Conference hydra::dejavu

    Okay, maybe this wasn't a good idea.  Oh well.
    

    
    
    Jennifer...
    
      The idea is a good one, I just don't have anything to offer at this
    time,but I sure that there are some people out there who have some...
    
    Let's see what happens...
    
    johnboy  g^)
    
    

    Johnboy,
    
    Thanks for your support!:)
    
    Jennifer
    

    
    Hi Jennifer, this is not really a story but maybe it will lead to
    one. Somewhere in this conference I read a story of a person who
    whenever he/she drove by the Church St. exit on 290 they had a sort
    of ill feeling come over them. I am interested in talking to this
    person because I had the same feelings in the same area. I used
    to come to work that way and it never bothered me, however in the
    morning i would feel sick until I reached the center of Northboro.
    It seeed very strange that two people would feel the same way about
    a certain strech of road. If anyone can point me to that note or
    if you want to take it up here please let me know.
                                     Thanks,
                                           Walt
    

    I guess there is a note like this one.  Thanks for letting me know.
    I don't know what will happen to this one--will the moderators move
    it or delete it?--but I thought I'd relay one of my personal
    experiences anyway.
    
    I have to tell this story in a round-about way, so please bear with
    me.  I'm from a town named Buffalo Grove.  It's a suburb of Chicago.
    Well out here in the `burbs there's a road that's supposedly haunted.
    It's called Cuba Rd.  There are all kinds of stories that have been
    told about the road and its sites.  These include stories about
    hitch-hiking ghosts who apppear on the local high schools' prom
    nights, a mansion supposedly owned by a mobster, and a mental hospital
    and its patients who occasionly escape.
    My story deals with th mental hospital, so let me give you the
    background on the place.  Cuba road is out in the country. There
    are very few lights, and lots of twists and turns.  It's frequented
    by high school kids who go there for a thrill ride or go there to
    "park".  Apparantly about 10-15 years ago there was a couple driving
    down the road on a particularlly foggy night.  They were driving
    along when an announcement came on the radio that a patient from
    the mental hospital had escaped.  He was dangerous, and people should
    be on the look out.  Just after this announcement their car broke
    down.  The boy was going to go look for help, and told his girlfriend
    to stay in the car with the doors locked.
    So she sat there and waited, and the time went by.  As she sat there
    she heard a sort  of scraping on the top of the car.  She figured
    it was just a tree branch and tried to put the sound out of her
    mind.  More time went by, and the scraping continued.  Finally,
    she couldn't take the sound anymore and got out of the car to prove
    to herself that the noise really was a tree.  What she found was
    her boyfriend hanging from a tree by his feet.  He was dead, and
    the sound she had been hearing was the sound of his fingernails
    scraping against the car roof.
    Now for my story. (Sorry this is taking so long!)  My friend and
    I went out to Cuba Road during the day to explore.  We drove the
    whole length of the road, and then backtracked and went down side
    streets to see if we could find anything interesting.  Well, we
    ended up finding the mental hospital!  We went into the parking
    lot, but didn't have the guts to get out of the car.  So we sat
    there for a while talking about the story above, and decided to
    leave and come back at night.
    A few nights later, we took the same roads to the same location,
    but there was no longer any hospital.  Not even a trace of a hospital.
    I know that it was the same place we had been before, because the
    road was the same road and had the same landmarks.  We've been back
    several times since then, and there still isn't a hospital.  It's
    really strange.
    
    I hope this story wasn't disappointing, or too long-winded.
    
    Jennifer
    
    
    
    

    RE:  .4
    
    I think the note you're looking for is 1051.
    
    Jennifer
    

re: .6 (Jennifer)

	We had the exact same story in Garden City, Michigan concerning
	a hospital (the name escapes me now).  These stories seem to pop
  	up all over.  A book was written not too long ago in which the
	author did some extensive research on the origins of such stories,
	unfortunately, I don't recall the author or the name.  There's
	a lot of them, such as:  The claw from the one-armed killer hanging 
	on the door handle, the giant Mexican rat mistaken for a chiwawa that
	ate some ladies cat, the rat in the Kentucky Fried chicken and many
	more.  I'd like to get my hands on the book again.

	This isn't to dispute your experience about the hospital, just to
	let you know these recurring stories/themes are everywhere.

	Anybody know any more?

	Terry

    ...on the other hand...
    
         I still don't know if my high school senior class went to 
    Marshall Hall (on the Potomac) or we just talked about it...I
    sort of remember going, but I don't remember anything at all about
    it (and as I already said, that was in the pre-drug days. ;-) )
    
         While I can't say that I've had things like a hospital disappear,
    I can say that things have *appeared* when/where I didn't "expect"
    them.  How many times do we drive down a road and not notice the
    little driveway or whatever until we do?  This happens to me
    all the time (and this is in the post-drug days for me.)
    
    
    Frederick
    

    I just wanted to say goodbye to everyone.  Tomorrow (8/10), which
    will probably be today for most who will read this, is my last day
    here at Digital.  I'm going back to school (Indiana U.) on the 23rd,
    and my family is going on a vacation before I leave.  Thanks for
    sharing your stories with me.  I should be back during Christmas
    break, and I hope to find that this note has many, many replies
    of people wanting to share their experiences with each other.  Enjoy!
    Goodbye and thanks!!!
    
    Jennifer
     

    I went and saw "Dead Poets Society" last night, and in the middle
    of the movie one of the characters started to tell the story about
    the couple driving on Cuba Rd. and the guy who escaped from the
    mental hospital!  Of course they didn't actually say it took place
    on Cuba Rd. in a suburb of Chicago, but it was the same story!
    BTW:  If yu get a chance, go see "Dead Poets Society".  It's a
    wonderful movie. I highly recommend it!
    
    Jennifer
    

    RE: .6
    I Come from a small town on the North Shore called Swampscott.  There
    was a "spooky" road there called Danvers Rd. at the time; it is now
    known as Swampscott Road.  When I was a teenager, it was "cool" to
    drive down that desolate road and turn your lights off, and watch for
    the ghosts and specters that haunted it.  Well, speaking of Deja Vu;
    don't you know that one particular story dealt with a young couple who
    had "parked" there, and when it was time to leave, the car wouldn't
    start.  Shortly after he left to get help, the girl heard noises on the
    roof of the car.  (Sound familiar?)  The only difference to the story
    in .6 is that the girl was too frightened to move and when dawn came,
    a police officer rapped on the glass and told her to come out of the
    car, but don't turn around.  Of course she did, and she saw her
    boyfriend dangling from a rope, hung by the neck!  
    
    Makes you wonder about how these stories get started, and how they get
    passed down!  Pass the pop-corn, please?  8^)
    
    -Dave A.
    

RE: .12
    
    For those unfamiliar with this area, the "North Shore" refers to those
    towns in Massachusetts near the shore north of Boston.
    
    						Topher

    I've heard this story too and i'm the U.K.!  My ending was different
    again...the woman was too scared to get out of the car until the
    police arrived. What she saw when she looked back was the escaped
    lunatic actually bashing her boyfriends head on the car roof.
    
    I wonder if this ever actually happened?
    
    Bruce, Leeds

    The first time I heard this particular 'legend' was when me and other
    little girls were scaring each other to death at slumber parties
    back in 1960 (I was 9) in Green Bank, West Virginia.  At various times,
    usually close to Halloween, rumor would go around among us kids about a
    particular road, a particular tree, where the rumor-mongers swore,
    crossed-their-hearts-and-hoped-to-die that *this* was where It had
    happened.  And we'd dare each other to go the spot on Halloween night
    and would peer breathlessly out the car window if our parents happened
    to be driving us past wherever-it-was and everybody had a great time.
    
    The next time I was treated to a recounting of the 'legend' was on a
    double date in Hawaii when I was 16.  On a rainy night (perfect!) the
    boys parked on this deserted, lonely road up in the rain forest where
    *they* swore, crossed-their-hearts-and-hoped-to-score that *here* was
    where It had happened.  The idea, of course, was to get us to jump,
    squealing, into their arms to acquire a few muffler burns.  We jumped
    and squealed and everybody had a great time.
    
    It's a long way and a mighty cultural gulf from Appalachia to Honolulu. 
    What's interesting is that the story matched in every detail across the
    miles, the people and the years.  And this was before ArpaNet ever
    existed.  Having heard by now of the Hundredth Monkey story, it
    suddenly struck me:  is *this* how the 'legends' pass along?  ;') 
    Could it be that if enough people tell the same story, everyone,
    everywhere on the globe begins telling it?
    
    <chuckle> Marcia

re: 15

    >> squealing, into their arms to acquire a few muffler burns...

       Muffler burns?  We called them duck bites..  ;)

       Terry

    
    (...muffler burns?...duck bites?...after the beach parties on Key
    Biscayne we bore *hickies* with a mixture of embarrassment and
    pride...)
    
    These apocryphal stories can probably be just as easily considered
    modern fables - cautionary tales designed to convey a message about the
    the late 20th century view of the human condition.
    
    So what message might this story convey that resonates strongly enough
    to carry it far and wide for decades?
    
    Well, without getting too Freudian (or Jungian, even) there's the
    obvious moral: don't wander into dark deserted places with your
    boyfriend/girlfriend - danger, insanity, death await those who venture
    from the safety of the community. And I'd guess that's a story that's 
    been told for a few milennia or so...
    
     
       

    How right you are.  One only has to look at the plot of the typical
    grade-B slasher movie to see that theme repeated endlessly.
    
    Marcia

    
    re:.15 
    
    Hey Marcia!  How would you like to hear a ghost story?  ;-)
    
    
    Guy
    
    heh heh heh

    Hi.
    
    I come from Lancaster, MA and currently reside in Northern VA. 
    Anyway, reading the story about Cuba Road cracked me up, because
    when I was in 7th and 8th grade, this story went around our school
    (this was in the late 70's).  Only difference is that the boyfriend's
    throat was slashed and he was hanging from the tree, the girlfriend
    heard dripping and it was his blood!
    
    
    Amazing how these things get around!
    
    Tammi
    

    re: .20
    
    That's the story I heard too, same timeframe also..

    re: .8 through .21
    
    Stories like those are known as "urban legends", and they've attracted
    enough notice that people who study folklore try to track the spread
    of these stories and the proliferation of the different versions.
    
    One folklorist (I think from Arizona State) named Jan Harold Brunvand
    has a series of books out on some of the urban legends that people
    have heard told.  Pick these up and read them if you want to relive
    your past with some of the greatest scare stories of all time. 
    
    Brunvand includes the "dead boyfriend" story and all its variations,
    the rumour about worms in McDonald's burgers, the rumours about
    the possible Satanic symbolism in the Procter and Gamble logo, the
    story of the vanishing hitchhiker, and so on.  I was surprised --
    I had thought that a lot of those stories were true.
    
    Some of Brunvand's titles are: "The Choking Doberman", "The Vanishing
    Hitchhiker", and so on.  They're out in paperback, too.
    
    --Karen

    
    	Although I have never heard that particular story, we had
    	a similar place where I came from.
    
    	Out in the middle of nowhere was Church of the Wildwood.
    	Supposedly this church was for the KKK and Devil Worship.
    	If you went out on this road, your car would stall, your
    	doors would lock and you wouldn't be able to get out etc.
    	People with the KKK outfits would be seen going into the
    	woods behind the church with torches etc.
    
    	I was going to go there one night when my mom overheard
    	me on the phone with the friend I was going to go with.
    	Mom grew up not too far from "the church" and when she was
    	young there was a story about an old hermit who lived in
    	a trailer right across the street from the church.  One morning
    	he was found murdered in his trailer...and it was never solved
    	as to who the killer was.  So she forbade me to go.
    
    	I did end up there one night.  It looked like a normal church
    	and nothing happened (except being scared out of my shoes!!)
    	Some friends of mine went to the church
    	services on Sunday morning and said it was like any other 
    	service.  So it was said that that was just a cover-up
    	for the "real" purpose of the church.

    The Danvers Rd. story triggered one I'd heard back in 1971, from
    a native who swore he'd seen it.  (Before you ask, I can't recall 
    the name of the cemetary.)            
    
    It goes like this, short & sweet.  There's a tree in a cemetary
    on the outskirts of Boston.  It's off by itself, that is, no other
    tree or telephone pole or any type of structure close to it.  
    Ocassionally, during the winter months, when there's fresh snow on 
    the ground (a New England oddity nowadays), footprints have been 
    noticed which go around the tree, making a circle.  One set, one 
    circumference.  No tracks to the circle, no tracks to the tree.  No
    vehicle tracks near enough for a crane (if someone felt like going
    to that much trouble & expense).  No nothing...
                                     
    	 					Don

    < Note 1173.0 by USWAV7::RITS14 >
                           -< The Babysitter Scare >-

    Well I have a story and I don't know if it is Legend or real, but
    I know they made a horror movie of it, but here goes:
    
    My mother told me this story about 10 years ago, maybe more.  A
    friend of my mother's son was in college (NJ I think) and had come
    home for a semester break.  One of the dogs in the house began acting
    rather strangely and started growling so Steve told his mother to
    wait in the kitchen and he was going to check the house. (They live
    in Sudbury and have a hugh house).  By the way he took the dog with
    him.  After going over the house he told his mother the most erie
    story I guess I have ever heard.  It seems he knew this girl from
    the college who was babysitting when she started to receive strange
    phone calls.  The phone would ring and a voice would laugh and say
    he was coming to get her.  These calls were spaced out over 30-40
    minutes, I guess.  The girl got scared and called the police and
    they said they would send a cruiser to the area.  I don't know exactly
    what happened here, but they must have put a tracer on the phone
    and possibly told her to try and keep him on the line.  Well when
    the next call came and and he told her he was coming to get her,
    she no sooner hung up the phone and it rang again.  It was the police
    saying that the caller was in the house and to get out of the house.
    She ran out the front door and the cops that were in the area pulled
    up in front of the house and went in to try and get the caller.
    It seems he excaped, but not before killing at least 3 children
    upstairs.  It seems after each phone call he would kill a child,
    phone her and then go on to the next child.  He was slowly working
    his way down to the babysitter.
    
    Now, it has been a long time since my mom told me this story, so
    I don't know all the facts around it, but does someone know if this
    is a "legend" like the others drummed up on the college campuses
    to scare the girls into the men's arms or have them accompany them
    on their babysitting excusions, or is this for real?
    

RE: .25
    
    This is one of the "Urban Legends" described by Brunvand (sp?) in
    "The Vanishing Hitchhiker".  These stories have lives of their own,
    and are told and believed, and may even end up in the legitimate
    news media (the reporter having checked several sources all of whom
    confirmed it, except if (s)he had checked further they would have found
    that each of his/her reliable sources got it from reliable sources who
    got it from reliable sources who...).  Details shift with the time
    and place where it is told, and noone can trace it back.  If everyone
    involved could remember exactly where they had heard the story, and
    in each case the researcher could trace it back, they would probably
    find that the story evolved, step by step from a story, perhaps true
    or perhaps openly fictional, which bears only the vaguest resemblence
    to the final story.  This one has been circulating for years and years
    in roughly its present form.
    
    I think that "The Vanishing Hitchhiker", "The Choking Doberman" and
    "The Mexican Pet" should be required reading for everyone, so that they
    can recognize these specific stories, and have some chance of
    recognizing their undocumented relatives.
    
    (Don't feel stupid about being partially taken in, virtually everybody
    finds some stories in these books that they had taken to be fact: "I
    KNOW that one really happened, because it happened to my Aunt Sally's
    best friend" -- only it didn't if/when we check; it happened to *her*
    friend's friend).
    
    					Topher

    Hi!  I'm home for Thanksgiving, and brought an amusing story to
    relay to everyone.
    It seems that at the beginning of the year a psychic predicted that
    on Halloween on a Big Ten campus beginning with the letter 'I' 
    (Illinois, Indiana or Iowa), someone dressed as Little Bo Peep would
    kill ten people in a dorm shaped like a Greek letter.  Well, my
    friends had it all figured out where this Peep-person would strike.
    There is a dorm shaped like an 'X', so we all decided to stay clear
    of it on Halloween. (Of course, none of us took this very seriously.)
    Anyway, I called a friend of mine who goes to school at Illinois
    Wesleyan and told her the story.  She burst out laughing.  Apparently
    the same story had been going around there, except that the psychic
    had said it would take place there.  I'm happy to say that no such
    occurance took place.
    
    Jennifer