always, he checked the internet to see if this joke was already around.  

 It is and the answer is great!  The apple turned over to see the banana split!

Blue Ridge Parkway Tom Dooley Legend and Be Careful with those Sparklers!

My Artwork

Liberty  Original 8"x10" Oil Painting      $168

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available    KENDALL KESSLER ART

Wonder  Original Painting has Been Sold

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at    KENDALL KESSLER ART

Reflections on The James River     Original Oil Painting      $2425

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at    KENDALL KESSLER ART

The Legend of Tom Dooley

In 1866, a woman named Laura Foster was murdered in Wilkes County. A man named Tom Dula, pronounced "Dooley", was convicted and hanged for the crime. That murder and the name Tom

Dooley lives on in one of the most famous folk songs ever to come out of North Carolina.
The story of a dashing Tom Dula that returns home from the war to fall in love with a young woman that was being courted by a school teacher is not the accurate story. 

If you would like to read the true story you can find it in Stories from The Mountains online publication.  I would rather stick to the fanciful, romantic one.

 Laura Foster was being courted by Bob Grayson. Foster fell in love with Tom Dula, but so did another woman, Anne Melton. Melton was married, wealthy, beautiful, and insanely jealous.

Learning that Dula was in love with Foster, not her, Anne Melton stabbed Laura Foster to death in a jealous rage.

Tom Dula was blamed for the murder. Tula fled, heading for Tennessee. Bob Grayson headed a posse to hunt down Tom Dula, and he was dragged back to Wilkes County. Dula, realizing that it was Anne Melton who committed the crime, confesses out of a chivalrous desire to save her from a death by hanging.

On May 1, 1868, Tom Dula was executed for the murder of Laura Foster. Grayson returned home to the North. Anne Melton went slowly insane from guilt.

It's this version of the tale, a complicated story story that ends in the death of an innocent man, that became immortalized in a folk song that circulated in North Carolina for nearly 100 years before it was made nationally famous by the Kingston Trio in 1958.

Their recording of the ballad Tom Dooley reached #1 on the Billboard R&B charts, and rose to the top of the country music charts.

THE REAL STORY IS SOMETHING ELSE!

I got this story from Stories from The Mountains online publication

Life with The Word and Bird Man - Clyde Kessler

My husband is a cautious man.  He is great about car up keep and is always advising me on the weather.  He is also very cautious with fireworks.  We only use sparklers due to all the accidents every year with the other ones. 

What I didn't know is sparklers are much more dangerous than most people think they are.
Sparklers remain one of the most dangerous fireworks in terms of accident statistics simply because they are taken for granted.

Year after year people underestimate the dangers of these traditional items and get burnt.

Be sure to have a bucket of water nearby and only light one at a time.  Many accidents have occurred when two of these extremely hot sticks (several hundred degrees celsius) cross and cause a flare up.

So be Safe!

Blue Ridge Parkway Chicken Alley Ghost and Floyd Fest will be here Soon!

My Artwork

Another Rocky Knob  Original 8"x10" Oil Painting    $168

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

Side Street     Original 20"x16" Acrylic Painting    $670

Prints on Paper or Canvas And Greeting Cards Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

Another one of my recent paintings from my Kendall Expressions.  In these paintings I am letting my expressive side take over!   We sure wish we could get some rain.  We are so dry right now.

The Ghost of Chicken Alley

Chicken Alley is a small, narrow alley in Downtown Asheville. Named because of the chickens that would congregate there in the city's earlier days, the most prominent chicken found today in Chicken Alley is the one in the large mural by local artist Molly Must that decorates the entrance.

Dr. Jamie Smith was a physician who practiced in Asheville at the end of the Nineteenth Century. He always carried his medicine bag and a cane with a silver pommel on it. He was known as a man who loved a good time.

Asheville was a rougher city in those days. Men who worked in the logging camps and nearby industries would flood the town on weekends looking for a drink and some company.  Liquor flowed freely, virtue was easily bought and sold, and Dr. Smith loved every minute of it.

There are those who say that the majority of his practice came treating the various social diseases that were the constant companions of the city's good times.

All of this came to an end in 1902, when Dr. Smith walked in to a bar called Broadway's Tavern, which was located in Chicken Alley. In a case of remarkably bad timing, Smith happened to stumble into the middle of a vicious bar brawl. He tried to break it up, but was stabbed in the heart by one of the men in the fight. He died instantly.

Jamie Smith's murderer was never caught. Broadway's Tavern burned to the ground the year after the fatal stabbing.

Ever since that night, people have reported seeing a strange figure walking in the alley late at night.  He carries an old-fashioned physician's bag and a cane with a silver head.

The people who live in Chicken Alley believe that this is the ghost of Dr. Jamie Smith. He has been seen for over 100 years, and throughout that time the figure's appearance has been described with remarkable consistency.

Dr. Smith's fashion sense was apparently distinctive enough to make him recognizable even beyond the grave. The locals are divided as to the reason his spirit returns to the spot where he met his end. Some say he is still trying to stop the fight. Some say he still just wants a drink.

How to Get There

Chicken Alley is located in downtown Asheville between Broadway and Lexington. The Alley runs between Carolina Lane and Woodfin Street, and the entrance on Woodfin is clearly distinguishable by the large chicken mural.

Life with The Bird and Word Man - Clyde Kessler

The popular Floyd Fest is coming soon!  This is a gala event with music and activities!  The Blue Ridge Discovery Center will be there, too!

Floyd Fest

When Jul 25 – 27, 2014

Where Floyd, VA

In cooperation with the New River Land Trust, BRDC will host a series of educational booth activities throughout the week.

Blue Ridge Parkway Phantom Hiker on Grandfather Mountain and That is a Great Homework excuse!

My Artwork

Fish    Original Hand Colored 8"x10" Lithograph   $170

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

Clover Hollow   Original Painting has Been Sold

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

The Phantom Hiker of Grandfather Mountain

Grandfather Mountain stands above Blowing Rock Highway near Linville. The mountain gets its name from the mountain's profile, which resembles the head of a bearded old man laying down in sleep.

Grandfather Mountain was operated as a private tourist attraction for many years until 2011, when it was purchased by the State of North Carolina and is now a publicly-owned nature preserve.

The phantom hiker of Grandfather Mountain is said to be an older man, bearded, with a rough  appearance.  People say he wears old-fashioned workman's clothes that look like they're from somewhere in the middle of the Twentieth Century.

He wears a rough canvas army backpack and carries a long walking stick.
The phantom hiker is said to appear mostly as the evening is settling in, when most of the day hikers have left or are working their way back.

He never says anything to himself or anyone else. He simply appears walking along one of the trails in the back country, moves swiftly ahead of anyone else he encounters, and then simply vanishes.

No one knows who this mysterious figure is. Some have suggested that he was a hiker who became lost in the the thick woods around the mountain, and fell or was injured and was unable to make his way back out. Others have said he's just the spirit of a man who loved the mountain so much that he chose to stay there after he died.

This ghostly hiker seems to do no harm. He seems to want little to do with people in general. He only seems to be there, like all the other visitors, to enjoy the natural wonder of Grandfather Mountain.

I got this story from Stories from the Mountains online publication.

How to Get There

Grandfather Mountain nature preserve is located two miles north of Linville on US 221 near Blue Ridge Parkway at Milepost 305. The admission price covers access to all the hiking trails, exhibits, and the famous mile-high swinging bridge.

The phantom hiker is said to appear on the backcountry trails around Grandfather Mountain

Life with The Word and Bird Man - Clyde Kessler

My husband and I are having fun watching Welcome Back Kotter on MeTV.  We saw a few episodes when the show first came out and thought it was great! 

 We are having a lot of fun seeing episodes for the first time!  We have both taught  elementary school and college so we can relate to the shenanigans students put teachers through.

The other night Barbarino came up with the best homework excuse I have ever heard.  He had another one of the students give Mr. Kotter part of the assignment and was told to look for the Homework Mugger for the rest!   Love it!

Blue Ridge Parkway Story of the Origin of the word Hootenanny and The Word Man gets Published Again!

My Artwork

The White Vase    Original 14"x10" Oil Painting   $295

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

Spring Roses   Original 24"x 20" Oil Painting   $980

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available at   KENDALL KESSLER ART

Two of my favorite florals!

Blue Ridge Sunrise   Original Painting has been Sold

Prints on Paper or Canvas and Greeting Cards Available   KENDALL KESSLER ART

The Story of Boojum and Hootin' Annie

Eagle Nest Mountain stands at the southern edge of the Balsam mountain range and was once home to the luxurious Eagle Nest Hotel. Guests at the hotel soon began to hear the story of a strange creature who lived in the area. The thing was not quite a man and not quite an animal — it stood about eight feet tall and every inch of its body was covered with shaggy grey hair, except for its human face. The creature was named Boojum, and he seemed to be harmless enough, but he did have two all-too human habits.

The first of these was the Boojum was greedy and he loved to hoard gems. Rubies and emeralds are found naturally throughout the mountains of North Carolina, and Boojum loved to hunt for these pretty, precious stones and hide them away in his own treasure hoards.  He would then bury them in one of the secret caves on the mountain

Boojum's second habit  was that he loved to look at pretty girls. Back in those days, a young woman who wanted to have a bath might head off into the woods to find a secluded pond at the base of a waterfall. There, safe from human eyes, she could strip down and bathe. A young woman enjoying herself in the water would often hear a rustle in the bushes and look up to see his hairy face peering down at her.

Now, most of these girls would quickly gather up their clothes and run off back home as soon as they saw him. But one young woman named Annie was braver than most, and one day when she was bathing in a stream deep in the balsam groves on Eagle Nest, she looked up and saw Boojum staring down at her. But Annie didn't run, in fact, she looked into Boojum's sorrowful eyes and saw that above all else he was just another lonely soul living on the mountain. Annie fell in love with those sad eyes, and she fell in love with Boojum, and she left her home and her family to go and live with Boojum deep in the mountain woods as his wife.

As much as Boojum loved Annie, and as much as Annie loved Boojum, Boojum still hung on to his love of jewels. On certain nights, he would leave his bride alone and go searching for jewels on the mountain. Annie, growing lonely, would go out in search of Boojum, and she developed a peculiar holler, something that sounded like a cross between a monkey and a hooting owl, that she would use to call out to Boojum. Boojum would use the same cry to call back to her, and eventually the two calls would come closer together until they came together on the hills.

Annie and Boojum calling to each other was often heard by guests at the Eagle Nest Hotel. Folklorist John Parris has said that Annie's owl-like holler was the source of the term "Hootenanny," which appeared in the language around the turn of the twentieth century and meant any kind of party or get-together. In the 1960's the term was expanded by pop artists to mean a gathering of folk musicians.

Life with The Word and Bird Man - Clyde Kessler

The Word Man really is tearing up the Publishing Turf these days!  He was notified last night of four more accepted poems!

Editor Vanessa Eccles accepted four poems for the Fall Issue of Belle Rêve Literary Journal: A Southern Experience. That is scheduled for November 2014.

 

Poems are “Distances”, “Everything Is A Wager”, “Snow Frogs” and “Talking”.

 

The title of the magazine is from Tennessee Williams’ play A Streetcar Named Desire. Belle Rêve is the name of the plantation home of Blanche & Stella.

 

 

Here is this magazine’s web page:

 

http://www.bellerevejournal.com/