“A Season with the Witch”

by Jenny 13 January 2018 History

So, I read this book: “A Season with the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts,” by J.W. Ocker. J.W. Ocker lived in Salem, Massachusetts with his wife and two young daughters for the full month of October 2015. The author claims an interest in the occult, which is amusing because the […]

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The War On Christmas. Also, Happy Solstice!

by Jenny 20 December 2017 History

People get outraged over how other people celebrate December.  Centuries ago, people got outraged over how other people celebrated December. Here’s an episode from New England Legends Podcast which explains all this: When Boston Banned Christmas See, back in the 1600’s, the Puritans persecuted non-Puritans (and also other Puritans) over religious beliefs. Sound familiar? I’m […]

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This Year’s Tree Adventure

by Jonathan 10 December 2017 House and Home

This year’s tree adventure was a little… different. We have traditionally cut down our own tree, from the same farm my parents went to when we moved back to this area and started to get a live tree again. This particular farm up by Butler had always been a great place to get a tree. […]

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3 Après-Halloween Folklore Podcasts

by Jenny 10 December 2017 History

Today I read on Facebook that “marriage is just sharing the same germs” or something to that effect. Anyway, I’ve been laid up with a cold since Thursday night. I spent these days sleeping, screwing around on the internet, and listening to podcasts. Now that Halloween is over, it’s harder for me to find “new” […]

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All My Life’s a Circle

by Jenny 9 December 2017 Photography

  This is a photo of my maternal grandfather’s own grandparents. With their children. So, the married couple are my great-great grandparents, and one of the boys is my great-grandfather. This branch of my family was from the South Side of Pittsburgh. In fact, the studio stamp under this photo says: Fallert 1207 Carson ST. […]

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Departure Eve

by Jonathan 5 December 2017 Travel

I just found a short story snippet I wrote in 2013. I was looking for something else (that I didn’t find). I feel like there was supposed to be more, but I didn’t write it. I wish I left myself some notes about the “boring reason” that I didn’t take the boat to St. Ignace […]

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Four Angry Mobs

by Jenny 30 November 2017 History

Today is November 29, and I still listen to ghost/history/lore podcasts during each work commute. This week, I found the American Hauntings Podcast. I think highly enough of it to write this essay right now, and right now it is 10:40 PM on a “school night.” (Ghost hunter Cody Beck and ghost hunter / author […]

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The Thanksgiving Stuffing Story

by Jonathan 16 November 2017 Food

Hi all. So it’s a rare entry (these days) from Jonathan tonight! Our family has been “team cooking” for holidays for the past several years. There used to be time and people enough to get everything done in one place, but as the years went on, that became more and more difficult. My Mom had […]

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Dance With Me On the Dark Side

by Jenny 10 November 2017 History

          Hi, I’m back!   I have to recommend two more podcasts that I liked so much that I listened to them multiple times. I downloaded both of these from iTunes, but I’m linking here to each podcast’s actual website. Here’s the first: Tales of Terror Vol. 8 from “The Dirtbag […]

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“Do You Like My Little Lie?”

by Jenny 16 October 2017 Podcasts

Here is a podcast episode that I listened to yesterday during the storm. The story haunted me all night. The story is “Do You Like My Little Lie?” from the podcast “Strangers,” which is from KCRW. I found it by searching on iTunes through the list of Radiotopia podcasts. To be clear, this is a […]

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