Deep South Paranormal

 

I met Benny Reed at my first book signing.   He was a fan of my writing, so I loved him immediately.  I would have liked him even if he hated my writing, but I do love fans.   Interestingly, Benny was also part of DOA paranormal   http://www.doa-paranormal.com/.  He and his group were involved in a plethora of interesting investigations which had me intrigued.  He invited me to join his group several times and I am utterly depressed that each time he invited me I was always doing something else.  I had to work or have a baby or something distracting like that.   However, I was honored to be invited and I watched his group and their investigations from afar knowing they were awesome.

 Apparently, I wasn’t wrong about Benny being awesome because the SyFy network recently cast him to be part of their new show, Deep South Paranormal.  I love this show not only because it has Benny in it, but because it has a little bit of that Southern charm that makes Southern ghost stories so beautiful.   The South positively crawls with folklore and fables and old history filled with tragedy and plantations and white ladies and dark stories.  For example, episode 2 of Deep South Paranormal was filmed during an investigation of an old plantation rich with Southern history that couldn’t have happened anywhere else.   Episode 3 featured the investigation of a cotton gin in Prattville, Alabama.   The episode started with an old Southern remedy used to drive off evil spirits involving sucking the breath from frogs and storing it in glass vials.  I love these little Southern traditions and they make the show much more engaging.  The show does tend to play to Southern stereotypes, but stereotypes are what makes parts of the South fun. 

I don’t watch that many television shows.  I watch American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, Parks and Recreation,  Dr. Who, and Vikings.  I’m not a television fan overall, but I know I’ll be adding Deep South Paranormal to my list this season.  The show is great fun for any lover of Southern folklore and ghost stories.  Deep South Paranormal is on at 9 central time and 10 eastern time on the SyFy channel on Weds nights. 

http://www.syfy.com/deepsouthparanormal/about

The Lonely Bridge

Haunted Bridges are a common thing in ghost lore.  Throughout the South, stories of cry baby hollows and  bridges that lead to hell can be found in every other town.  As a collector of ghost stories, I've heard so many of these stories they begin to blend together in my head so I can't remember which town and which bridge held which story of ghostly sorrow.  It is rare for one of these stories to stand out to me, but the story of a bridge in Gadsden, Alabama that I heard recently left an impression.  

According to local legend, there is a bridge in Gadsden, Alabama that is haunted.  It is an old bridge with an old history.  According to the story, there was a young couple who lived near the bridge.  They had just had their first baby and times were hard for them.  They were pressed upon by economic concerns and the stress of their newborn baby.  Such stress is common in young parents and it is also common for these stresses to lead to fights.  The couple had been fighting often enough, but one night the fighting escalated to a fevered pitch and the young wife couldn't take it any longer.   She packed up her baby and walked out into the night.  She stepped out to get away from the tension and get away from the fighting.

After a while, her husband felt bad about the fight and about his wife and child walking alone in the dark night.  He grew concerned and took the carriage out to look for his family.  His wife and daughter were just crossing over the bridge when he caught up with them in the carriage.   It was dark and his wife was in black.   In the darkness, the poor young man didn't see his beloved and it was his carriage that pushed her and her baby over the edge into the dark waters below.  Both wife and baby died that night on the bridge.    Since that time,  people have described seeing a woman in black wandering the area around the bridge.  She wanders the bridge looking for the baby she dropped in the dark.   People have also described hearing the baby cry out.  People have also seen the husband wandering the bridge looking for something, heard carriage wheels, and heard the sound of a lonely woman screaming in the dark.  Many locals also say that the house near the bridge that is thought to belong to the young couple is also very haunted.

A Simple Southern Recipe for Exorcising Haunted Houses

I learned an easy Southern recipe for performing an exorcism on a haunted house today.  A few of the nurses I know gave me this wonderful glimpse into Southern culture and a way that they say always works to clear a house of dark spirits.

One of the nurses I know  learned this after her grandfather passed away.  Apparently, her grandfather  was a cranky old man who yelled a lot and called people names.  He was not the type of spirit you would want lingering in your house.  When he was alive, he used to demand people get him things.  When he was sick, he always yelled for his water.  After he passed on, his spirit kept barking orders and he was especially noisy about the water.

Her grandmother knew just what to do about the problem.  She used an old Southern remedy.  She called several of her lady friends over and they did a prayer service in the house and when they were done they used red nail polish to mark every door frame in the house with a small cross.  This ritual was originally done in the owner's blood, but her grandmother didn't want blood all over her house and she figured nail polish would do just as well.  It did work just as well and no one heard from grandpa's ghost again.

My friend was lucky she learned this old remedy, because she needed it again later on.  She bought a house that she later learned had been built on the site of another house.  The first house had been burnt down and taken a few souls to their untimely death with it.  The developers had built a new house on top of the ashes of the old house.  My friend's house was a problem because of this.  One door in particular opened on it's own and no matter how many times it was locked or latched it always popped back open.  My friend used the same ritual her grandmother had used when she was a child and the door never opened again.