Requiem for a Master

Rather than write to the theme for this month, I wanted to take a moment and mourn the loss of one of our generation's literati.  Granted, Ray Bradbury is not Generation X, but he is someone alive while I am alive and he wrote works that changed my life.  His career spanned more than 70 years - longer than some people get to live on this plane.

I remember reading The Martian Chronicles for the first time. The idea of everyday suburbia in space caught fire in my mind. I wasn’t new to the idea of space travel, having seen Star Wars at a young age, but life on a spaceship and life in a house made out of ticky-tacky where they all look the same* opened a window in my mind.  I think that, more than anything else, brought the magic home to me in a way that let me know that "write what you know" didn't have to limit you to your own backyard.

Mr. Bradbury created new stories well past the "typical" retirement age.  He never sat back on his laurels and said, "Yup, I've done it.  I've writ all I'm gonna write, told the stories I have to tell, I'm done, I quit."  He delighted audiences with his imagination and brought science home in ways that made it touchable, warm, living and real.

I wish that I had the skill of the pen the way he did, to do him justice in a eulogy.  I don't, but I don't think he'd mind.  He understood telling the story the way you see it, in plain language, without a lot of fuss and bother.

Mr. Bradbury, I will miss you.  You changed my life.  Travel well, my friend.  Until the next meeting.

*Malvena Reynolds, "Little Boxes"

Carnival Ghosts? County Fair Phantoms?

It’s race against the clock. A storm is a coming and it’s always a possibility that the electricity goes out here on the plains. Not unusual for August either.

Rain, Thunderstorms, and the County Fair. That’s what August has always been about for me.

And being the County Fair, my daughters and I had an interesting conversation on the way home…through the fog-filled eight mile drive home across muddy gravel roads. Has there ever been a story about a County Fair ghost? See, my girls love Phantom of the Opera so they began this crazy story (they are 8 & 4) about the Phantom of the Fair and then through a barrage of giggling the story quickly became “the Phantom Pig of the Fair.”

But still it made me wonder if there were any real ghost legends or fictional paranormal stories about fairs or carnivals. I could recall Ray Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes” and the 1932 movie, “Freaks” (which isn’t a paranormal but is as scary as heck.) Nothing else comes to mind. Anyone out there know of a paranormal fair story?

A quick search online didn’t turn up any ghost stories related to fairs or carnivals either. I did find an Angel sighting. (I’m agreeing with the Moth camp).

Personally, I think either a fair or a carnival would be a perfect setting for a good ghost story. In one of my early drafts of Half Moon Rising I had a “hazing” scene where a teenage werewolf was dared to sneak into a cheap carnival haunted house and shift without getting caught. It didn’t make it to the final drafts, but I still think it would make a cool scene.

Well, the storm is in the next county. Time to wrap it up. Have a great weekend and see you at the fair!

~Margo

P.S. The storm came through, but only a few end rows of our crops got flattened by the winds. Thank goodness for small favors :)