About This Video:
Straight No Chaser, Indiana University's male A Cappella group, sings Stand By Me by Ben E. King in a random Hardees while driving through Kentucky. February 2007. Check us out at sncproductions.com

Hi All my wonderful Blogstream Friends,
I just wanted to pop in and wish y'all a Merry Christmas (in case I don't get back to my blog before the holidays.) I have been super busy with the newspaper and I now have a new book coming out. I am hoping it will be available before Christmas. I will post a pic of it when it comes out and also a way to order it if any of you are interested.

Anyway, Love to you all and have a wonderful Holiday Season.

Love Y'all LL

Some call it The Haunted River. It winds like a ribbon through the valley. Placid and shiny on the surface, but lurking deep below the surface are secrets. Secrets that most of us will never know and will never dare to ask. Things we shouldn't know. Some things are best left buried.

She is calm tonight. There have been violent times. Times when her rage has almost brought her out of her banks. Times when I as a child could stand near the edge of the long winding road in front of the house I grew up in and dangle my hands into her muddy depths. Times when she brought down huge trees, outbuildings and boulders...and humans.

She was raging the day she took one of the neighborhood children. Rescue teams in their screaming white vans came. Their red eyes flashing like demons. They attacked her but she spit them out onto the banks. Three days later after she had sucked the life from the child, she spat him out as well. Onto the sand near the gnarled trees that had survived her wrath.

Sometimes you hate her. You try to leave but the silence sends you back in a panic. For nineteen years or more you sleep by her side, listening to her breathing over the rocks and when you no longer hear the sound you feel the pull to come back. A strong tie that can't be explained. She whispers to you in your dreams. You return for a visit and never leave.

And yet she can be beautiful as some evil things can be. Many have tried to tame her. Many have died.

Ghostly images can be seen wandering her banks on moonlit nights. Images of the unfortunates who were dragged beneath her shiny surface, never to be heard from again.

The woman they call Flora who drowned during the Great Depression. Some say the river lured her, promised her peace from the day to day images of her starving children. Now she walks the banks at night, searching for them.

The ghosts of the Cherokee keep her company. They can be heard screaming into the night. Along her banks there is a huge rock wall that rises from her depths, standing hundreds of feet high. The place is called "The devil's Looking Glass". the name was given to this place by the Cherokee. They tell of a cave midway up the face of the cliff that was home to a terrible demon. He lay in wait to devour their brothers as their canoes passed by the dark slate image of the face of satan.

The base of the cliff is said to be haunted by the ghost of a young Indian Maiden who after having lost her betrothed in battle flung herself from the cliff to join the Indian Brave in death. She now walks the rocky walls, calling for him. Strange cries of agony sometimes have been heard coming from the rock and on real dark nights the glowing wisps of spirits could be seen among the cracks.

And if you listen very closely, you can hear the river laughing as it flows by 'The Devil's Looking Glass'. Like the cackle of an old hag, driven insane by her own evil magic.

The Cherokee named it "The Nolichucky" but some call it the "Haunted River".

Dear Hubby,

First of all, you know I love you somethin' awful don't ya Babe? However, I have a few questions to ask you. Number one: If a wife hits her husband across the head with a rubber chicken can it be construed as "spousal abuse" and what is the penalty for that? I need to know this because it could happen.

The reason this could happen will be made clear in the body of this letter.

Do you realize that as a newspaper reporter and journalist, I must have gas? Let me rephrase that. All reporters and journalists need a lot of gas. No, that didn't work either. Okay. Let me try again...In order to report on an event or happening, a reporter must travel to the scene to conduct the interviews. They cannot do this if the gas tank on their car is empty. There, that's better.

Yesterday I had to drive across town. Once again, as it always does, by the time I had backed my car out of the driveway, the "out-of-gas"  light came on. Just in case you haven't noticed the warning light before, it's that little tiny picture of a gas pump on the dashboard. When the car is running on nothing but the fumes, that little gas pump thingy will light up.  This is for people who cannot or will not check the gas gauge to see if it is closer to the letter E than it is to the letter F. 

Sweetie, you do know what a gas pump looks like don't you? If not, I will point one out to you the next time we go into town. (It does seem rather odd though that you never have a problem with your truck running out of gas.) Do you have a magic gas tank?

Also, you must be aware that we have been going through a severe drought here in this area, but yesterday it rained for the first time in months.  The rain was pouring down in buckets full and there I was squinting through the windshield feeling like I was in a high powered turbo jet car wash, trying to figure out where I was, with only minutes to get there and all the while that little picture of the gas tank kept glaring at me. I also didn't have my cell phone because someone let the battery run down.  I'm not pointing any fingers here but it was found on your person last night, with no minutes and no juice left in the battery.

And while we are on the subject of dead batteries, do you remember when you turned the ignition on in order to close the windows in the car last week? Well, you forgot to turn the ignition off again. Yeah, that's the same day I walked 18 miles and got sunburned.

You're the best husband I've ever had, but there are just a few things you need to remember at all times. They are as follows: If you turn it on, turn it off again. If you open it, shut it. If it ain't broke don't fix it, and if you empty it, fill it up again. For as you should know by now, if "honey" ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

So here's what I have decided. You can't use my car anymore. I have hidden the keys in the cookie jar on top of the refrigerator so you can't find them. But in case you do run across them while looking for a cookie, please would you replace the gas in the tank before you park the car in the driveway.

Don't make me get the rubber chicken...