Category: x-personal

I remember back in high school hearing stories about something called “Pigman Road.” I never knew exactly where it was, or what, just that it was not a place you were supposed ot go after dark. I never paid it much mind, never having any direct knowledge of it.
A few years later, when I was a sophomore in college, a friend’s girlfriend, who was originally from near my town, asked me if I knew the tale. I responded no of course, and she started to tell me something about an axe murderer, and then fell over because she was so drunk.
Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I finally know what it was about. Apparently there is no one tale or story about the area, but a whole mish-mosh of ideas and spooky happenings. Mason Winfield, a paranormal researcher who specializes in my home region, Western New York, has a web site where he answers questions from people (As an aside, my friend Helen’s mother did the illustrations for his first book). Check it out at http://www.masonwinfield.com/ArchiveFiles/January%202003/question.htm. I like the idea that nobody nowadays remembers the accident, but the area is still associated with such spooky happenings. I like the fact that there is still so much I don’t know about my home town. It gives me a place to start working from, I guess.

Edit: Some more digging found me http://www.paranormalghostsociety.org/Pigmans%20Road.htm. Pictures and some on-site reporting. Maybe I’m tired, but this is giving me the shivers.

So, as I sit her in the CADlab waiting for Sammi to get out of rehearsal, I figure I should start my Diary Project for Storyteling. Basically, I’m supposed to record a story every day ( I think it’s every day), whether it’s one I heard from someone, something I read in the newspaper, or something I remember from long ago.
I’m supposed to tell my first story on Monday. In fact, I’ll be the first person to go. I have to leave class early, so I’m up first. That, and Betsy thinks my experience with storytelling will serve me well. I’ll show the rest of the class that it’s not so hard to do.
Of course, I’m also the youngest person in that class by a couple of years. It’s weird, I’m now going out into the real graduate schools and putting myself side by side with older, more professional grad students.

I’m running a bit short on time, but tonight I’ll have to tell the story of my Odyssey on the London Night Buses. It’s a scary tale filled with strange characters, desperate and tired people, and the underbelly of London.