Happy Thanksgiving!

Things I am Thankful For:

Life:

On thanksgiving I think about life and death a lot. I’ll explain why at the end of this list…death and Thanksgiving go hand in hand in my family, this is a hard day to find a reason to be thankful.

If you observe everything around you the way I do, you’ll realize how close we are to death each and every day…. at every intersection there is always a car that jumps the light and goes before it’s green or runs the light and goes after it’s turned red… in the past 30 years I’ve been in 12 car accidents that were caused by red light runners and jumpers… each time we missed the car that caused the accident, thanks to my dad’s quick set the car into a spin and halt action (he should be a stunt driver, he is good), we end up rear ended by the car behind us, that didn’t see the light jumper in time to stop.

And I don’t know how many times we are in a traffic jam on Rt One, waiting for a multi car pile up to be towed away… speeders, drunk drivers, over medicated drivers, tired truckers, and light jumpers are always the cause of those accidents, people often die on Rt One… there are a 4 or 5 white crosses every few miles… it is both he longest and deadlist road in the State. and a road we travel on almost every day as our street is off it. So the first thing on my list is always Life…. My life, my families life, all life. Taken in the odds of death by car on that road, we are very lucky to say we drive that road every day and lived to tell the tale.

My Family:

My three brothers are the greatest thing to ever happen, they are more than just my three brothers, they are also my three best friends. We do everything together. I am ever thankful for them.

My Dad, crazy, animal loving, mountain man, hermit that he is, my thrill driving stunt man want-a-be Dad, is the greatest Dad this world ever saw. I am a ever thankful for him.

My Mom, totally wacko, usually to lost in the world of prescription drugs and singing in bars to remember to spend time with her children even today on Thanksgiving, I write this as we wait for her to come back home. I still am thankful to have her, in her own strange way she has taught me to see life through the eyes of patience.

My animals:

In my lifetime more than 5,000 pets have called this place home, some for their entire lives, others for just a few weeks of recovery, others, spent their senior years in sanctuary here have an early life of hardship, many wild babies who’s mothers have been killed by cars, have grown up here and released to the wild after reaching adulthood… and no drought thousands more will come and go over the years. Two wild babies have stayed on here, now 7 years old… a Pigeon and a Siamese Kitten, every time I am here typing these posts to you, they are here at the computer with me, my constant companions…Pidgie and Utopia.

The State of Maine:

I love Maine and all it’s wild beauty. I love the natives and their weird anti-social ways. I love the rocky coast lines and the fishing villages. I love the ancient old growth trees. I love the friendly French people who always seem to be bubbling over with joy and happiness. I love the tourists that come here every summer for our beaches, ever fall for our foliage, and every winter for our snow, and year round for antique shops and visiting historic houses.

My grandmother.:

Throughout my childhood I spent more time with Grammy than anyone. A wild schizophrenic, her mind never developed past the mentality of a 4 or 5 year old, her sense of logic and reason was beyond comprehension to most people, and she was shunned by all but 3 of her 12 children, and all but 9 of her more than 200 grandchildren. She lived in a world of butterflies, birds, animals, Halloween pumpkins, Santa Clause, Betty Boop, Miss Piggy, angels, and Jesus. She lived to celebrate every holiday. Holidays without Grammy are not the same… for every holiday we each received a card on each day of the month until the holiday arrived…not normal cards, but the biggest, gaudiest, brightest colored, often pop-up, and usual Disney cards, with their insides totally plastered with bright, glittering, sparkly, fuzzy, puffy, and/or scratch and sniff stickers.

Her house was decorated inside and out year around… 3 or 4 Christmas trees throughout the house, decorated with black cats, witches, jack-o-lanterns, Betty Boop, and lots and lots of tinsel. Tissue paper turkeys, Easter bunnies, and shamrocks in the windows, Pictures of Santa on every wall… Grammy’s house was a magical holiday play land 365 days a year. Every day was a holiday there. It was Grammy who taught me that Thanksgiving was the day to hug turkeys not eat them.

Grammy travels to 6 continents, and over 200 countries in her life time… it was her goal to visit each and every country in the world. She was a very vocal animal rights activist, a vegan to the utmost extreme, and she did more to help the homeless of Biddeford than anyone else ever has. As a child she was an orphan sent from one foster home to the next in a time when foster home children were nothing more than free farm hands and abused like slaves, the result was her activism for children’s rights, which lasted until the day she died. A Kickapoo Indian, she embraced her culture by living at one with nature and become a very spiritual person, taking up the arts of a “weather witch” shaman, though not a Wiccan, her lifestyle would today be considered as such. Grammy was an active promoter of Jesus as well, preaching his words to anyone who would listen; her religion of choice was the Seventh Day Adventist, because of their stand on animal rights, children’s rights, veganism, and Saturday worship… the rest of their teachings she often debated with her pastor.

She never drove a car and walked every where. She walked from Biddeford to Old Orchard Beach almost every week, and for those who don’t know how far that is…it’s one hell of a walk. Before she broken her hip in the early 1990’s, she roller skated every where she needed to go.

This was her favorite time of year… fall foliage season, when we, she and my family, drove across Maine, it was a vacation tradition with us, to stop everything we were doing, pack the car with food, and visit a different town in Maine, each and every day, from September through November… at one time or another we have visited every town in Maine south of the Hanesville Woods, and nearly every town in New Hampshire.

The last six years of her life she became less active and became to try repeatedly to reopen communications with her stuck-up holier than thou Mormon children… but try as she might, they continued to snub her, accusing her of being a child of Satan, saying she was possessed with an evil spirit, and telling her that the sooner she died and burned in Hell the happier they would be. They said that if she was dead they could force her to join the Mormon church by “baptism for the dead”. They told her that dead, she wouldn’t embarrass them with her child like ways, her outlandish cloths, her animals, her sinful lack of eating meat (the only gifts she ever received from them were each year they’ sarcastically send her gift baskets of ham, sausages, and chicken), her un-holy constant talk about Jesus (they say that as Mormons they are to saintly to call Jesus by his name…but I don’t remember the Mormon church ever teaching that). Their cruelty broke her heart, but she didn’t want their pity, she wanted their love, and so, I alone knew she had breast cancer, she said of over 240 children and grandchildren, I alone she could talk to, I alone she could trust.

Her last year was the hardest, the cancer spread to her liver, and her bloodstream, she lost the ability to walk, the thing she had done the most in her life. Me and my three (than infant) brothers stayed with her. Only J1 was old enough to remember Grammy, but just barely. Those last few months I cooked, cleaned, and feed my grandmother. All the while she continued without end writing letters and calling on the phone, begging her children and grandchildren to visit her. Finally one week before Thanksiving she invited all of them to Thankgiving Dinner at her house…telling them she’d even let them cook a turkey if that’d get them to come…on the phone with her favorite son, he laughed at her request…my Dad in a rage took the phone and yelled “If you don’t come now you’ll never see her again, the doctors say she’s only got a few days left.” than hung up on them. That one uncle was on the next plane to Maine, soon followed, by the son and daughter, that lived here in Maine (both lived only a few streets away for Grammy), and one daughter from Utah also came….no one else. She died 1:00 AM in the morning on Thanksgiving Day, never getting her wish to see her children and grandchildren one last time. Those that came were the pooest in the family, and could not afford a funeral, together all we could afford was a plot next to her baby that had died so many years ago. We could not afford a coffin or a headstone, and she was buried in a cardboard box. With only us and the few sons and daughters that showed up. Less than 12 people, in a family of 246+. Later, out of grief at not coming when she had asked, one son bought a tomb stone which says “Have I told you lately that I love you?”, saying that were ever she was he hoped that she could forgive him. It was a quite a contrast to all the expensive pomp and circumstance of Grandpa’s extravagant Mormon funeral last summer. Grammy’s last Thanksgiving was a day of rejoicing for the Mormons of the family, and exactly 6 months later they celebrated as the baptism of the dead was preformed in the Salt Lake Temple. Grammy was so sweet and gentle, so innocent and loving, her mind never reached adult hood, she was never able to live or act like an adult, living forever in the blissful mind of a child, it was her simple ways that I loved her for, and yet it was her simple ways that her children were ashamed to admit they were related to her for, shame that over the years grew to outright hate.

Today those same relatives are ashamed of me, like Grammy, they call me the child of Satan, they say that when Grammy died her evil spirit possessed me. Unlike them I was never ashamed of Grammy, unlike them I learned to accept her for who she was. Grammy was for many years, my best friend, and I am ever thankful that I knew her, for she taught me to look at the world through the eyes of a child, to enjoy the simple things in life…the flowers, the trees, the rain, God’s glorious creation, she taught me to treat everyone as equals…wither they be rich businessmen, the homeless on the streets, animal, or child…she belied that Jesus loved them all just the same good or bad and that we should strive to love as Jesus did. I am who I am today because I had a schizophrenic grandmother who loved everything and everyone with a childlike innocence, and took the time to find happiness in everything in life be it good or bad.

This entire post is dedicated to and written in memory of ..

Eva Viola Atwater

Mother to many; Friend to all.

February 21, 1921 – Thanksgiving Day 1994

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Things I am Thankful For:Life:

On thanksgiving I think about life and death a lot. I’ll explain why at the end of this list…death and Thanksgiving go hand in hand in my family, this is a hard day to find a reason to be thankful.

If you observe everything around you the way I do, you’ll realize how close we are to death each and every day…. at every intersection there is always a car that jumps the light and goes before it’s green or runs the light and goes after it’s turned red… in the past 30 years I’ve been in 12 car accidents that were caused by red light runners and jumpers… each time we missed the car that caused the accident, thanks to my dad’s quick set the car into a spin and halt action (he should be a stunt driver, he is good), we end up rear ended by the car behind us, that didn’t see the light jumper in time to stop.

And I don’t know how many times we are in a traffic jam on Rt One, waiting for a multi car pile up to be towed away… speeders, drunk drivers, over medicated drivers, tired truckers, and light jumpers are always the cause of those accidents, people often die on Rt One… there are a 4 or 5 white crosses every few miles… it is both he longest and deadlist road in the State. and a road we travel on almost every day as our street is off it. So the first thing on my list is always Life…. My life, my families life, all life. Taken in the odds of death by car on that road, we are very lucky to say we drive that road every day and lived to tell the tale.

My Family:

My three brothers are the greatest thing to ever happen, they are more than just my three brothers, they are also my three best friends. We do everything together. I am ever thankful for them.

My Dad, crazy, animal loving, mountain man, hermit that he is, my thrill driving stunt man want-a-be Dad, is the greatest Dad this world ever saw. I am a ever thankful for him.

My Mom, totally wacko, usually to lost in the world of prescription drugs and singing in bars to remember to spend time with her children even today on Thanksgiving, I write this as we wait for her to come back home. I still am thankful to have her, in her own strange way she has taught me to see life through the eyes of patience.

My animals:

In my lifetime more than 5,000 pets have called this place home, some for their entire lives, others for just a few weeks of recovery, others, spent their senior years in sanctuary here have an early life of hardship, many wild babies who’s mothers have been killed by cars, have grown up here and released to the wild after reaching adulthood… and no drought thousands more will come and go over the years. Two wild babies have stayed on here, now 7 years old… a Pigeon and a Siamese Kitten, every time I am here typing these posts to you, they are here at the computer with me, my constant companions…Pidgie and Utopia.

The State of Maine:

I love Maine and all it’s wild beauty. I love the natives and their weird anti-social ways. I love the rocky coast lines and the fishing villages. I love the ancient old growth trees. I love the friendly French people who always seem to be bubbling over with joy and happiness. I love the tourists that come here every summer for our beaches, ever fall for our foliage, and every winter for our snow, and year round for antique shops and visiting historic houses.

My grandmother.:

Throughout my childhood I spent more time with Grammy than anyone. A wild schizophrenic, her mind never developed past the mentality of a 4 or 5 year old, her sense of logic and reason was beyond comprehension to most people, and she was shunned by all but 3 of her 12 children, and all but 9 of her more than 200 grandchildren. She lived in a world of butterflies, birds, animals, Halloween pumpkins, Santa Clause, Betty Boop, Miss Piggy, angels, and Jesus. She lived to celebrate every holiday. Holidays without Grammy are not the same… for every holiday we each received a card on each day of the month until the holiday arrived…not normal cards, but the biggest, gaudiest, brightest colored, often pop-up, and usual Disney cards, with their insides totally plastered with bright, glittering, sparkly, fuzzy, puffy, and/or scratch and sniff stickers.

Her house was decorated inside and out year around… 3 or 4 Christmas trees throughout the house, decorated with black cats, witches, jack-o-lanterns, Betty Boop, and lots and lots of tinsel. Tissue paper turkeys, Easter bunnies, and shamrocks in the windows, Pictures of Santa on every wall… Grammy’s house was a magical holiday play land 365 days a year. Every day was a holiday there. It was Grammy who taught me that Thanksgiving was the day to hug turkeys not eat them.

Grammy travels to 6 continents, and over 200 countries in her life time… it was her goal to visit each and every country in the world. She was a very vocal animal rights activist, a vegan to the utmost extreme, and she did more to help the homeless of Biddeford than anyone else ever has. As a child she was an orphan sent from one foster home to the next in a time when foster home children were nothing more than free farm hands and abused like slaves, the result was her activism for children’s rights, which lasted until the day she died. A Kickapoo Indian, she embraced her culture by living at one with nature and become a very spiritual person, taking up the arts of a “weather witch” shaman, though not a Wiccan, her lifestyle would today be considered as such. Grammy was an active promoter of Jesus as well, preaching his words to anyone who would listen; her religion of choice was the Seventh Day Adventist, because of their stand on animal rights, children’s rights, veganism, and Saturday worship… the rest of their teachings she often debated with her pastor.

She never drove a car and walked every where. She walked from Biddeford to Old Orchard Beach almost every week, and for those who don’t know how far that is…it’s one hell of a walk. Before she broken her hip in the early 1990’s, she roller skated every where she needed to go.

This was her favorite time of year… fall foliage season, when we, she and my family, drove across Maine, it was a vacation tradition with us, to stop everything we were doing, pack the car with food, and visit a different town in Maine, each and every day, from September through November… at one time or another we have visited every town in Maine south of the Hanesville Woods, and nearly every town in New Hampshire.

The last six years of her life she became less active and became to try repeatedly to reopen communications with her stuck-up holier than thou Mormon children… but try as she might, they continued to snub her, accusing her of being a child of Satan, saying she was possessed with an evil spirit, and telling her that the sooner she died and burned in Hell the happier they would be. They said that if she was dead they could force her to join the Mormon church by “baptism for the dead”. They told her that dead, she wouldn’t embarrass them with her child like ways, her outlandish cloths, her animals, her sinful lack of eating meat (the only gifts she ever received from them were each year they’ sarcastically send her gift baskets of ham, sausages, and chicken), her un-holy constant talk about Jesus (they say that as Mormons they are to saintly to call Jesus by his name…but I don’t remember the Mormon church ever teaching that). Their cruelty broke her heart, but she didn’t want their pity, she wanted their love, and so, I alone knew she had breast cancer, she said of over 240 children and grandchildren, I alone she could talk to, I alone she could trust.

Her last year was the hardest, the cancer spread to her liver, and her bloodstream, she lost the ability to walk, the thing she had done the most in her life. Me and my three (than infant) brothers stayed with her. Only J1 was old enough to remember Grammy, but just barely. Those last few months I cooked, cleaned, and feed my grandmother. All the while she continued without end writing letters and calling on the phone, begging her children and grandchildren to visit her. Finally one week before Thanksiving she invited all of them to Thankgiving Dinner at her house…telling them she’d even let them cook a turkey if that’d get them to come…on the phone with her favorite son, he laughed at her request…my Dad in a rage took the phone and yelled “If you don’t come now you’ll never see her again, the doctors say she’s only got a few days left.” than hung up on them. That one uncle was on the next plane to Maine, soon followed, by the son and daughter, that lived here in Maine (both lived only a few streets away for Grammy), and one daughter from Utah also came….no one else. She died 1:00 AM in the morning on Thanksgiving Day, never getting her wish to see her children and grandchildren one last time. Those that came were the pooest in the family, and could not afford a funeral, together all we could afford was a plot next to her baby that had died so many years ago. We could not afford a coffin or a headstone, and she was buried in a cardboard box. With only us and the few sons and daughters that showed up. Less than 12 people, in a family of 246+. Later, out of grief at not coming when she had asked, one son bought a tomb stone which says “Have I told you lately that I love you?”, saying that were ever she was he hoped that she could forgive him. It was a quite a contrast to all the expensive pomp and circumstance of Grandpa’s extravagant Mormon funeral last summer. Grammy’s last Thanksgiving was a day of rejoicing for the Mormons of the family, and exactly 6 months later they celebrated as the baptism of the dead was preformed in the Salt Lake Temple. Grammy was so sweet and gentle, so innocent and loving, her mind never reached adult hood, she was never able to live or act like an adult, living forever in the blissful mind of a child, it was her simple ways that I loved her for, and yet it was her simple ways that her children were ashamed to admit they were related to her for, shame that over the years grew to outright hate.

Today those same relatives are ashamed of me, like Grammy, they call me the child of Satan, they say that when Grammy died her evil spirit possessed me. Unlike them I was never ashamed of Grammy, unlike them I learned to accept her for who she was. Grammy was for many years, my best friend, and I am ever thankful that I knew her, for she taught me to look at the world through the eyes of a child, to enjoy the simple things in life…the flowers, the trees, the rain, God’s glorious creation, she taught me to treat everyone as equals…wither they be rich businessmen, the homeless on the streets, animal, or child…she belied that Jesus loved them all just the same good or bad and that we should strive to love as Jesus did. I am who I am today because I had a schizophrenic grandmother who loved everything and everyone with a childlike innocence, and took the time to find happiness in everything in life be it good or bad.

This entire post is dedicated to and written in memory of ..

Eva Viola Atwater

Mother to many; Friend to all.

February 21, 1921 – Thanksgiving Day 1994

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

. . .

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If you liked reading this blog and want to read more stuff written by me, I have lots of websites, where you can read other things I write, here are a few of the ones I like the best:
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Happy Thanksgiving!

Things I am Thankful For:Life:

On thanksgiving I think about life and death a lot. I’ll explain why at the end of this list…death and Thanksgiving go hand in hand in my family, this is a hard day to find a reason to be thankful.

If you observe everything around you the way I do, you’ll realize how close we are to death each and every day…. at every intersection there is always a car that jumps the light and goes before it’s green or runs the light and goes after it’s turned red… in the past 30 years I’ve been in 12 car accidents that were caused by red light runners and jumpers… each time we missed the car that caused the accident, thanks to my dad’s quick set the car into a spin and halt action (he should be a stunt driver, he is good), we end up rear ended by the car behind us, that didn’t see the light jumper in time to stop.

And I don’t know how many times we are in a traffic jam on Rt One, waiting for a multi car pile up to be towed away… speeders, drunk drivers, over medicated drivers, tired truckers, and light jumpers are always the cause of those accidents, people often die on Rt One… there are a 4 or 5 white crosses every few miles… it is both he longest and deadlist road in the State. and a road we travel on almost every day as our street is off it. So the first thing on my list is always Life…. My life, my families life, all life. Taken in the odds of death by car on that road, we are very lucky to say we drive that road every day and lived to tell the tale.

My Family:

My three brothers are the greatest thing to ever happen, they are more than just my three brothers, they are also my three best friends. We do everything together. I am ever thankful for them.

My Dad, crazy, animal loving, mountain man, hermit that he is, my thrill driving stunt man want-a-be Dad, is the greatest Dad this world ever saw. I am a ever thankful for him.

My Mom, totally wacko, usually to lost in the world of prescription drugs and singing in bars to remember to spend time with her children even today on Thanksgiving, I write this as we wait for her to come back home. I still am thankful to have her, in her own strange way she has taught me to see life through the eyes of patience.

My animals:

In my lifetime more than 5,000 pets have called this place home, some for their entire lives, others for just a few weeks of recovery, others, spent their senior years in sanctuary here have an early life of hardship, many wild babies who’s mothers have been killed by cars, have grown up here and released to the wild after reaching adulthood… and no drought thousands more will come and go over the years. Two wild babies have stayed on here, now 7 years old… a Pigeon and a Siamese Kitten, every time I am here typing these posts to you, they are here at the computer with me, my constant companions…Pidgie and Utopia.

The State of Maine:

I love Maine and all it’s wild beauty. I love the natives and their weird anti-social ways. I love the rocky coast lines and the fishing villages. I love the ancient old growth trees. I love the friendly French people who always seem to be bubbling over with joy and happiness. I love the tourists that come here every summer for our beaches, ever fall for our foliage, and every winter for our snow, and year round for antique shops and visiting historic houses.

My grandmother.:

Throughout my childhood I spent more time with Grammy than anyone. A wild schizophrenic, her mind never developed past the mentality of a 4 or 5 year old, her sense of logic and reason was beyond comprehension to most people, and she was shunned by all but 3 of her 12 children, and all but 9 of her more than 200 grandchildren. She lived in a world of butterflies, birds, animals, Halloween pumpkins, Santa Clause, Betty Boop, Miss Piggy, angels, and Jesus. She lived to celebrate every holiday. Holidays without Grammy are not the same… for every holiday we each received a card on each day of the month until the holiday arrived…not normal cards, but the biggest, gaudiest, brightest colored, often pop-up, and usual Disney cards, with their insides totally plastered with bright, glittering, sparkly, fuzzy, puffy, and/or scratch and sniff stickers.

Her house was decorated inside and out year around… 3 or 4 Christmas trees throughout the house, decorated with black cats, witches, jack-o-lanterns, Betty Boop, and lots and lots of tinsel. Tissue paper turkeys, Easter bunnies, and shamrocks in the windows, Pictures of Santa on every wall… Grammy’s house was a magical holiday play land 365 days a year. Every day was a holiday there. It was Grammy who taught me that Thanksgiving was the day to hug turkeys not eat them.

Grammy travels to 6 continents, and over 200 countries in her life time… it was her goal to visit each and every country in the world. She was a very vocal animal rights activist, a vegan to the utmost extreme, and she did more to help the homeless of Biddeford than anyone else ever has. As a child she was an orphan sent from one foster home to the next in a time when foster home children were nothing more than free farm hands and abused like slaves, the result was her activism for children’s rights, which lasted until the day she died. A Kickapoo Indian, she embraced her culture by living at one with nature and become a very spiritual person, taking up the arts of a “weather witch” shaman, though not a Wiccan, her lifestyle would today be considered as such. Grammy was an active promoter of Jesus as well, preaching his words to anyone who would listen; her religion of choice was the Seventh Day Adventist, because of their stand on animal rights, children’s rights, veganism, and Saturday worship… the rest of their teachings she often debated with her pastor.

She never drove a car and walked every where. She walked from Biddeford to Old Orchard Beach almost every week, and for those who don’t know how far that is…it’s one hell of a walk. Before she broken her hip in the early 1990’s, she roller skated every where she needed to go.

This was her favorite time of year… fall foliage season, when we, she and my family, drove across Maine, it was a vacation tradition with us, to stop everything we were doing, pack the car with food, and visit a different town in Maine, each and every day, from September through November… at one time or another we have visited every town in Maine south of the Hanesville Woods, and nearly every town in New Hampshire.

The last six years of her life she became less active and became to try repeatedly to reopen communications with her stuck-up holier than thou Mormon children… but try as she might, they continued to snub her, accusing her of being a child of Satan, saying she was possessed with an evil spirit, and telling her that the sooner she died and burned in Hell the happier they would be. They said that if she was dead they could force her to join the Mormon church by “baptism for the dead”. They told her that dead, she wouldn’t embarrass them with her child like ways, her outlandish cloths, her animals, her sinful lack of eating meat (the only gifts she ever received from them were each year they’ sarcastically send her gift baskets of ham, sausages, and chicken), her un-holy constant talk about Jesus (they say that as Mormons they are to saintly to call Jesus by his name…but I don’t remember the Mormon church ever teaching that). Their cruelty broke her heart, but she didn’t want their pity, she wanted their love, and so, I alone knew she had breast cancer, she said of over 240 children and grandchildren, I alone she could talk to, I alone she could trust.

Her last year was the hardest, the cancer spread to her liver, and her bloodstream, she lost the ability to walk, the thing she had done the most in her life. Me and my three (than infant) brothers stayed with her. Only J1 was old enough to remember Grammy, but just barely. Those last few months I cooked, cleaned, and feed my grandmother. All the while she continued without end writing letters and calling on the phone, begging her children and grandchildren to visit her. Finally one week before Thanksiving she invited all of them to Thankgiving Dinner at her house…telling them she’d even let them cook a turkey if that’d get them to come…on the phone with her favorite son, he laughed at her request…my Dad in a rage took the phone and yelled “If you don’t come now you’ll never see her again, the doctors say she’s only got a few days left.” than hung up on them. That one uncle was on the next plane to Maine, soon followed, by the son and daughter, that lived here in Maine (both lived only a few streets away for Grammy), and one daughter from Utah also came….no one else. She died 1:00 AM in the morning on Thanksgiving Day, never getting her wish to see her children and grandchildren one last time. Those that came were the pooest in the family, and could not afford a funeral, together all we could afford was a plot next to her baby that had died so many years ago. We could not afford a coffin or a headstone, and she was buried in a cardboard box. With only us and the few sons and daughters that showed up. Less than 12 people, in a family of 246+. Later, out of grief at not coming when she had asked, one son bought a tomb stone which says “Have I told you lately that I love you?”, saying that were ever she was he hoped that she could forgive him. It was a quite a contrast to all the expensive pomp and circumstance of Grandpa’s extravagant Mormon funeral last summer. Grammy’s last Thanksgiving was a day of rejoicing for the Mormons of the family, and exactly 6 months later they celebrated as the baptism of the dead was preformed in the Salt Lake Temple. Grammy was so sweet and gentle, so innocent and loving, her mind never reached adult hood, she was never able to live or act like an adult, living forever in the blissful mind of a child, it was her simple ways that I loved her for, and yet it was her simple ways that her children were ashamed to admit they were related to her for, shame that over the years grew to outright hate.

Today those same relatives are ashamed of me, like Grammy, they call me the child of Satan, they say that when Grammy died her evil spirit possessed me. Unlike them I was never ashamed of Grammy, unlike them I learned to accept her for who she was. Grammy was for many years, my best friend, and I am ever thankful that I knew her, for she taught me to look at the world through the eyes of a child, to enjoy the simple things in life…the flowers, the trees, the rain, God’s glorious creation, she taught me to treat everyone as equals…wither they be rich businessmen, the homeless on the streets, animal, or child…she belied that Jesus loved them all just the same good or bad and that we should strive to love as Jesus did. I am who I am today because I had a schizophrenic grandmother who loved everything and everyone with a childlike innocence, and took the time to find happiness in everything in life be it good or bad.

This entire post is dedicated to and written in memory of ..

Eva Viola Atwater

Mother to many; Friend to all.

February 21, 1921 – Thanksgiving Day 1994

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

Happy Thanksgiving!

Things I am Thankful For:Life:

On thanksgiving I think about life and death a lot. I’ll explain why at the end of this list…death and Thanksgiving go hand in hand in my family, this is a hard day to find a reason to be thankful.

If you observe everything around you the way I do, you’ll realize how close we are to death each and every day…. at every intersection there is always a car that jumps the light and goes before it’s green or runs the light and goes after it’s turned red… in the past 30 years I’ve been in 12 car accidents that were caused by red light runners and jumpers… each time we missed the car that caused the accident, thanks to my dad’s quick set the car into a spin and halt action (he should be a stunt driver, he is good), we end up rear ended by the car behind us, that didn’t see the light jumper in time to stop.

And I don’t know how many times we are in a traffic jam on Rt One, waiting for a multi car pile up to be towed away… speeders, drunk drivers, over medicated drivers, tired truckers, and light jumpers are always the cause of those accidents, people often die on Rt One… there are a 4 or 5 white crosses every few miles… it is both he longest and deadlist road in the State. and a road we travel on almost every day as our street is off it. So the first thing on my list is always Life…. My life, my families life, all life. Taken in the odds of death by car on that road, we are very lucky to say we drive that road every day and lived to tell the tale.

My Family:

My three brothers are the greatest thing to ever happen, they are more than just my three brothers, they are also my three best friends. We do everything together. I am ever thankful for them.

My Dad, crazy, animal loving, mountain man, hermit that he is, my thrill driving stunt man want-a-be Dad, is the greatest Dad this world ever saw. I am a ever thankful for him.

My Mom, totally wacko, usually to lost in the world of prescription drugs and singing in bars to remember to spend time with her children even today on Thanksgiving, I write this as we wait for her to come back home. I still am thankful to have her, in her own strange way she has taught me to see life through the eyes of patience.

My animals:

In my lifetime more than 5,000 pets have called this place home, some for their entire lives, others for just a few weeks of recovery, others, spent their senior years in sanctuary here have an early life of hardship, many wild babies who’s mothers have been killed by cars, have grown up here and released to the wild after reaching adulthood… and no drought thousands more will come and go over the years. Two wild babies have stayed on here, now 7 years old… a Pigeon and a Siamese Kitten, every time I am here typing these posts to you, they are here at the computer with me, my constant companions…Pidgie and Utopia.

The State of Maine:

I love Maine and all it’s wild beauty. I love the natives and their weird anti-social ways. I love the rocky coast lines and the fishing villages. I love the ancient old growth trees. I love the friendly French people who always seem to be bubbling over with joy and happiness. I love the tourists that come here every summer for our beaches, ever fall for our foliage, and every winter for our snow, and year round for antique shops and visiting historic houses.

My grandmother.:

Throughout my childhood I spent more time with Grammy than anyone. A wild schizophrenic, her mind never developed past the mentality of a 4 or 5 year old, her sense of logic and reason was beyond comprehension to most people, and she was shunned by all but 3 of her 12 children, and all but 9 of her more than 200 grandchildren. She lived in a world of butterflies, birds, animals, Halloween pumpkins, Santa Clause, Betty Boop, Miss Piggy, angels, and Jesus. She lived to celebrate every holiday. Holidays without Grammy are not the same… for every holiday we each received a card on each day of the month until the holiday arrived…not normal cards, but the biggest, gaudiest, brightest colored, often pop-up, and usual Disney cards, with their insides totally plastered with bright, glittering, sparkly, fuzzy, puffy, and/or scratch and sniff stickers.

Her house was decorated inside and out year around… 3 or 4 Christmas trees throughout the house, decorated with black cats, witches, jack-o-lanterns, Betty Boop, and lots and lots of tinsel. Tissue paper turkeys, Easter bunnies, and shamrocks in the windows, Pictures of Santa on every wall… Grammy’s house was a magical holiday play land 365 days a year. Every day was a holiday there. It was Grammy who taught me that Thanksgiving was the day to hug turkeys not eat them.

Grammy travels to 6 continents, and over 200 countries in her life time… it was her goal to visit each and every country in the world. She was a very vocal animal rights activist, a vegan to the utmost extreme, and she did more to help the homeless of Biddeford than anyone else ever has. As a child she was an orphan sent from one foster home to the next in a time when foster home children were nothing more than free farm hands and abused like slaves, the result was her activism for children’s rights, which lasted until the day she died. A Kickapoo Indian, she embraced her culture by living at one with nature and become a very spiritual person, taking up the arts of a “weather witch” shaman, though not a Wiccan, her lifestyle would today be considered as such. Grammy was an active promoter of Jesus as well, preaching his words to anyone who would listen; her religion of choice was the Seventh Day Adventist, because of their stand on animal rights, children’s rights, veganism, and Saturday worship… the rest of their teachings she often debated with her pastor.

She never drove a car and walked every where. She walked from Biddeford to Old Orchard Beach almost every week, and for those who don’t know how far that is…it’s one hell of a walk. Before she broken her hip in the early 1990’s, she roller skated every where she needed to go.

This was her favorite time of year… fall foliage season, when we, she and my family, drove across Maine, it was a vacation tradition with us, to stop everything we were doing, pack the car with food, and visit a different town in Maine, each and every day, from September through November… at one time or another we have visited every town in Maine south of the Hanesville Woods, and nearly every town in New Hampshire.

The last six years of her life she became less active and became to try repeatedly to reopen communications with her stuck-up holier than thou Mormon children… but try as she might, they continued to snub her, accusing her of being a child of Satan, saying she was possessed with an evil spirit, and telling her that the sooner she died and burned in Hell the happier they would be. They said that if she was dead they could force her to join the Mormon church by “baptism for the dead”. They told her that dead, she wouldn’t embarrass them with her child like ways, her outlandish cloths, her animals, her sinful lack of eating meat (the only gifts she ever received from them were each year they’ sarcastically send her gift baskets of ham, sausages, and chicken), her un-holy constant talk about Jesus (they say that as Mormons they are to saintly to call Jesus by his name…but I don’t remember the Mormon church ever teaching that). Their cruelty broke her heart, but she didn’t want their pity, she wanted their love, and so, I alone knew she had breast cancer, she said of over 240 children and grandchildren, I alone she could talk to, I alone she could trust.

Her last year was the hardest, the cancer spread to her liver, and her bloodstream, she lost the ability to walk, the thing she had done the most in her life. Me and my three (than infant) brothers stayed with her. Only J1 was old enough to remember Grammy, but just barely. Those last few months I cooked, cleaned, and feed my grandmother. All the while she continued without end writing letters and calling on the phone, begging her children and grandchildren to visit her. Finally one week before Thanksiving she invited all of them to Thankgiving Dinner at her house…telling them she’d even let them cook a turkey if that’d get them to come…on the phone with her favorite son, he laughed at her request…my Dad in a rage took the phone and yelled “If you don’t come now you’ll never see her again, the doctors say she’s only got a few days left.” than hung up on them. That one uncle was on the next plane to Maine, soon followed, by the son and daughter, that lived here in Maine (both lived only a few streets away for Grammy), and one daughter from Utah also came….no one else. She died 1:00 AM in the morning on Thanksgiving Day, never getting her wish to see her children and grandchildren one last time. Those that came were the pooest in the family, and could not afford a funeral, together all we could afford was a plot next to her baby that had died so many years ago. We could not afford a coffin or a headstone, and she was buried in a cardboard box. With only us and the few sons and daughters that showed up. Less than 12 people, in a family of 246+. Later, out of grief at not coming when she had asked, one son bought a tomb stone which says “Have I told you lately that I love you?”, saying that were ever she was he hoped that she could forgive him. It was a quite a contrast to all the expensive pomp and circumstance of Grandpa’s extravagant Mormon funeral last summer. Grammy’s last Thanksgiving was a day of rejoicing for the Mormons of the family, and exactly 6 months later they celebrated as the baptism of the dead was preformed in the Salt Lake Temple. Grammy was so sweet and gentle, so innocent and loving, her mind never reached adult hood, she was never able to live or act like an adult, living forever in the blissful mind of a child, it was her simple ways that I loved her for, and yet it was her simple ways that her children were ashamed to admit they were related to her for, shame that over the years grew to outright hate.

Today those same relatives are ashamed of me, like Grammy, they call me the child of Satan, they say that when Grammy died her evil spirit possessed me. Unlike them I was never ashamed of Grammy, unlike them I learned to accept her for who she was. Grammy was for many years, my best friend, and I am ever thankful that I knew her, for she taught me to look at the world through the eyes of a child, to enjoy the simple things in life…the flowers, the trees, the rain, God’s glorious creation, she taught me to treat everyone as equals…wither they be rich businessmen, the homeless on the streets, animal, or child…she belied that Jesus loved them all just the same good or bad and that we should strive to love as Jesus did. I am who I am today because I had a schizophrenic grandmother who loved everything and everyone with a childlike innocence, and took the time to find happiness in everything in life be it good or bad.

This entire post is dedicated to and written in memory of ..

Eva Viola Atwater

Mother to many; Friend to all.

February 21, 1921 – Thanksgiving Day 1994

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

About Me or Who is EelKat REALLY?

Captain John Smith, sent 2 of his ship mates, Rogers and Goggins, ashore to the newly discovered Mainland. This land was given to them in 1657, by the King of England, at that time it was at total of about 3,000 acres of rose bushes, dense pine forest, wild grapes, and wild apple orchards. As the years went by the Rogers and Googins families divided the land among their children, who in turn divided it among their children, and so on and so on, for the next 200 years. In the late 1800’s the original 3,000 acres had been divided among descendants of the Rogers and Googins families so many times, that this tiny spot of land was now populated enough to become a township. In 1898 a mile long Pier was built out from the land across the ocean, and the land was named The Town of the Old Orchard.

In the years since, raging hurricanes ripped off the end of the Pier, leaving behind, only the small section of it which still stands today. And 2 massive fires wiped out nearly all of the very old buildings, including the original Palace Playland, a one time Victorian Amusment Park, that today is only a few rides off the side of the Town Square. As time passed the town grew ever larger as non-family members moved into the new town, including the Rickers of Poland Spring, and the Allens of Portland. As more out-siders moved in, the farmers of the Rogers and Googins families, grew more and more frustrated with the city folks and tourists that they felt were ruining the name of Old Orchard, and the farmers packed their things and left. Today, only one plot of land still remains in the original Rogers family, the descendants of the very first white man to live in Old Orchard…Thomas Rogers, the sailor from Capt. John Smith’s ship…and that family is my family. Three of the giant ancient pines that stood here in the 1600’s are still standing in our yard today, and along side one of those pines, grows a very ancient 13′ tall white rose bush, that once belonged to my great-grandmother and is known to be at least 100 years old, possibly several hundred years old.

My name is Wendy Christine Allen, I was born in Biddeford, Maine on August 13, 1975. I was raised on a poultry farm in Old Orchard right along side it’s famous Old Orchard Beach. Today the family farm is run as a sanctuary for chickens, sort of a safe house~retirement home for old hens and roosters, that would otherwise have been slaughtered. Everything from cats and dogs, to fish and eels, to cowatii and woodpeckers, to horses and turtles have found refuge here. I am known by many as the local protector of animals.

Topics: Old Orchard Beach, Thomas Rodgers

Why can’t I visit The Manor’s Library?

The Twighlight Manor Library collection, is a private collection. The books are not loaned out to the public. I am very protective of my books, no one handles them without the strictest of permission. The misshandleing, damage, and defacment of books is looked on as a grave sin. In my experiance with the many public libraries in this area, the average person is not capable of taken care of a book, that is not their own. Library books are routinly returned written on, soiled, pages torn, pages missing, pictures cut out, covere removed, and otherwise baddly damaged. In view of the fact that most book in public circulation must be replaced or discarded after a few short years, I have chosen not to allow this collection to have public access. It is possible that in the future I may change this, but for now it remains a private library with no public access.

No book ever leaves to collection, once it is here, it is here for life, we never sell, discard, or give away any of the books in our collection. So if you ever run across a book marked as part of The Twighlight Manor Library collection, that book is either lost or stolen, and greatly missed. Many of the books are stamped Twighlight Manor Library, and ALL of them are hand signed by me with both my name and the Twighlight Manor Library “signature”. Any books found marked as such should be returned as soon as posible.

Topics: books, The Twighlight Manor, The Twighlight Manor Library

You have said that The Twighlight Manor Library is real. If The Twighlight Manor is a fictional place, how can The Twighlight Manor Library exist?

Ever since I first designed the Manor it has been my dream to see it built. A project of such magnitude would cost billions. As such, until I’m a rich as Scrooge McDuck, the Manor remains plans on paper. However, my favorit room in the Manor, is of course it’s giant library. When I was ten years old, I decided, that if I can’t build the entire Manor, I’ll build it’s library instead. It is my goal to recreate in it’s entierty, The Twighlight Manor Library. While the giant round room, full of mind boggleing spiraling stairs, is itself a dream that may never become reality, the collection does exist. I set out to collect a copy of every antique book I could find, as a teenager I became known as the best customer at every booksale at every library in Southern Maine…today those library’s look for me to be the first at every sale, every year, they even provide boxes, knowing that I won’t be leaveing their sale with until there is absolutly no space left in our car…trunk, seats and floor, packed full, with hundreds of books. I can be found at yard sales and picking garbage during clean-up weeks, no book in the trash goes unrescued.

One problem, was posed by trying to recreat Dr. Vangoneese’s part of the collection—medical books. That problem was quickly solved by visiting local hospitals, doctors offices, and the medical college…the old books and texts are useless once the new editions come out, and so are discarded. And thus the medical section of the Library grew.

I don’t know how many books exist in my collection, last time I’d counted I’d given up after 5,000, that was a few years ago. I’m guessing it’s closer to 7,000 today. I’m now in the process of cataloging the collection. A daunting task, requireing me to learn the Dewy Decimal System.

Topics: books, The Twighlight Manor, The Twighlight Manor Library

What is The Twighlight Manor Library?

The Twighlight Manor is a vast mansion, in it’s glory it had over 500 rooms, all funished with artifacts from Sir Roderic’s travels around the world. Al~Keem later added his own extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts. Etiole and finally EelKat would continue to add to the Manor. The Library, sits at the heart of the Manor on the second floor, and is a vast round room 3 stories tall, lined with twisting stairwys and thousands upon thousands of books. The original collection belonged to Roderic’s first wife Melneeva. Al~Keem’s collection of anceint scrolls, papyre, and old documents, was later added, along with Dr. Vangonees’ large collection. As large as The Manor’s collection had become, it was to nearly double in size when Micha moved into the house. Micha was the youngest son of the planet’s current Emporor Swanzen, and an avid book collector. The Manor’s collection was passed on to him. Micha now resides in the room along side the Library, and continues to add to the collection.

Topics: books, The Twighlight Manor, The Twighlight Manor Library

What Is The Twighlighlight Manor?

What Is The Twighlighlight Manor?

Where is The Twighlight Manor?

Can I visit The Twighlight Manor?

The Twighlight Manor is a house that I designed but never built, so no you can’t visit it. The Manor is a stone castle-like fortress, 4 stories tall, with a triple level basement, and dungeon below them. The dungeon itself, is built into a series of catacombs and caves, which exit in the side of Crystal Gorge.However, since it is in a series of books, therefor it must be somewhere, so, where is it? According to the story, it was built in the late 1300’s in a dense forest off the coast of North America. One of the characters after not seeing the Manor in nearly 200 years, set out to find it in the 20th century, armed only with the knowlege that it was hidden in a forest along the coast. Finding the Manor proved less than easy, as in the 200 years that had past, cities had built up and the forest was no more.

So where had the forest in the book, once been? Once upon a time there was a vast forest, thousands of acres of ancient White Pine trees in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, USA. In the late 1800’s it was named The Ross Forest, after the man who set out a petition to make this unique wonder a national park. What was so unique about The Ross Forest? No where else in the world was there a forest of ancient pine trees growing along a pristine white sands beach. As a small child in the 1970’s I grew up exploring the last 500 or so acres of the Ross Forest. Today in 2005, I drive down the miles of houses, golf courses, and conduminiums that line the Ross Rd and cry, because The Ross Forest is no more. My children will never know the joys of living in the forest on the beach, and in tribute to that trajid lose of a natural wonder, I re-created The Ross Forest I remember from my childhood, in my books, renaming it the Twighlight Forest, and The Twighlight Manor is set in the middle of it.

Written Friday, November 4, 2005

Topics: The Twighlight Manor

Who Is EelKat?

I’ve been online since August of 1997. I travel and post on more than 100 differant forums and message boards, most of them ProBoards sites.
Those who know me, know that I also go by the name of EelKat. Thus, I am often asked why. Why is a simple yet complex answer.

The more appropriate question should be who. Who is EelKat? EelKat is a character from an epic book that I started writing in 1980 when I was 5 years old. Miss Kitten the EelKat, as she was originally called in 1978, is a black bobcat~like creature based on the tailless cat beast from mythology, known as Tailypoe. The name EelKat, came from my love of eels and the fact that she was a bobcat.

As the EelKat story expanded she went on to become the co-owner of The Twighlight Manor an ancient stone 500+ room haunted mansion situated deep in the heart of The Twighlight Forest, owned by Sir Roderic Lincandoia Swanzen. EelKat is also part owner of White Rock former haunted mansion turned asylum for the criminally insane.

The Twighlight Manor characters were created based on UFO sightings that took place in the forest behind my house in 1978 and 1982. I was one of the witnesses to these sightings.

The combination of events that summer, resulted in the creation of a black bobcat come to earth from another galaxy, took up residence in a haunted mansion, and raised eels for pets. She was named EelKat, and she was in essence the alter ego of myself, as I wanted to be at that time in my life and I set out writing a book chronicling the history of the haunted house, which itself as it turns out was built buy aliens as a secret earth base-camp, and is not actually haunted, rather what humans calls ghosts are really aliens. In the past 27 years what started as a simple story, has since become a saga spanning over a dozen volumes following the Swanzen family from the building of the Manor in the late 1300’s up to the current time.

Written Friday, November 4, 2005

Why can’t I visit The Manor’s Library?

The Twighlight Manor Library collection, is a private collection. The books are not loaned out to the public. I am very protective of my books, no one handles them without the strictest of permission. The misshandleing, damage, and defacment of books is looked on as a grave sin. In my experiance with the many public libraries in this area, the average person is not capable of taken care of a book, that is not their own. Library books are routinly returned written on, soiled, pages torn, pages missing, pictures cut out, covere removed, and otherwise baddly damaged. In view of the fact that most book in public circulation must be replaced or discarded after a few short years, I have chosen not to allow this collection to have public access. It is possible that in the future I may change this, but for now it remains a private library with no public access.

No book ever leaves to collection, once it is here, it is here for life, we never sell, discard, or give away any of the books in our collection. So if you ever run across a book marked as part of The Twighlight Manor Library collection, that book is either lost or stolen, and greatly missed. Many of the books are stamped Twighlight Manor Library, and ALL of them are hand signed by me with both my name and the Twighlight Manor Library “signature”. Any books found marked as such should be returned as soon as posible.

Topics: books, The Twighlight Manor, The Twighlight Manor Library

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

Why can’t I visit The Manor’s Library?

The Twighlight Manor Library collection, is a private collection. The books are not loaned out to the public. I am very protective of my books, no one handles them without the strictest of permission. The misshandleing, damage, and defacment of books is looked on as a grave sin. In my experiance with the many public libraries in this area, the average person is not capable of taken care of a book, that is not their own. Library books are routinly returned written on, soiled, pages torn, pages missing, pictures cut out, covere removed, and otherwise baddly damaged. In view of the fact that most book in public circulation must be replaced or discarded after a few short years, I have chosen not to allow this collection to have public access. It is possible that in the future I may change this, but for now it remains a private library with no public access.

No book ever leaves to collection, once it is here, it is here for life, we never sell, discard, or give away any of the books in our collection. So if you ever run across a book marked as part of The Twighlight Manor Library collection, that book is either lost or stolen, and greatly missed. Many of the books are stamped Twighlight Manor Library, and ALL of them are hand signed by me with both my name and the Twighlight Manor Library “signature”. Any books found marked as such should be returned as soon as posible.

Topics: books, The Twighlight Manor, The Twighlight Manor Library

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

You have said that The Twighlight Manor Library is real. If The Twighlight Manor is a fictional place, how can The Twighlight Manor Library exist?

Ever since I first designed the Manor it has been my dream to see it built. A project of such magnitude would cost billions. As such, until I’m a rich as Scrooge McDuck, the Manor remains plans on paper. However, my favorit room in the Manor, is of course it’s giant library. When I was ten years old, I decided, that if I can’t build the entire Manor, I’ll build it’s library instead. It is my goal to recreate in it’s entierty, The Twighlight Manor Library. While the giant round room, full of mind boggleing spiraling stairs, is itself a dream that may never become reality, the collection does exist. I set out to collect a copy of every antique book I could find, as a teenager I became known as the best customer at every booksale at every library in Southern Maine…today those library’s look for me to be the first at every sale, every year, they even provide boxes, knowing that I won’t be leaveing their sale with until there is absolutly no space left in our car…trunk, seats and floor, packed full, with hundreds of books. I can be found at yard sales and picking garbage during clean-up weeks, no book in the trash goes unrescued.

One problem, was posed by trying to recreat Dr. Vangoneese’s part of the collection—medical books. That problem was quickly solved by visiting local hospitals, doctors offices, and the medical college…the old books and texts are useless once the new editions come out, and so are discarded. And thus the medical section of the Library grew.

I don’t know how many books exist in my collection, last time I’d counted I’d given up after 5,000, that was a few years ago. I’m guessing it’s closer to 7,000 today. I’m now in the process of cataloging the collection. A daunting task, requireing me to learn the Dewy Decimal System.

Topics: books, The Twighlight Manor, The Twighlight Manor Library

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

You have said that The Twighlight Manor Library is real. If The Twighlight Manor is a fictional place, how can The Twighlight Manor Library exist?

Ever since I first designed the Manor it has been my dream to see it built. A project of such magnitude would cost billions. As such, until I’m a rich as Scrooge McDuck, the Manor remains plans on paper. However, my favorit room in the Manor, is of course it’s giant library. When I was ten years old, I decided, that if I can’t build the entire Manor, I’ll build it’s library instead. It is my goal to recreate in it’s entierty, The Twighlight Manor Library. While the giant round room, full of mind boggleing spiraling stairs, is itself a dream that may never become reality, the collection does exist. I set out to collect a copy of every antique book I could find, as a teenager I became known as the best customer at every booksale at every library in Southern Maine…today those library’s look for me to be the first at every sale, every year, they even provide boxes, knowing that I won’t be leaveing their sale with until there is absolutly no space left in our car…trunk, seats and floor, packed full, with hundreds of books. I can be found at yard sales and picking garbage during clean-up weeks, no book in the trash goes unrescued.

One problem, was posed by trying to recreat Dr. Vangoneese’s part of the collection—medical books. That problem was quickly solved by visiting local hospitals, doctors offices, and the medical college…the old books and texts are useless once the new editions come out, and so are discarded. And thus the medical section of the Library grew.

I don’t know how many books exist in my collection, last time I’d counted I’d given up after 5,000, that was a few years ago. I’m guessing it’s closer to 7,000 today. I’m now in the process of cataloging the collection. A daunting task, requireing me to learn the Dewy Decimal System.

Topics: books, The Twighlight Manor, The Twighlight Manor Library

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

What is The Twighlight Manor Library?

The Twighlight Manor is a vast mansion, in it’s glory it had over 500 rooms, all funished with artifacts from Sir Roderic’s travels around the world. Al~Keem later added his own extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts. Etiole and finally EelKat would continue to add to the Manor. The Library, sits at the heart of the Manor on the second floor, and is a vast round room 3 stories tall, lined with twisting stairwys and thousands upon thousands of books. The original collection belonged to Roderic’s first wife Melneeva. Al~Keem’s collection of anceint scrolls, papyre, and old documents, was later added, along with Dr. Vangonees’ large collection. As large as The Manor’s collection had become, it was to nearly double in size when Micha moved into the house. Micha was the youngest son of the planet’s current Emporor Swanzen, and an avid book collector. The Manor’s collection was passed on to him. Micha now resides in the room along side the Library, and continues to add to the collection.

Topics: books, The Twighlight Manor, The Twighlight Manor Library

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

What is The Twighlight Manor Library?

The Twighlight Manor is a vast mansion, in it’s glory it had over 500 rooms, all funished with artifacts from Sir Roderic’s travels around the world. Al~Keem later added his own extensive collection of Egyptian artifacts. Etiole and finally EelKat would continue to add to the Manor. The Library, sits at the heart of the Manor on the second floor, and is a vast round room 3 stories tall, lined with twisting stairwys and thousands upon thousands of books. The original collection belonged to Roderic’s first wife Melneeva. Al~Keem’s collection of anceint scrolls, papyre, and old documents, was later added, along with Dr. Vangonees’ large collection. As large as The Manor’s collection had become, it was to nearly double in size when Micha moved into the house. Micha was the youngest son of the planet’s current Emporor Swanzen, and an avid book collector. The Manor’s collection was passed on to him. Micha now resides in the room along side the Library, and continues to add to the collection.

Topics: books, The Twighlight Manor, The Twighlight Manor Library

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

What Is The Twighlighlight Manor?

What Is The Twighlighlight Manor?Where is The Twighlight Manor?

Can I visit The Twighlight Manor?

The Twighlight Manor is a house that I designed but never built, so no you can’t visit it. The Manor is a stone castle-like fortress, 4 stories tall, with a triple level basement, and dungeon below them. The dungeon itself, is built into a series of catacombs and caves, which exit in the side of Crystal Gorge.However, since it is in a series of books, therefor it must be somewhere, so, where is it? According to the story, it was built in the late 1300’s in a dense forest off the coast of North America. One of the characters after not seeing the Manor in nearly 200 years, set out to find it in the 20th century, armed only with the knowlege that it was hidden in a forest along the coast. Finding the Manor proved less than easy, as in the 200 years that had past, cities had built up and the forest was no more.

So where had the forest in the book, once been? Once upon a time there was a vast forest, thousands of acres of ancient White Pine trees in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, USA. In the late 1800’s it was named The Ross Forest, after the man who set out a petition to make this unique wonder a national park. What was so unique about The Ross Forest? No where else in the world was there a forest of ancient pine trees growing along a pristine white sands beach. As a small child in the 1970’s I grew up exploring the last 500 or so acres of the Ross Forest. Today in 2005, I drive down the miles of houses, golf courses, and conduminiums that line the Ross Rd and cry, because The Ross Forest is no more. My children will never know the joys of living in the forest on the beach, and in tribute to that trajid lose of a natural wonder, I re-created The Ross Forest I remember from my childhood, in my books, renaming it the Twighlight Forest, and The Twighlight Manor is set in the middle of it.

Written Friday, November 4, 2005

Topics: The Twighlight Manor

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

What Is The Twighlighlight Manor?

What Is The Twighlighlight Manor?Where is The Twighlight Manor?

Can I visit The Twighlight Manor?

The Twighlight Manor is a house that I designed but never built, so no you can’t visit it. The Manor is a stone castle-like fortress, 4 stories tall, with a triple level basement, and dungeon below them. The dungeon itself, is built into a series of catacombs and caves, which exit in the side of Crystal Gorge.However, since it is in a series of books, therefor it must be somewhere, so, where is it? According to the story, it was built in the late 1300’s in a dense forest off the coast of North America. One of the characters after not seeing the Manor in nearly 200 years, set out to find it in the 20th century, armed only with the knowlege that it was hidden in a forest along the coast. Finding the Manor proved less than easy, as in the 200 years that had past, cities had built up and the forest was no more.

So where had the forest in the book, once been? Once upon a time there was a vast forest, thousands of acres of ancient White Pine trees in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, USA. In the late 1800’s it was named The Ross Forest, after the man who set out a petition to make this unique wonder a national park. What was so unique about The Ross Forest? No where else in the world was there a forest of ancient pine trees growing along a pristine white sands beach. As a small child in the 1970’s I grew up exploring the last 500 or so acres of the Ross Forest. Today in 2005, I drive down the miles of houses, golf courses, and conduminiums that line the Ross Rd and cry, because The Ross Forest is no more. My children will never know the joys of living in the forest on the beach, and in tribute to that trajid lose of a natural wonder, I re-created The Ross Forest I remember from my childhood, in my books, renaming it the Twighlight Forest, and The Twighlight Manor is set in the middle of it.

Written Friday, November 4, 2005

Topics: The Twighlight Manor

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

About Me or Who is EelKat REALLY?

Captain John Smith, sent 2 of his ship mates, Rogers and Goggins, ashore to the newly discovered Mainland. This land was given to them in 1657, by the King of England, at that time it was at total of about 3,000 acres of rose bushes, dense pine forest, wild grapes, and wild apple orchards. As the years went by the Rogers and Googins families divided the land among their children, who in turn divided it among their children, and so on and so on, for the next 200 years. In the late 1800’s the original 3,000 acres had been divided among descendants of the Rogers and Googins families so many times, that this tiny spot of land was now populated enough to become a township. In 1898 a mile long Pier was built out from the land across the ocean, and the land was named The Town of the Old Orchard.

In the years since, raging hurricanes ripped off the end of the Pier, leaving behind, only the small section of it which still stands today. And 2 massive fires wiped out nearly all of the very old buildings, including the original Palace Playland, a one time Victorian Amusment Park, that today is only a few rides off the side of the Town Square. As time passed the town grew ever larger as non-family members moved into the new town, including the Rickers of Poland Spring, and the Allens of Portland. As more out-siders moved in, the farmers of the Rogers and Googins families, grew more and more frustrated with the city folks and tourists that they felt were ruining the name of Old Orchard, and the farmers packed their things and left. Today, only one plot of land still remains in the original Rogers family, the descendants of the very first white man to live in Old Orchard…Thomas Rogers, the sailor from Capt. John Smith’s ship…and that family is my family. Three of the giant ancient pines that stood here in the 1600’s are still standing in our yard today, and along side one of those pines, grows a very ancient 13′ tall white rose bush, that once belonged to my great-grandmother and is known to be at least 100 years old, possibly several hundred years old.

My name is Wendy Christine Allen, I was born in Biddeford, Maine on August 13, 1975. I was raised on a poultry farm in Old Orchard right along side it’s famous Old Orchard Beach. Today the family farm is run as a sanctuary for chickens, sort of a safe house~retirement home for old hens and roosters, that would otherwise have been slaughtered. Everything from cats and dogs, to fish and eels, to cowatii and woodpeckers, to horses and turtles have found refuge here. I am known by many as the local protector of animals.

Topics: Old Orchard Beach, Thomas Rodgers

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

About Me or Who is EelKat REALLY?

Captain John Smith, sent 2 of his ship mates, Rogers and Goggins, ashore to the newly discovered Mainland. This land was given to them in 1657, by the King of England, at that time it was at total of about 3,000 acres of rose bushes, dense pine forest, wild grapes, and wild apple orchards. As the years went by the Rogers and Googins families divided the land among their children, who in turn divided it among their children, and so on and so on, for the next 200 years. In the late 1800’s the original 3,000 acres had been divided among descendants of the Rogers and Googins families so many times, that this tiny spot of land was now populated enough to become a township. In 1898 a mile long Pier was built out from the land across the ocean, and the land was named The Town of the Old Orchard.

In the years since, raging hurricanes ripped off the end of the Pier, leaving behind, only the small section of it which still stands today. And 2 massive fires wiped out nearly all of the very old buildings, including the original Palace Playland, a one time Victorian Amusment Park, that today is only a few rides off the side of the Town Square. As time passed the town grew ever larger as non-family members moved into the new town, including the Rickers of Poland Spring, and the Allens of Portland. As more out-siders moved in, the farmers of the Rogers and Googins families, grew more and more frustrated with the city folks and tourists that they felt were ruining the name of Old Orchard, and the farmers packed their things and left. Today, only one plot of land still remains in the original Rogers family, the descendants of the very first white man to live in Old Orchard…Thomas Rogers, the sailor from Capt. John Smith’s ship…and that family is my family. Three of the giant ancient pines that stood here in the 1600’s are still standing in our yard today, and along side one of those pines, grows a very ancient 13′ tall white rose bush, that once belonged to my great-grandmother and is known to be at least 100 years old, possibly several hundred years old.

My name is Wendy Christine Allen, I was born in Biddeford, Maine on August 13, 1975. I was raised on a poultry farm in Old Orchard right along side it’s famous Old Orchard Beach. Today the family farm is run as a sanctuary for chickens, sort of a safe house~retirement home for old hens and roosters, that would otherwise have been slaughtered. Everything from cats and dogs, to fish and eels, to cowatii and woodpeckers, to horses and turtles have found refuge here. I am known by many as the local protector of animals.

Topics: Old Orchard Beach, Thomas Rodgers

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

Who Is EelKat?

I’ve been online since August of 1997. I travel and post on more than 100 differant forums and message boards, most of them ProBoards sites.
Those who know me, know that I also go by the name of EelKat. Thus, I am often asked why. Why is a simple yet complex answer.

The more appropriate question should be who. Who is EelKat? EelKat is a character from an epic book that I started writing in 1980 when I was 5 years old. Miss Kitten the EelKat, as she was originally called in 1978, is a black bobcat~like creature based on the tailless cat beast from mythology, known as Tailypoe. The name EelKat, came from my love of eels and the fact that she was a bobcat.

As the EelKat story expanded she went on to become the co-owner of The Twighlight Manor an ancient stone 500+ room haunted mansion situated deep in the heart of The Twighlight Forest, owned by Sir Roderic Lincandoia Swanzen. EelKat is also part owner of White Rock former haunted mansion turned asylum for the criminally insane.

The Twighlight Manor characters were created based on UFO sightings that took place in the forest behind my house in 1978 and 1982. I was one of the witnesses to these sightings.

The combination of events that summer, resulted in the creation of a black bobcat come to earth from another galaxy, took up residence in a haunted mansion, and raised eels for pets. She was named EelKat, and she was in essence the alter ego of myself, as I wanted to be at that time in my life and I set out writing a book chronicling the history of the haunted house, which itself as it turns out was built buy aliens as a secret earth base-camp, and is not actually haunted, rather what humans calls ghosts are really aliens. In the past 27 years what started as a simple story, has since become a saga spanning over a dozen volumes following the Swanzen family from the building of the Manor in the late 1300’s up to the current time.

Written Friday, November 4, 2005

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*

Who Is EelKat?

I’ve been online since August of 1997. I travel and post on more than 100 differant forums and message boards, most of them ProBoards sites.
Those who know me, know that I also go by the name of EelKat. Thus, I am often asked why. Why is a simple yet complex answer.

The more appropriate question should be who. Who is EelKat? EelKat is a character from an epic book that I started writing in 1980 when I was 5 years old. Miss Kitten the EelKat, as she was originally called in 1978, is a black bobcat~like creature based on the tailless cat beast from mythology, known as Tailypoe. The name EelKat, came from my love of eels and the fact that she was a bobcat.

As the EelKat story expanded she went on to become the co-owner of The Twighlight Manor an ancient stone 500+ room haunted mansion situated deep in the heart of The Twighlight Forest, owned by Sir Roderic Lincandoia Swanzen. EelKat is also part owner of White Rock former haunted mansion turned asylum for the criminally insane.

The Twighlight Manor characters were created based on UFO sightings that took place in the forest behind my house in 1978 and 1982. I was one of the witnesses to these sightings.

The combination of events that summer, resulted in the creation of a black bobcat come to earth from another galaxy, took up residence in a haunted mansion, and raised eels for pets. She was named EelKat, and she was in essence the alter ego of myself, as I wanted to be at that time in my life and I set out writing a book chronicling the history of the haunted house, which itself as it turns out was built buy aliens as a secret earth base-camp, and is not actually haunted, rather what humans calls ghosts are really aliens. In the past 27 years what started as a simple story, has since become a saga spanning over a dozen volumes following the Swanzen family from the building of the Manor in the late 1300’s up to the current time.

Written Friday, November 4, 2005

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear what you have to say about this post. Leave a comment and share your views!

————-
Copper Cockeral
Publishing Your NaNo Novel?
Do You and I Read the Same Books?
Want to Give Me a Reward for Reaching 50k?
*I Love Phookas!*