Lost Paradise

We went to Illinois for Christmas. It was a very nice trip, except for the fact that my sweety got sick. He caught an upper respiratory infection.

It happens. When you are underslept, over worked, and very stressed, the bugs will find you. Could be worse. Thank God it’s not.

I got to see a lot of interesting stuff in Illinois. My sweety took me to the Alton mall. It is bigger then the one around here. Two floors woohoo.

Where the Mississippi river and the Missouri river converge is a small town called Alton. Alton is said to be one of the most haunted small towns in America. It has a pretty macabre history. For instance, there is this place called Hop Hollow Road.

The story goes that back in the mid 1800’s the military took over the Alton Penitentiary.

When prisoners died and needed to be buried, soldiers would be assigned to burial duties.

This was usually dished out as a punishment. The soldiers that received these punishments were the worst. Let’s just say they weren’t the brightest of the bunch, either.

Legend has it that the men would load the bodies onto wagons from the ferry and would never actually make the entire trip up Hop Hollow Road to the cemetery. Instead of doing what they were told they would stop somewhere down the road and take the corpses and dump them in the woods. Then they would sit, drink, and play cards until it was time to head back to the prison.

Legend says that the ghosts of these poor Confederate soldiers refuse to rest in peace. They haunt Hop Hollow Road. Over the years the ghosts have been seen along the roadway and even sometimes spotted hitchhiking hoping to get a ride to where their bodies were supposed to have been laid to rest, instead of being dumped along some old road.

So if you happen to be traveling down in this area, and see a hitchhiker near old Hop Hollow Road, you might find yourself staring at the ghost of an old Confederate soldier looking for a ride to the cemetery.

Can’t say that I blame those old soldiers. If my body were to have been dumped alongside an old road, instead of being buried in the cemetery, I might go out haunting too.

A Brand New Year
It’s a brand new year with not much to fear.
What will be in store for me this year?
Will I have adventures? Will I sail the seas?
Or will I just be eating black eyed peas…

Or maybe I will just end this post.
And leave you with these old soldiers ghosts..
And leave you with these thoughts to ponder..
Why these old soldiers were left to wander.

Since I have been bored and have nothing else to do I got the guild mates and a dear friend of mine to help decorate a tree…. So with a lil effort and a lot of ornaments this is what we came up with. Enjoy.

Well it’s that time of year again. The snow is on the ground, the lights are going up and guess what??? I got a cold. Go figure, every year this happens. You would think I would be use to it by now. NOT!! Ahh, all is well though, other then the sore throat I ain’t going to complain.

The snow is so white and so pretty
The trees look dead now ain’t that a pity

Winters here and fall has gone
What will we do now that the snow has come

We will sit inside and sip our cocoa
And tell stories that may sound loco

Maybe one of a cow tipping day
When the tiny little lamb got lost in the fray
Sharksy could hear it cry and say its baa
But alas it was too late
For that lambs little fate
Was to be squished where he sat
By the cow tipping fairy
Now the lamb is a floor mat

So lean in tight and hug them dear
For you never know how long they’ll be here

For all you know the next time you blink
The good times will have gone and you won’t know what to think

Moral of the story: Let others know you love them, hug them close and love them dear, they may not live another year, good times come and good times go, but your love should be a thing that your friends know

According to Wikipedia Halloween is this:

Halloween (IPA pronunciation: [hælə'win], [hælo'win]) is an observance celebrated on the night of October 31, most notably by children dressing in costumes and going door-to-door collecting sweets. It is celebrated in much of the Western world, though most common in the United States, Puerto Rico, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Canada, and with increasing popularity in Australia and New Zealand. Halloween originated in Ireland as the pagan Celtic harvest festival, Samhain. Irish, Scots and other immigrants brought older versions of the tradition to North America in the 19th century. Most other Western countries have embraced Halloween as a part of American pop culture in the late 20th century.

The term Halloween, and its older spelling Hallowe’en, is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the evening before “All Hallows’ Day” (also known as “All Saints’ Day”. In Ireland, the name was All Hallows’ Eve (often shortened to Hallow Eve), and though seldomly used today, it is still a well accepted label. Halloween was also sometimes called All Saints’ Eve. The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European pagan traditions, until it was appropriated by Christian missionaries and given a Christian interpretation. Halloween is also called Pooky Night in some parts of Ireland, presumably named after the púca, a mischievous spirit. In Australia it is sometimes referred to as “mischief night”, by locals.

Halloween is sometimes associated with the occult. Many European cultural traditions hold that Halloween is one of the liminal times of the year when the spiritual world can make contact with the physical world and when magic is most potent (e.g. Catalan mythology about witches).

Here is the symbolism of the colors that are related to Halloween:

COLOR ASSOCIATIONS
Color Symbolism
Black death, night, witches, black cats, bats, vampires
Orange pumpkins, jack o’ lanterns, Autumn
Purple night, the supernatural, mysticism
Green goblins, monsters
Red blood, evil

Makes one think why we even celebrate the holidays at all?