A Midsummer Night's Dream

By Mark W. Danielson

It was a hot summer night and sleep eluded me. To be truthful, I had gone without blissful sleep for weeks. In my job, getting five solid hours is a blessing, but since I had been home a while, my unrest was inexcusable. After flipping non-stop like a fish out of water, I rolled out of bed to toil on mycomputer. An hour later and utterly exhausted, I lumbered to the basement bedroom so I wouldn’t disturb anyone. Lying on my back, my dog at my feet, I once again stared into the darkness with eyes wide open.

Busy minds keep bodies awake, and in my case, it was like I consumed sixteen Mountain Dews. Silently counting backwards from one hundred normally drains my brain, but tonight, it merely challenged me to reach zero. I then went through my stress exercises of tightening and relaxing every muscle, but my mind fought back with a vengeance. Then suddenly, miraculously, a new plot came to me about a man so drunk on sleep that he communicates with a spirit. Ah, the perfect sequel to Writer’s Block! At the time, I knew nothing about the real haunting at Fort Worth’s Scott Theater. I learned about that the next day while conducting research, but since my protagonist is a Fort Worth homicide detective, the Scott Theater haunting nicely fits into my story.

Smiling now, I settled into the pillow and closed my eyes, letting my mind drift with the plot. The sequel that I had already begun could wait, for this new story must go forth. After all, who knows sleep deprivation better than an international airline pilot?

Fate has crept into my life in many ways, and I have no better way of explaining this revelation. It wasn’t the first time I received subliminal messages, but I never recalled any being as vivid. So now the fun begins, banging on keys while my subconscious writes this story. I love this stage because nothing has to be perfect. While I have definite ideas on where the story will go, I look forward to my characters taking me there. Months will pass before this story sees its first edit, but that’s not a problem since Writer’s Block won’t be released until this fall. In this regard, perhaps there is some value in sleepless nights. Then again, it would be nice waking up feeling refreshed.

Hauntings at The Hermitage

The Hermitage

By Chester Campbell

I got a different slant on Halloween Saturday night when my wife, Sarah, and I took our grandson to the 8th Annual Hauntings at The Hermitage. If you aren’t familiar with The Hermitage, it’s the restored 1,000-acre plantation home of Andrew Jackson, America’s seventh President. It was my first visit there in over forty years, and the place had really changed.

You arrive at an attractive, modern Visitor Center complete with Museum Store, Auditorium and Garden Gate Café. After paying for admission, you walk through the grounds to the Mansion, originally built between 1821 and 1831 and enlarged to its present size in 1834. Jackson bought the property in 1804 for $3,400 and lived in a two-story log cabin with his wife, Rachel, until building the Mansion. He was living in the cabin when he became the hero of the Battle of New Orleans.

After General Jackson’s death in 1845, following two terms as President, his adopted son, Andrew Jackson, Jr., took over. Junior sold the core 500 acres to the State of Tennessee in 1855. In 1889, the state turned over the Mansion and 25 acres to the Ladies’ Hermitage Association, a group modeled after the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association of the Union that bought George Washington’s estate. Over the years, the state or LHA acquired the remainder of the original plantation where Jackson grew cotton and other crops and ran various businesse enterprises.

Plopped down in the midst of a suburban residential community only twenty minutes from downtown Nashville, this is a large project. It has similarities to the Presidential Libraries and Museums dedicated to those since Herbert Hoover, but The Hermitage has no library, only a small number of documents. Jackson’s papers are at the National Archives, the Library of Congress and various university and private collections. The Papers of Andrew Jackson project at the University of Tennessee has cataloged them over the past several years and is compiling them in printed volumes.

End of history lesson. Just thought that would help set the stage.

It was getting dark when we started our Hauntings venture. There was no moon. The pathway winding through trees and lawns was lighted by lanterns placed every 100 feet or so. Somewhere back on the propery a canon fired now and then. The first thing we encountered was a group of Confederate soldiers gathered around their tents. (Historical note: the Civil War was ten years after Jackson's death, and no battles were fought around The Hermitage.) Our grandson, Justin, wore a ghoulish costume. They commented on how fierce he looked.

“We’d better let him pass,” said the sergeant.

When we strolled by a large shrub, a character who looked like he’d been spray-painted silver jumped out and screamed. We glanced back as we walked on and he stood stiff as a statue, awaiting his next victim.

We toured the mansion, where period-dressed women described how each room was used. We saw bedrooms with elaborate canopied beds, General Jackson’s office, dining rooms, sitting rooms, etc. A bluegrass ensemble played lively music next to the back porch.

After that, we headed down another lighted path to a barn where we boarded a haywagon pulled by a tractor. Sitting on bales of straw, we rode through the dark along a narrow road that wound around the farm. Every few hundred feet, ghosts and goblins jumped up from the roadside screaming like banshees.

As we passed one of them, Justin shouted, “You didn’t scare me.”

To which came the ghoulish reply, “Yes I did.”

We rode under the overhanging roof of a hay barn, where lights flashed and the demons were particularly noisy. Along the way we saw other figures beside the road that didn’t move, so we decided they were dummies.

Afterward, there were ghost stories in a candlelit cabin, pumpkin decorating in another area, and palm reading in the fortune telling tent. I skipped the latter, figuring my palms were too worn to have anything of value left to read. They should have bought one of my mystery books. Now that would have been worth reading.

Sending Justin off with a friend to do two more hayrides and visit the cemetery, Sarah and I retreated to the café for pie and coffee. The temperature had dropped considerably outside. We heard that General Jackson normally appeared along the haunting tour, but the impersonator who played the part wasn’t available that night. Too bad. I read that in his early days, the future President had a propensity for pulling pranks, cursing, and fighting. Might have made for a livelier evening.