The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 192: Not Really a Ghost Story

Episode Date: March 23, 2021

A simple story of a simple homemaker turns in to a not-so-simple tale of the haunted home where Mike lived in 1992, followed by the spontaneous re-telling of the most terrifying night of Mike's life. A ghost story that's not really a ghost story, but nevertheless scared Chuck as bad as it did Mike…

Do do do do do do do. Dumb. Is it weird to love people but despise human resources? If so, well, color me weird. It's not to say I don't respect the millions of people who work in HR departments and companies all over the country. I do. It's just that I don't envy him.

That's why MicroWorks doesn't have an HR department for better or worse. And it's also why I use ZipRecruiter whenever we need to expand. ZipRecruiter has proven themselves a million. million times over by helping countless employers get through the hiring process faster and more effectively than ever before. And now they have a new feature that instantly shows you the most interested, the most passionate, and the most qualified candidates first. This is a huge time saver, hours and hours of save time. And it helps people like me find the people who can function in a non-traditional work environment like MicroWorks. In other words,

ZipRecruiter works for me, and they'll probably work for you, too. Post a job for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Rowe. And watch what happens. Odds are, you'll find a human resource that just happens to be a great fit for your company in 24 hours or less. ZipRecruiter.com slash Rowe. ZipRecruiter.com slash Rowe. The smartest way to hire. Hey, guys, it's Mike Rowe, and this is episode 192 of the way I heard.

it, and it's called Not Really a Ghost Story. Not really a Ghost story. This should not be confused with next week's episode, which really is a ghost story, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Episode 192 begins with the true tale of a little girl who dreamed of becoming a homemaker and saw those dreams come true, thanks to the man who proposed to her over 100 years ago in what many might call the most romantic setting imaginable. We then pivot from that remarkable homemaker to the remarkable home that I occupied back in 1992, a remarkable home that I lived in for free for a year and the ghost who lived there with me. How's that for a tease?

Chuck and I then discuss America's fascination with all things supernatural, the enduring power of a good ghost story, and our universal fear of things that go bump in the night. Then, at Chuck's urging, I share the true story of the most frightening night of my life and the downside of living rent-free in a haunted mansion. It's not really a ghost story, unless, of course, you believe in those sorts of things. Either way, it all starts right now. Chapter 14. Not Your Typical Homemaker. Julia stepped out of her tent after dawn and marveled at the sight in front of her.

A sloping hill covered with wildflowers, a pristine beach, an unlimited view. Bill was a catch, no doubt about it. Handsome, successful, ambitious. His proposal had taken her by surprise, but, having slept on the idea, Julia was still undecided. Bill was the kind of guy who believed a man's home was his castle, which begged the question, did he see himself as a king?

If so, what did that make her? Bill's happy little homemaker? Coincidentally, or maybe not, Julia held in her hands a copy of yesterday's San Francisco examiner, which Bill had left on her suitcase. On the front page, just below the fold, was an article entitled Rules and Advice for Wives. It wasn't really an article. It was more like a public service announcement, printed for the edification of America's aspiring homemakers.

Did he intend for her to see those rules before he popped the question? Julia didn't know, but she perused them, nevertheless. One, don't be extravagant. nothing appeals more strongly to a man than the prospect of economic independence. Two, keep your home clean. Nothing is more refreshing to the eyes of the tired, nerve-wracked worker than the sight of a well-tided home. Three, do not permit your person to become unattractive. A slovenly wife makes a truant husband.

Well, Julia thought, rule number one shouldn't pose much of a person. problem. Her tastes were sophisticated, but so too were Bill's. Surely the purchase of a few nice things wouldn't threaten his masculinity. Likewise, for Rule 2, she was all for keeping a clean house, but did Bill really expect her to be dusting and vacuuming? Surely a man with his resources would spring for a maid. Regarding Rule 3, Julia understood the importance of appearances. Hers would be maintained, regardless of their future together. Rule four read, Do not receive attention from other men.

Husbands are often jealous, and some are suspicious without cause. Do not supply the cause. Actually, thought Julia, that wasn't bad advice. Bill was possessive and made no secret of it. She knew all about the phone calls he'd made before popping the question,

pointed calls to specific men with whom, she had a history. If she said yes, Rule 4 might be worth heeding. Rule 5 was, Do not resent reasonable discipline of children by their father. Mothers should not assume that all chastisement of a child by his father is severe and unjustifiable. Not an issue, thought Julia. Bill already had five kids, six, if you believe the rumors. If he wanted to slap them around, That was none of her business. Rule number six, do not spend too much time with your mother. You may easily, in such a way, spend too little time at home.

No worries there. If she said yes, Bill would become her priority. A simple fact she and her mother would have to accept. Rule seven, do not accept advice from neighbors. Have a plan of your own for the solution of home problems. Neighbors, thought Julia. What neighbors? Julia doubted that there would be any neighbors at all. As for a plan of her own, that was a given. Julia never did anything without a plan. Rule 8, do not disparage your husband.

Funny, thought Julia. Bill is basically in the disparagement business. And what nasty thing could she possibly say that hadn't been said a thousand times already? Rule nine, smile. Be attentive in little things, an indifferent wife is often supplanted by an ardent mistress. Julia snorted. Bill had a mistress and everyone knew it as well as a wife. But Julia understood attention to detail. Indeed, it was her obsession with the little things that had attracted Bill in the first place.

Rule 10. be tactful. Men, in the last analysis, are but overgrown children. They do not mind coaxing, but they resent coercion. Femininity attracts and compels them. Masculinity in the female repels. Julia snorted more loudly this time. She knew that certain men were impervious to feminine wiles,

just as certain women were immune to the charms of men. It was a fact to which she could personally attest. Yet here she was, a single woman who'd been whisked away to this most romantic of locations to ponder a proposal from a married man with a mistress who'd promised to make all her dreams come true. Bill emerged from his tent, holding two cups of coffee. Julia folded the newspaper and tucked it under her arm. They stood together in silence, sipping their coffee, admiring the wildflowers, the beach, the Pacific.

Location, location, location, said Bill. It is a good one, Julia agreed. Have you come to a decision? I have. She turned to face, Bill, who owned the newspaper, tucked under her arm. She considered his reputation, his penchant for yellow journalism. for printing wild rumors and spurious gossip. She also considered his budget.

Are you sure you want me, Julia asked? I'm not your typical homemaker. Bill grinned, I don't want a typical homemaker, he said. I want to build a home with you. She took a deep breath and nodded. Okay, she said. Let's do it. And so they did.

Right there, on a sloping hill. Hill, covered with wildflowers. As always, Julia began with a plan. When construction ended, three decades later, Bill's family campground had been transformed into 123 acres of gardens, terraces, pools, and walkways, a zoo filled with exotic creatures, and in the center of it all, a new home with 165 separate rooms designed by the homemaker who'd had the good sense to accept Bill's proposal. No, no, not a marriage proposal, a business proposal.

A proposal to build a home unlike any other made to the first female architect licensed by the state of California. A woman who left behind 700 unique buildings and homes, all marked by her tireless attention to detail an unwavering commitment to satisfy her many clients. Say what you want about Bill. Back in 1919, when Americans believed a woman's place was in the home, he hired a homemaker to build one,

a woman who shared her client's belief that a man's home was his castle. In this case, a castle by the sea, built by a trailblazing architect named Julia Morgan and made famous by the king who live there, a king of media named William Randolph Hurst. I lived in a castle once upon a time. Not like Hurst Castle, but not unlike it either. I wound up there because I'd been renting a room from a man who turned out not to own the room in question.

This was a complicated, awkward situation that left me with less than 48 hours to find a new place to live and filled me with a level of domestic anxiety that briefly eclips the uncertainty surrounding. my budding career in home shopping. The year was 1990. I'd been at QVC for three whole months. Now I was on the verge of sleeping in my car, a poor calling card for an aspiring TV personality with dreams of working in prime time. So I turned to the classifieds and found an ad in the real estate section that was impossible to ignore. Owner of large country estate seeks discreet caretaker to oversee home and grounds, it read, free rent, utilities included. It wasn't the free rent that caught my eye or even the country estate. It was the quotation

marks around caretaker. I understood what a caretaker does, but a caretaker, in quotes? The secretary, who took my call, told me that her employer was seeking a discreet gentleman to occupy a mansion she owned on a 300-acre estate in Pennsylvania horse country. The mansion was called Georgia Farm. Really, I said. Your boss wants someone to live in her mansion rent-free? Someone discreet. How about someone confused?

I beg your pardon. I'm not sure I understand, I said. What exactly would I be doing there, aside from being discreet? Very little, she said. There's already a caretaker on the premises. He and his wife live in a separate building behind the barn. All that you have to do is occupy the main house and assist my employer as directed. I see, I said.

So your employer is seeking companionship? ship? The secretary giggled. Oh, no, she said. My employer has all the company she requires. You'll live alone at Georgia Farm. Alone, I said. And discreetly, she said. It was an utterly baffling phone call, but the secretary was nice. She sounded sane and seemed to like me. There and then, she arranged a time for an interview with her employer. Time is of the essence, she said. Tell me about it, I said. Marion Bolton-Strald was the socialite's name. Her friends called her Kippy.

I met her a few hours later on the patio of the Marshallton Inn just outside Philadelphia. It was unusually warm for late October, but thanks to Joe, the bartender, my Heineken was unusually cold, just what I needed to process Kippy's story. Kippy told me that Georgia Farm had been her childhood home. According to her, it was idyllic, exquisite, a perfect place, and now she had inherited it. Well, then, I said, why don't you just move in? I'd like to, she said. But my father's still there.

We've never gotten along, not even a little. Who did you inherit the estate from? I asked. My father, Morris Stroud, he died last year. But your father, he's still in the house? Oh, yes. He walks the grounds at night. In the evenings, he sits in the great room by the fire. Kippy was in her mid-50s, well put together, and, matter of fact, like her secretary, she seems sane.

And you want a caretaker who isn't a caretaker because... Kippy smiled patiently and addressed me as she would a child. The terms of my father's will are problematic. Georgia Farm is mine for as long as I want to live there. I inherited that right without inheriting the actual property. But if I don't move in within a year of his death, the estate goes to the natural lands trust. They're itching to get their hands on it.

And you don't want that to happen? No, she said. Not yet, anyway. But you're scared to move in because you're, your father is still walking the grounds. Yes, she said, something like that. And what is it you'd need me to do? If people from the trust come poking around, as they surely will, you will tell them, I live there. When they ask you where I am, you will tell them I'm traveling. When they ask who you are, you will tell them that you are my lover. I nodded to Joe, who brought me another Heineken. Just to be clear, we're not going to be lovers, are we? Of course not, said Kippey.

But feel free to invite them into the house, show them where we sleep. The closets filled with my old clothes. And your father? What should I tell him if he starts to ask questions? Handle the ghost of my father as you see fit, she told me. My hope is that he will eventually move on so that I can move in. Until he does, I won't return to Georgia Farm. But in the meantime, I don't wish to lose my right to live there. Even though you don't want to? Precisely, she said, even though I don't want to.

It was the strangest offer I'd ever received, but given the circumstances it was an offer I couldn't refuse. And so, on Halloween, I moved in to the mansion, and started in on the strangest year of my life thus far. Strange, because Kippy turned out to be right. Georgia Farm really was haunted. D-Dood-Dood-Dood-Dood-Dum! Well, are you sick of it yet?

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And while you're there, pick up their free business guy, demystifying AI. It's filled with super useful information. And again, it's free at netsuite.com slash mike. That's netsuite.com. So now we're actually recording on Zoom and I'm recording on my phone. And you're also recording on your phone. No, I'm recording on my laptop. So you're in Garage Band on your laptop on a separate track.

We're both on Zoom and you're recording those to separate tracks. And I'm recording as well on my iPhone on the voice memo app on a separate track. Yes. I'll send all this to you and you'll determine which one sounds better. That's pretty much how it's going to roll. Yeah. See, if you thought a haunted house was scary, try doing a podcast with a guy named Chuck. How are you?

I'm well, man. I'm well. I'm ready to talk about some ghostly stuff. I remember Georgia Farm. Woo! I bet you do. This chapter, the one you all just listened to,

by the way, probably generated more response, more feedback on Facebook than anything else. And I think it's because everybody has a ghost story. Even skeptics have ghost stories. People love to watch them on the TV, their entire, man,

the travel channel is now just the paranormal channel. I don't know if you've noticed. I haven't, but I'll take your word for it. Well, trust me, because old reruns of a show I used to narrators still out there called Ghost Hunters. Do you remember Ghost Hunters? Yes. Previously on Ghost Hunters. That's your Ghost Hunters voice.

That's my Ghost Hunters voice. And I did Ghost Hunters International. Wow. They ran forever, dude. People love the paranormal. And this chapter inspired a lot of those people to write. and the chapter that I'm going to share next week. And I want to talk to you then too

because that's when the actual encounter that I had in Georgia Farms actually happened. And I don't want to give that away now, but I wanted to talk with you because you at least can confirm a couple of things. Georgia Farm is real. Yes. You've been there.

Yes. And you know for a fact that I inhabited that place for the better part of a year in the early 90s. Yes. amazingly so. It was one of your forties is finding places to live that you didn't have to pay for. You were so good at that. I was so lucky. But I was based, you know, that was the first time it happened. You know, I had a full-time job. I worked the graveyard shift at QVC every night. And by day, I inhabited this place. But the story that I just shared really,

did pick up when I met Kippy Stroud, who really did run that ad searching for a caretaker in quotes. And I knew I knew the second I saw that classified something weird was a foot. Yeah. It just got progressively weirder. To all the people who have said, was Kippy real, yeah, you can Google her. She was actually a nice woman, very artistic, very smart. Marion Stroud was her name. Everybody called her Kippie. And when I met her at the Marshallton Inn in 1992, she told me with a straight face that her dead father walked the grounds. And it was an Indian summer, you know, early mid-October, and the Heineken was cold, the air was warm, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood up at attention, not because I believed her, but because she believed it. And I knew it. And I knew I was

talking to a woman who was 100% certain that either the ghost of her father or her reanimated flesh and blood was walking the grounds. That is what you just described, the hair on the back of your neck. That's why people love ghost stories because whoever's telling them believes it. And we get sucked into the storytelling. It's just a great story. Every ghost story story is always a lot of fun. And I can't wait to get to a lot of those, but I think before we go any further, you should describe in vivid detail your first night at Georgia Farm. You really want me to do that? I absolutely want you to do it because, well, I'll tell you why later, but yes. Well, I mean, look, I'll do it. That story's not in the book. So it's probably worth sharing now because it really

did happen, but I'm only sharing it to provide a little context for what happens next, which we'll actually talk about next week. But look, if I sound like I'm talking around it, it's because I disagree with what you just said. I don't think every ghost story is truly believed by the person who's telling it. I think sometimes we just get a yarn. And it's just a great tale and we want to go along for the ride. Look, if you look at ghost hunters, and Ghost Hunters International. I mean, the entire hinge of every story comes down to some guy in a room

with a bunch of electronic equipment saying, if you're in here, give us a sign, which is the same as saying, if you're in here, don't make a sound. Do nothing. And then in the ensuing silence, they say, aha, wanted. So, nailed it.

Our brains, they find what we tell them, to search for. And if we're open to a good tale, as most of us are, then we go on a ride. But what is really true and what is really false? And where is Poe and where is Lovecraft and where is last house on the left and Friday the 13th and this entire, dude, you did a movie. You did a horror movie. A couple of them, yeah. Pretty bad one, as I recall. The unnameable. HP Lovecraft, right. H.P. Lovecraft. And it was so good, we made a sequel, the unnameable. too. Yes. That's right. Not unwatchable, merely unnameable. Yeah. And I produced and was also in a movie years later that wasn't necessarily a horror movie, more of a slasher movie, you know, about the all-girl band that goes on tour and crosses paths with a homicidal maniac that likes to cut off the feet of beautiful women, otherwise known as stump the band. That one was a that was a keeper. Look, my point is somewhere between truth and fiction is the enduring appeal of a ghost story, whether you, you're around a campfire or a podcast or spending the first night alone in a mansion whose owner

has convinced you that she believes it's haunted. Was it actually haunted? I didn't know, but here's what I did know on October 30th, 1992. I knew that I was homeless. I knew that the apartment I had been renting. I was paying money to a landlord, a guy who didn't actually own the apartment. Right? So I was thrown out of the place. I answered this ad, as just described, and I made a deal with Kippie Stroud to occupy the residence known as Georgia Farm. And she asked me when I needed to move in, and I said immediately, and immediately was the next day, and that day was Halloween. So I went to the apartment that I wasn't legally allowed to live in, and I gathered up my belongings, put him in a truck, got a guy named Dan Hughes, who I worked with over at, QVC, another show host, people might remember from the Glory Days. And Dan helped me unload. And when I drove up the driveway to Georgia Farm, which by the way, is a mile long.

Right. And there are cattle guards every quarter mile. There were still cattle on the property. It's horse country. They had fox hunts on Georgia Farm. It was out in the back and beyond. And driving over those cattle guards, Brer-boom, you know, one after the next, after the next. Further and further from the road. And then you finally come around the corner and there's the old barn.

And there's this old Georgian estate. Giant porch, pillars on the front, both Gothic, warm, inviting, old, and a little creepy. But of course, the sun is still up, you know. And I've got a truck full of stuff. and my buddy Dan has somewhere to be. He doesn't have a lot of time and he's going to help me unload.

And, you know, we kind of walked around, took the measure of the place, opened the front door, and as quickly as we could, got all the stuff off the truck and inside the foyer. No time to explore. No time to look around.

It's an enormous house. This is Halloween. This is Halloween, 1990. too. So I get the crap out of the truck. I thank Dan for his trouble. And by now the sun is setting. And it feels totally different when the sun is setting, you know, as everywhere does. But he kind of leaves and looks over his shoulder and says, you have a nice evening, you know, and I say, yeah, it'll be great. So he goes, and I go inside of this old mansion for the first time and try and get my head around it. And Chuck, it's so big. You know, the, the kitchen itself.

was the first place I saw and it looked like the kitchen and the shining. It was an industrial kitchen. It was huge. Like four or five stove tops and all of these endless cabinets. Everything's loaded.

I mean, it's all the appliances are there, all the silverware is there. The entire place is furnished. Rugs in the foyer that were 200 years old and the dining room, old tables and chairs and heads of animals on the walls and fireplaces and a player piano.

That is just ridiculous, the player piano. Oh, my God, yeah, that story. Anyway, I'm increasingly getting the sense that this place is very, very old indeed, and I set up the stuff on the first floor. I go upstairs and what's left of the light to look at the bedroom where I'd be staying in. There were five bedrooms.

Kippy asked me, she said you can have the run of the house. Just don't take the bedroom that my father died in. And I said, which one is that? And she said, it's the main one. It didn't mean anything to me. But I knew there was one place in the house that I wasn't supposed to go. And I got my stuff in.

And I didn't need a bed, obviously. It was furnished. There was a bed up there. And then I went downstairs, and I made a fire. And the lights were on on the main floor. And I saw something up in the first bedroom and I wanted to go get it. I had left. There was something on the mantle and the fireplace up there, nothing of any consequence.

I don't remember what it was. I just wanted to go back up and see whatever it was. And I went on to the stairs and I flipped the switch and the lights didn't come on. So there are no lights upstairs. So I go downstairs and I'm looking around for a flashlight and I can't find one. and I sit down by the fire that I just made, and I'm feeling like the whole place is both enormous and closing in on me at the same time.

And I'm just kind of overwhelmed with this sense of wanting to see the place. I don't want to sleep in a place that I haven't explored. That's what you said to me. You were like, I wasn't going to feel comfortable sleeping there until I had just looked at every square inch of it. Right. and the breakers were off. There was no light upstairs.

I didn't even know if there was a downstairs at this point. I just knew there was this enormous first floor with a living room and a dining room and a foyer and an enormous kitchen and a couple of, there was a den and some other chambers and whatnot. Small hallways, you know. So I lit a candelabra that was on the player piano and I took it upstairs.

And I started looking around. And I went from one bedroom to the next, didn't see anything of, didn't see anything to alarm me. And then I found a door at the end of a corridor. And that opened up. And there was a set of stairs that led back down to the main floor, a back staircase. And I said, oh, that's interesting. So I walked down that set of stairs and then loop back around through the dining room, up the main stairs again, back to the room where I would be sleeping, worked a little bit further,

down the same hallway, looking around opening doors. Well, I open the last door and I look inside. And it looks like the ghost and Mr. Chicken, that Don Nott's move, all the sheets like over stuff and everything else. Right. And the verboten room. Yeah. I mean, I added it up real quick when I saw a shape in the bed under the sheets

and immediately realized it was the core. corpse of Kippie's father. Because by now, the sun has gone down and the moonlight streaming through the window. And my heart rate goes from wherever it was to maybe double it. And of course, then I realized it's just pillows. You know, it's not a corpse at all. It's just pillows under a sheet. But now I'm in my head a little bit.

Why would someone put pillows under the sheet? What would you do that for? Because they left the room exactly as it was when they found him dead. And he had pillows underneath the sheet. Well, whoever went in there, they threw stuff together and then they put sheets over everything. You know, sheets over there, right? It was just a creepy sheet covered room that appeared to have a corpse in it, but didn't. Just a trick of the eye, but it got me in my head.

Okay, right? So now I'm continuing my tour of the upstairs with an elevated heart rate for no good reason, but it's dark. And I got a candelabra in my hand, and I'm walking through a creepy old house. I opened a door to nowhere. It was just a door, and inside was a small room, and it was red. Like red room, again, from the shining. A small red room with nothing in it. This begs questions.

There are no answers. I stand there looking at the small red room, and I close the door, and I walk past the bedroom. I'm not supposed to be in. I go down the secret back stairway, and I sit by the fire a bit longer, and I pour myself a bourbon. And I'm alone in a house at the end of a long winding

country road, far from civilization. I'm working the graveyard shift, so I'm never fully awake and I'm never fully asleep. But I'm in a place that is undecide, just straight up creepy on Halloween. Off-putting. That's where my head is

when I walk back to the kitchen and notice another door. And this door doesn't look much different than all the many other doors in the house, but I open it, and there's a set of stairs that go down. And this is a very, very different experience. Because Georgia Farm had been redone many times over 300 years or so.

It was an ancient home on 300 acres, and it looked great up top. But downstairs, virtually nothing had been done. And the brickwork, the masonry, the stone, the stonework going down these wooden stair steps on either side was truly ancient, you know. And I stuck my head in far enough, held up the candle to take a look around, you know, couldn't see much, flick the switch, of course, the lights don't come on. And I'm standing there at the top of the, at the top of these stairs, holding a bourbon in one hand

and this candelabre in the other, thinking, you know, I could step back and I could close the door. And I could just go to bed and enjoy nice Halloween alone with my bourbon at Georgia Farm. Or I could satisfy this annoying little itch that says, you ought to check the place out, Mike. My guest today, Tom Albanyse, is an American giant. And I'll tell you why. Tom understands on a fundamental level that the business of mining is a non-negotiable prerequisite of our civilization and our economic independence, just like the business of making things. American Giant knows this, which is why they committed themselves 16 years ago to make

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So I walked down the stairs and of course the stairs creak because why wouldn't there? They're there wouldn't and they've been there for millennium. And I get to the stone floor of the basement and I look around and the first thing I see is the boiler. And it's sitting in a pit. It's a stone pit and it's on. And so you see the little bits of the fire on the inside, like licking around the, again, there's nothing inherently scary about this except it's sitting there squatting like some lupine pest from hell that chewed his way out of the bowels of the earth and just sits there at the foot of this impossible stairway in this ancient

home smoldering and all of its twisted evil right and I'm thinking well there's a welcome I walk past the furnace the boiler and I hold up the candle and this basement runs the length of the house it's big and in the basement are filing cabinets old wooden filing cabinets, one after the next. Well, Kippey's dad, Morris Stroud, he was a doctor, a pioneer in geriatric research, and all of his files were still there, all of them. And being nosy, I just walked over and I opened the top one. And inside was just folder after folder after folder. Folders full of the histories of dead people, you know, in the basement of the old house. I closed. You were violating all sorts of

HIPAA laws, for sure. You know, of all the things that were troubling me, Chuck, in that moment, HIPAA, hippos, none of that was germane. I was just, it was just one, it was one more layer of creepiness. That's all. Yes. Yep. These are wooden filing cabinets.

Can you picture them? Not the industrial steel kind, but old wooden filing cabinets, the creek when you open, full of the sad stories of the dead. and one after the next, after the next. And I walked down this lane of filing cabinets. And of course, this is so hackneyed. It's ridiculous to point out. But there is a skull and bones, a skeleton set up,

just like you'd see in a doctor's office at the end of it. Perfect. Like, now I'm looking around for the camera, right? Like, you've got to be kidding me. Now I'm standing down here with a candle in my hand, looking at a skull and bones at the end of a long lane of wooden cabinets, full of the records of dead people, flanked on the other side by this boiler that appears to have chewed its way out of Hades. And by skull and bones, you mean like a hanging skeleton.

The full deal. Yeah, the whole, the full Monty. Yeah, not just a skull, the skull and the bones, all the bones, all the bones, all right? everything but the flesh and the organs that used to be all gone. Right. So I laugh to myself at this point because I'm in my head.

My heart's still beating from going into the wrong room, seeing the corpse that wasn't there in the moonlight, seeing the inexplicable red closet that can't exist for a good reason. There's a fire going upstairs. There's bourbon waiting for me. And now I've satisfied that

which needs to be satisfied. My curiosity, I've seen what feels like every square inch of the house. I'm going to go upstairs, going to make a couple phone calls, maybe turn in early. And then I turn around and I see four steps carved out of the stone that lead straight down. And at the bottom of the last step is a wooden door. And it's a short door. It looks like the door to a.

to a summer cellar, to a spring cellar. You know, maybe it leads outside. I don't know where it leads, but at this point, I've come this far, right? I'm keen to guess. And so I go down the stairs and I open this wooden door. And right in front of me is a wall, a brick wall. And then hard to the left are two more steps and another door.

So I go down those two stairs and I open. open that door. And inside is pitch black. It's a very low ceiling. I hold the candle up. I look around. The floor is dirt. And I'm not quite sure where I'm standing.

But I turn around and in the flickering candle light, I see four cages, two on the ground and two on the ground and two on top. Now, at this point, your brain is taking in information in fits and starts, right? Your eyes are seeing more than your brain can actually process. So my brain is saying, okay, you went through two doors. You're at the bottom of a couple of stone stairs. You're standing on the dirt floor. You're in a room with a very low ceiling that has four cages in it.

And then I noticed that the bottom cage was open. The door to the cage was open. open. And then my brain sent the inevitable question, the second or two, after my retina summed up the situation, and said, huh, wonder what was in the cage and wonder how come the doors open. And then I heard a crashing sound, sound like a shotgun. It was so loud. And it was the door behind me slamming shut. This door slammed shut like a giant grabbed it with two hands and just swung it closed. It made such a sound that I literally jumped in the air, hard enough to hit my head on the ceiling, which was already grazing my hair, right? So no big shakes. But it knocked me to the

floor and I dropped the candle and the candle went out. And that to me was really the first and only time that I felt something leave me, right? Like the sensible, rational part of me just stepped out of my body for a minute. And I began to make sounds that I'm not terribly proud of, kind of a whimpering kind of thing, you know? Yeah. And I can still, I can still feel, I can feel my fingers in the earth. earth the earthen floor. And on my hands and knees, all I could think of was the thing is out of the cage. The thing is out of the cage. And I'm down here with it. Don't know what the thing is,

not even wondering what the thing is. Maybe it's a small evil dwarf that lives in the sub-basement. I don't know what it is. I'm not thinking clearly. But I do quickly know that that was the sound of the door slamming shut. And once I get my motor skills back, I hop up and I run over to the door and I grab it and I can't open it. The door is locked. Just so we're clear. It's still pitch dark. You don't have another match. It's dark like flapping your hand in front of your face, nothing. Yeah, exactly. It's as dark as dark gets. And I can't get the door open. And I start to cry. Right. I mean, not sob, but just the hysterical. kind of gasping thing that happened. I'm waiting for the thing that got out of the cage to

grab me by the calf and drag me into some pit. And I can't believe this door is locked. And of course, it's not. It's got the old style handle. I'm grabbing the handle and I'm pulling and I'm pushing. Yes, the thumb latch. My thumb was under the thumb latch. And blessedly, my other hand fell on top of it and I got the door open. And I ran up those two stairs. and smashed into that wall, nearly knocked me down again. I turned to my right and I ran up the next four stairs and that wooden door is still open. And I'm gasping for breath and I'm standing at the top of those stairs and there's the damn skull and bones just waiting for me. So I squeal again like a 10-pound baby girl, run past the wooden filing cabinets full of dead people, leap over the boiler, still spouting

flames like the lupine pest from hell that it is, sprint up the wooden stairs, stumble twice, like Joe Biden trying to get on a plane, get up to the top, slam that door shut, look at myself in the mirror in the foyer, tears on my cheeks, I'm shaking, I grab the bourbon, I pour some more, I walk back into the living room, and I sit there by the fire. And Chuck, I did nothing, nothing for, I'd say, the better part of an hour, except sit there and sip bourbon.

thinking to myself, if that player piano starts playing right now, what's left of my dignity and rationality is going to fly out my ass. And about an hour and a half after that, the bourbon was gone and I went to bed. And I slept through the night, incredibly. And the next morning, the sun came up. and I called Kipi. I said, we need an electrician out here. I don't have any power upstairs or downstairs.

I don't know where the breakers are. But I rooted around and I found a flashlight. And I went back down into the basement to see exactly where I had been. And I wasn't a spring cellar. And that second set of doors led down to a sub-basement. And the sub-basement now had light in it. The light was streaming through a crack in the wall, which was actually hurricane doors. There were hurricane doors on the side of the house.

And I later learned from Kippy that Georgia Farm, among other things, was a national dog training institute. And they boarded Labradors all the time because there was a huge pond on the property. And there was duck hunting all the time. I mean, this is where they trained the labs to retrieve the ducks. And so those were cages that were used outdoors during training exercises for dogs. I learned all this later. But the point of the story is just to say that I am a skeptic. I don't, you know, I don't go there.

I know. But, dude, I went there. I went there that night. And I stayed there for a bit. Well, I remember when I first came to visit you and you, like the dear friend that you are, decided to tell me this story. You decided to wait until we got in our cups. And then you said, did I ever tell you what happened the first night I was here? And I was like, I don't think you did.

And then you just told the exact same story that you did, except you did it by candlelight walking me every step of the way where you were. And when we went down into that basement, I was like, no, no, no, no, Mike, what are you doing? No, this is, this is, you're, you're pulling my leg. This is no. And you're like, no, no, no, swear to God, this is what happened. And you took me down into that room. And we got in there and you say, and I look around and you put, pulled the light around. And my gaze followed where the light went and I saw the cages.

And then you slammed the door shut and blew out the candle. and I peed a little and was like, because it was black as night and I couldn't see anything. I was like, dude, what do you do it? Turn the light back going. I said, I can't. So this is what I'm doing.

So this is what happened. And you continue to tell me the story, as if this is all part of the story. You know, like I paid the extra money for the really scary tour, you know. I wasn't trying to scare you. I was trying even then to make sure that somebody else knew what I had gone through on Halloween in 1992.

Somebody needed to know. And I started to have parties over there. In fact, I lived like a Duke for the better part of the next year, and that's what the next chapter is about. And I took people on that identical tour. In fact, there's video around here somewhere, because I just, I knew that I wasn't going to stay in Georgia Farm forever. and I knew that the time I was there was unique.

And I didn't think there would ever be another moment in my life where I ever got in my head that bad and was so straight up frightened. So I just wanted you to know, you were my best friend. And I just felt like I didn't want to have to tell you that story the way I just did now and not be able to grab you by the scruff of the neck and say, here, remember? That's it. Cages.

It was so scary, man. And then you put my hand on the handle and you're like, pull, pull. And I'm like, oh, it's not opening. It's not opening. He's like, I know. And then you took my thumb and you're like, see, feel it? I'm like, oh, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Let's get out of here.

Yeah. And that was creepy, creepy, creepy. Oh, man. So look, having said all that, Georgia Farm is real. You can Google. It doesn't look scary online. It was in 1992. and what happened to me next over the course of that year is a ghost story in and of itself.

And at the risk of sounding too cheesy, Chuck, what do you say we save that one for next week? I think that's a good idea because it's worth the wait. You're biased, of course. I am, just a little bit. Hey, I'll make you a deal, though. If we do this again, you and me next week, I want to hear the story. about your buddy Rico and his place, what happened to you up there?

And I'll tell you what, just for grins, because I know everybody has a story. If you have one, you, gentle listener, go to my Facebook page. Tell me about it. I'll read the best one I can find next week, or at least share it with the gang.

I don't know what it is. Actually, I do know what it is. It's the fact that nobody knows for sure. that makes us all so certain that we must know something. You can't prove it, but people experience things. And I know I want to hear the story. You know the story. I want to hear.

I know it. Oh, you're talking about Antietam. Antietam, yeah. All right, I'll tell you that one too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, that's going to be a good one next week. In the meantime, don't forget, you've just listened to what chapter was it?

I don't even remember. 13, 14, something like that. It doesn't matter. They're 35 in the book. Yes, right. So if you want to hear the rest of them all at once, rather than getting them once a week, you can get this book the way I heard it by Mike Rowe, wherever fine books are sold and audio books at what is the audio place? It doesn't matter. They're smart. They'll find it. It's probably on audible. Audible. That's the one. In other very brief news, the rumors are true, both rumors. Dirty jobs is in fact back in production. I spent last week out on the road getting filthy and dirty. And that was great. Also, while I was on the road, I celebrated yet another trip around the sun.

Thanks for your many good wishes. Regarding my dotage. Now, I think I'm going to have myself a bourbon and wish you all a delightful week. Keep the lights on. I would. The ocean moves us, whether that's surfing a wave or taken in an inspiring view. The ocean feeds us. Sustainable seafood practices bring the ocean's bounty to our plates. The ocean teaches us how our everyday choices big and small make an impact. The ocean delights us

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