Cory Moore of Bellamy Construction reflects on the work installing new fire hydrants in Millerton on Wednesday, Oct. 30.
Photo by Krista A. Briggs
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The night after Halloween, the team from the Eastern Connecticut Paranormal Society regaled a receptive crowd at the Scoville Memorial Library with their experiences investigating paranormal phenomena.
Paranormal society co-founder David Bray, with investigators Ursula Wiebusch and Trish Blanchette, described the methodology and results of their investigations in considerable detail.
Bray started off with the paranormal society’s simple mission statement: “To find the truth.”
The paranormal society does not charge for investigations, and Bray said the group has turned down television offers.
The paranormal society is “about educating and validating people, as opposed to sensationalism.”
They are a hard-headed bunch. Bray recalled one person who was convinced the house was haunted because of a recurring, eerie noise in the night.
This turned out to be a tree limb.
“We cut the branch, and no more paranormal activity,” Bray said.
Bray said the team is keenly aware of investigative pitfalls, such as confirmation bias. As an example, someone with deeply held beliefs might be inclined to interpret phenomena as “demonic.”
Bray said he considers himself to be a “clairsentient medium.”
He said he doesn’t see spirits, but he can pick up on “feelings, sensations, emotions — what spirits want.”
An example: When investigating a house in Waterbury, Bray was in the kitchen when he experienced a sudden, intense pain on the left side of his head. When he went into another room, the pain was gone.
In the course of the paranormal society’s routine background investigation, the team discovered that a deceased woman who lived in the house had suffered a fatal injury in the kitchen. The injury was to the left side of her head.
Wiebusch is the group’s photographer, and Blanchette, who freely admits to having “no psychic ability,” said she conducts the initial interviews and does the background research.
Standard procedure is to “keep David in the dark,” before conducting field work, to avoid planting any suggestions in Bray’s mind.
If the paranormal society agrees to take on a client, the routine is to first find the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts.
Thus fortified, the team meets with the owner of the property and takes a tour.
With the owner not present, the team walks through and gets a baseline, using photographs and video.
They set up the equipment, take a few moments for prayer and meditation, and then they turn the lights out and wait.
Why do they do this at night? “Because that’s when we are available,” said Bray.
With video, photographs and audio clips, Bray took the audience through some of the team’s more notable investigations.
The settings varied: Private homes, bars, churches, hotels.
Asked what percentage of the subjects turn out to be something other than paranormal, Bray said about 70%.
The remaining 30% involve “responses that match the history” of a site. “These are things we can’t explain scientifically.”
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Gary Dodson worked the East Branch of The Delaware River in late October.
Patrick L. Sullivan
I spent the third week of October at the Tangled Lines Western HQ, in Phoenicia, New York. Everything was low, even the Esopus tailwater, so there was a lot of making do.
One morning I spent dredging the famous Chimney Hole on the Esopus, hoping to provoke hits on streamers, junk flies and big nymphs in the depths. This produced precisely bupkis.
I noticed some splashy rises in the shallower water and switched gears, abandoning the sink tip/short leader for a nine foot 4X leader with an extra two feet or so of 5X tippet. Naturally I forgot to bring a box of specks. Thank you, Dr. Boing-Boing.
The closest thing I had to a speck was a size 18 standard Adams dry fly.
It was maddening. The closer I got to the strike zone, the more the zone shifted.
Finally I hit it. Lo and behold, instead of the shiners I was half expecting, a wild rainbow came to hand. Nothing spectacular in terms of size, maybe 11 inches if I squinted, but feisty and seriously reluctant to be caught and admired.
These are the “silver bullets” of yore, and in the three or four years since New York stopped planting thousands of brown trout in the river, they have increased in size. So where I used to catch a mess of six to eight inches, now they are 10-12 inches.
And they have an almost entirely silver body, with just a faint red line. Hence the name.
Gary Dodson picked me up one morning early and we went on the long drive to the two Delaware tailwaters. The West Branch was too high and murky for our delicate sensibilities, meaning we were afraid of falling in and drowning.
The East Branch was crystal clear, and low. We worked a stretch where we tried everything, and failed. Some graffiti on a sign in the parking area warned us about this but we chalked it up to sour grapes.
Dr. Boing-Boing struck again — three times. First Gary was disassembling his breakfast sandwich as he drove (he doesn’t eat a lot of bread, and definitely not the kind from McDonald’s). The egg fell out and disappeared under the driver’s seat.
Since it was quite warm and sunny, and when we were fishing the truck was locked up, I reminded him several times to retrieve the egg before it proclaimed itself.
Then I discovered my waders were leaking. A post-mortem revealed the good news — an easily patched puncture, instead of an insidious and ultimately unfixable seam leak.
Finally, as we rolled into the gas station in Margaretville to refuel and plan the next move, we noticed we’d just driven 75 miles with the truck tailgate open. I panicked for a moment, thinking my boots were gone.
Then I remembered I was wearing them.
Back at HQ, my all-purpose guy came and took down a dozen dead ash trees that were menacing the new roof.
We have a new roof because a dead ash tree fell on it two years ago. There is nothing like waking up at 3 a.m. to a waterfall coming out of the ceiling.
This fellow plays the excavator like a musical instrument. Observing, I had several anxious moments but Dr. Boing-Boing did not make an appearance.
And they left me with a lot of firewood to split in the spring.
Over the years I have assembled quite an angling library. My late father bought and read widely, and I have added to the collection. It could fairly be described as “swollen.”
I was bemused when browsing George M.L. LaBranche’s “The Dry Fly and Fast Water” (1914).The author was complaining about specks (the tiny flies that cause so much consternation to the angler), drought, and having to fish with long leaders downstream so the fly is the first thing the trout sees.
If you pared down the prose and added a couple of bad jokes, it could have been a Tangled Lines column.
Back in Northwest Connecticut, I noticed that the state went ahead and stocked the Blackberry, despite the lack of water.
It’s worth a quick prowl, if for no other reason that the bones of the stream are exposed. Assuming I remember what I saw, this knowledge will come in handy once normal service is restored. (Same goes for the Housatonic.)
I spent a thoroughly frustrating 90 minutes chasing trout up and down the Silty Pool. Similar to the Chimney Hole experience, the trout were making a visible fuss, although it was directed downwards. I could see their fins and tails as they nosed around gobbling whatever was on the menu.
I drifted an assortment of speckly things down to them on a long, fine leader. The more I drifted, the more they shifted downstream a few yards.
Finally I said to hell with it and Wooly Buggered them. This can go one of two ways.
Either they say “Hallelujah! A square meal at last!” and hit the fly so hard the knot breaks.
Or they say “Eek!” and go into Witness Protection.
Guess which option they chose?
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The full breadth of New England’s seasons are on display at the Norfolk Library for this month’s art exhibit “Changing Colors”, showcasing the work of New Hartford based artist Jessica McGarry Bartlet.
The show debuted with a reception in the Library’s Great Hall on Sunday, Nov. 3. It features watercolors, oil on panel and oil on canvas paintings, depicting scenes ranging from vibrant, bursting summer landscapes to more austere depictions of craggy mountainsides in Iceland.
“I want my audience to live in the moment,” Bartlet said of her work. Many of her pieces portray scenes from her own backyard, and she hopes that those who see her work will understand the value of staying present and “being where you are,” in her words.
While there is a distinct wildness to the work – there are few traces of human influence in her landscapes – she wants her paintings to convey that the wonder of the natural world exists everywhere.
“You don’t have to travel to find the wilderness, it will come to you,” she said.
While several pieces feature the vast North Atlantic expanses of Iceland and Ireland, most are inspired by the woodlands and meadows of New England. Some pieces focus on tangible subjects such as individual trees or ponds, while others are more abstract explorations of natural shapes. They are united by a highly textured style that at times borders on impressionistic.
Bartlet was first introduced to the Library by a former student, Norfolk resident Janise Graham-Jones, who took a watercolor course that Bartlet runs through EdAdvance, a Litchfield based education non-profit. Bartlet’s work, which will be displayed through Dec. 5, follows a 50 year monthly tradition of showcasing fine art on the Library’s walls.
Approximately 25% of the proceeds from sold works will be allocated to the Norfolk Library Associates, the organization that provides funding for all of the Library’s programming. The Art Committee, which is a subcommittee of the Associates, organizes each month’s art exhibit.
Kristin Mudge, chair of the Committee, said that the shows are organized around a three-pronged mission: “supporting local artists, providing cultural experiences for the local population, and fundraising for the library.”
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Illustration exhibit
Nov 06, 2024
Patrick L. Sullivan
Peter Steiner unveiled a collection of illustrations at David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village Nov. 2 and on display through Nov. 29.
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