Until then however I have decided that it's time to explore other possibilities in my life. Growing up I had more then one passion. Considering that as a child I never believed I would get the chance to actually chase storms, I set aside that desire, and turned my attention to my other passion. That would be my fascination with the paranormal. My love for scary movies is not just because having the shit scared out of me is fun, but also because I am drawn to the unknown. I was the kid that sat in the back of the cafeteria with books piled in front of me that delved into the possibility of UFO's, earth spirits, ghosts, and other events that seemed to defy explanation and forced people to sleep with the lights on. Yes there was a point in my life where I slept with the lights on as well. I have had my share of experiences.The difference between me and most others is that I had a thirst to find out if it was real or just my imagination.
As I got older I found myself being drawn to people who had the same interests but sitting around talking about it did not quench the thirst or quell the desire that burned in me to learn/understand more. These friends of mine have all moved on, some are in bands not signed as of yet, well not that I am aware of, some completely destroyed their lives, and one even moved on to be a ghost hunter, good on you Steve, but me, I did what my parents wanted me to do.
My family was made up of mill workers, folks who never dared to do anything other then wake up every day, go to work, come home, go to bed, get up, repeat and eventually die miserable. I started to follow in those foot steps, matter of fact every member of my family at one point in time worked at the same paper mill in Holyoke Mass, "Parsons Paper". My father worked there for 36 years, my grandmother and grandfather worked there but my grandfather eventually moved on to work at a different paper Mill and died from a massive heart attack 3 weeks after he retired. My father who my only memories of him are as a miserable old man, spent the last three years of his life in retirement and in pain from hereditary conditions worsened by over working himself. I never saw my father growing up because he was always at work, and his retirement was an early one because after a while his conditions prevented him from working.
He spent the last three years of his life collecting stamps and kicking himself in the ass for having never lived out his dreams of becoming an architect. He did tell me in the end that he was sorry for the way our lives were, that he did his best (which I knew) and that he was sorry for leaving me with nothing more then his medical conditions, because I am slowly developing them.
My younger brother, who I am very close to and miss dearly, shares the same interests in the paranormal that I do. He worked at Parsons for a very long time and eventually saw his life slipping away through the bottom of a bottle of whiskey. After surviving an overdose which placed him in a coma for 6 weeks, he smartened up, realized he was given a second chance at life and I am happy to say is doing everything he can to take full advantage of it.
My step brother spent most of his life working at parsons as well and so did my mom. He defies any sort of explanation and lives with the belief that he has the right to be a miserable prick and so I pretty much leave that alone.
My mom is slipping away as well, but it's old age that is claiming her at this point.
I did what my parents expected of me, I married and had kids. I worked at parsons as a secretary, but I was eventually forced to give it up and stay home to care for my ailing child. Korben is doing better then the doctors could have ever imagined. It's not a full recovery, and I honestly don't believe it ever will be, but he is happy and as healthy as a child in his situation can be.
All around me I could see how every ones lives were slowly coming apart at the seams and I realized I could not be a part of that. So I left and moved to Oklahoma to do what... well chase storms of course :-), finally doing what I want instead of following the flock to an early grave.
This death ridge from hell has forced me to take a second look at things, and I have realized that chasing is only about 3 or 4 months out of the year, it leaves an enormous amount of time to explore other avenues. I am being given a second lease on life so to speak and I have decided that I am not going to spend 8 months of the year waiting around for the next storm. I can't do that, it's a stagnant way to live and I am not cut out to deal with it. So I am going to re explore an old fascination of mine and try my hand at ghost hunting. So you are going to see this blog go from being just babblings about stormchasing to babblings about ghost hunting as well. I have no idea how far this will go, but at least in the end I can say I tried :-) Now the only question is where the hell do I start?
6 comments:
**gasp** Awesome on the ghost hunting! I got my own personal experiences to share with you sometime, the house I grew up in was haunted. Me, my sister, and my mom all had incredible experiences in that house. My mom and sister remained living there until just last December '08, where they eventually sold it and moved elsewhere. I regret not having done my own "scientific" investigation with camcorders and voice recorders to collect evidence. Mostly the reason for not doing it is that both my sister and mom refused to allow me. My sister was completely burned out of all the experiences up until almost the last day there. **sigh** After getting totally immersed into TAPS, GHI, and various other paranormal series, I was pumped and ready to tackle that house armed with a positive attitudeand an arsenal of equipment. Oh well.
I think youve totally lost it, Shane. Ghost hunting is the total antithesis of storm chasing. Chasing is the quest for that which is the most real. There's nothing more concrete than an EF-4 spraying debris in your face. I still hold an interest in the paranormal, in fact i wrote a book that had a paranormal theme, but that path is the road to self-destruction IMO. It's grabbing on to something that is intangible as basically a drug to fill a void. I guess im 'fortunate' to have many passions besides chasing, but im sure you have others as well, and id recommend you follow those instead.
LOL. This is Bridge's blog, not Shane's.
Ah well, i never follow silly blogs, just came across this when i googled "Death Ridge of 2009". My comments apply to Bridge as well. Sorry guys! :)
What's silly about my blog? Uninteresting I'd accept, but silly?
Your analysis of the ghost hunting thing seems right on par with what I've heard from so many Christians during my life: "My way or the highway".
BTW, I have no idea who you are, and probably don't care.
I dont think YOUR blog is silly, Shane, just blogs in general and the whole internet culture for that matter. BTW, i think youre tha only chaser whos name i know that i havent met in the field--i guess one of us is in the wrong place most of the time, probably me lol. If you read my ghost hunting advice as dogmatic, you read it wrong. Good luck!
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