Lights, camera…mummy??! In December 1976, when filming an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man:
The crew was on set on a laff in the dark ride in California. The director on set told a crew member to move one of the dummies in the funhouse scene.
However, when the crew member went to move the dummy out of the scene. One of their body parts broke off while it was being pushed, and you could see human bones from the broken part. The dummy was an actual dead human being named Elmer McCurdy, who died almost 80 years old.
Elmer McCurdy was born on January 1, 1880, and died on October 7, 1911. He was part of a gang of outlaws who robbed. They finally got unlucky when they were planning to rob a train with loads of money but instead robbed the wrong train and got only 45 dollars, a watch, and some alcohol. A couple of days later, another group attacked McCurdy’s gang, and he died in a shootout with them.
McCurdy’s body was taken to an Oklahoma funeral home called Johnson Funeral Home located in Pawhuska. The funeral home embalmed his body, and he was left there for six months, waiting for someone to claim the body, and unfortunately, no one did. The mortician turned this into a money-making opportunity. He decided since Elmer was perfectly embalmed, he nicknamed Elmer the “Embalmed Bandit” and dressed him up in cowboy gear, put a gun in his hand, and charged a nickel for anyone who wanted to see Elmer.
In 1916, a group of carnival promoters passing by Pawhuska pretended to be relatives of Elmer. It took him to the Great Patterson Carnival Show as part of their human curiosities sideshow.
In 1922, the head of an entertainment company from California named Louis Sonney got Elmer only because the Great Patterson Carnival Show put up Elmer as a security deposit and could not pay back a $500 loan they took out. Louis Sonney, in turn, put Elmer as part of his traveling show and also in the Museum of Crime. Elmer was on tour up and down the West Coast of the United States until 1940. He was even part of a movie from 1933 called “Narcotic.”
However, when Louis Sonney died in 1949, the hype about Mummy Elmer died down, and he was stored in a Los Angeles warehouse for about 20 years. In 1968, Elmer was sold to the Hollywood Wax Museum and renamed the “1000-Year-Old Man.” However, the museum closed after only a year, and somehow, Elmer got grouped with the other Wax Museum dummies, all sold to the Nu-Point Amusement Park in Long Beach, California. The people who owned the part naturally assumed that Elmer was a Wax Figure, so he was painted in fluorescent colors and hung in the dark ride Laff in the Dark.
That is how, in December 1976, a crew member from the show The Six Million Dollar Man came to find Elmer. Elmer was then taken to the Los Angeles Corner’s Office, where he was researched and was found to have the bullet that ultimately killed him still in his chest and an embalming fluid that was commonly used in the early 1900s. Elmer even had carnival ticket stubs stuffed into his mouth. With additional aid from Oklahoma historians, the LA Corner matched the remains with Elmer McCurdy.
In February 1977, the City Council in Gurthie, Oklahoma, had a burial plot in Boot Hill, part of Summit View, where other outlaws had been buried, and offered Elmer a chance to be buried alongside them. Finally, after sixty years of Elmer’s illustrious after-life career, he was laid to rest.
Source: Youtube, Library of Congress blogs: Elmer McCurdy: traveling corpse.
(Pic1. “My little sister, Jaclyn, our Mom and Me.”)
“As a child in the 1980s, I loved growing up in Orange County. There was the sunshine and beaches, Disneyland, and my favorite Mall -The South Coast Plaza. Everything was new, the homes, schools, roller skating rinks, movie theaters, shopping centers, and the man-made lakes. It was where my Mom, a stylish, blond, valley girl, drove her daughters around in a burgundy Datsun 280zx blasting Madonna and Heart. When it was just the three of us, we were happy, and that’s how I liked it. Also, the 80’s just slayed. One cool 80’s thing my mom had was a glass brick. It had a hole at the top. She put transparent glass pebbles at the bottom and stuck pens inside. She displayed it on the kitchen counter next to our cordless landline phone.
At school, the cool things for kids to collect and display were pencils with toppers- a little toy or charm at the top of the pencil. Kids kept their pencil collections on top of their desks held inside a clear, plastic, rectangular container. Most of my classmates went to this stationary store called “LMNOP” to buy their pencils and containers. A talented woman with a steady hand customized your container by writing your name on it with paint pens and adding Sandylion or Mrs.Grossman stickers of your choice. I loved seeing my name written on my container adorned with a Palm Tree sticker. I loved my pencils. Each one was a personal, special treasure.
(Pic 2.“Some of my 80’s nostalgia collection surrounding an illustration of what our plastic pencil containers looked like. The font of the child’s name was written in a connecting dots font using two colors. The stickers were minimal to showcase the pencils inside. In writing this article, I discovered that these boxes still exist and are called “Amac plastic containers”. I will be ordering a few a.s.a.p.!”)
My favorite kinds of novelty pencils were by Russ. Russ pencils had a name or phrase engraved on them with a cute or interesting topper. My Mom would give me one on every occasion like. For Halloween, I got the pumpkin, ghost, and black cat. I had a purple “Good Luck Troll” and a Santa Claus Pencil. The “Ted D. Bear ” pencil had a brown, flocked bear wearing a red bowtie. He was exquisite. I also loved “Putt Putt Putt ”. It had a yellow, flocked car on top with plastic red wheels. My favorite pencil had an actual mini spinning pinwheel on top. My second favorite had a flexible pink hand on top. The fingers could bend to sign “Hang Loose ” and of course “Fuck You”. The Russ pencil designs were so clever, and I got so much joy staring at them because life had been hell. In 1988, my Mom, sister, and I had just moved to a hip apartment complex called Vista Del Lago. We had spent the year before living in a house with her long-term boyfriend, who I hated. In a word, he was “Putrid,” and that’s how I refer to him because if I actually said his name, it’s like what Stewie Griffin says “I would not stop throwing up!” For some reason, no matter what nasty, mean, or violent thing he did, my Mom would always take him back. Maybe she was attracted to him because he was the opposite of my Father, who was a Mensch and the perfect Dad. But even when I was 5, I knew Putird was no good and that we would never be safe or happy as long as he was in our lives.
Finally, when I was eleven, my Mom came to her senses and broke up with Putrid. He stayed in the house we had shared and the three of us ladies moved into Vista Del Lago. It was way better. One school night, my sister and I were excited because our favorite Aunt from L.A. was over to give us dinner and stay the night while our mom went on a date with her newest boyfriend. While my little sister watched TV and played, I had to convince myself to do my math homework. I always hated math, but I hated the feeling of showing up to school without my homework completed even more. I sat at the counter in one of the barstools and forced myself to get it done. When I finished, I placed the papers inside my Supershades folder with a graphic of a toucan wearing sunglasses in the corner. I zipped up the folder and my Math book inside of my acid-washed denim backpack, ready for the next day. Then I joined my sister and aunt to eat tortellini and watch TV until bedtime- feeling relieved and proud of myself.
In the morning, my Mother was back. I went downstairs to give her a hug. She had a stack of developed pictures to show us of where she had just been. It turns out her date had been a 24 hour trip to visit a 100-acre ranch in Texas. She smiled while she showed us pictures of the animals, goats, swans, and a llama, the two lakes, the wooden bridge, and an enormous white house which sat at the top of the property. Then she asked in her soft, calm voice, “Do you girls like this place?” My sister and I were like “Yeah, it looks nice.” “Well”, she continued, “that’s going to be your new home. And we’re going now. So go pack some things because a limousine is on its way to take us to the airport!” My sister and I were shocked and disturbed. We didn’t want to go to a ranch in Texas, even if it was in a limousine. And now? Why now? Our Mother’s behavior, the smile, the pictures were just a ploy to introduce her next bad idea revolving around a man. I felt betrayed. Our Mother had found a rich boyfriend who wasn’t Putrid. But rich or not, why did she think it was a good idea to impulsively rip me and my little sister away from everything we had known to be with him? I was angry, but I was a compliant child. I had learned that my opinion or feelings never mattered when it came to adults. They were going to do what they were going to do. My Mother would consider me ungrateful and ridiculous if I told her how I really felt. That this was wrong. That I had heroically forced myself to finish my math homework the night before, for what? What about turning in my homework? What about my school? What about my friends? What about my Dad, my Step-mom, and my baby brothers? What about our clean, fresh start at Vista Del Lago? On that random weekday morning in 1988, I left California without a word to my friends, school or Dad- with only a few belongings in a bag. My heart ached. And my precious pencil collection sat abandoned on my desk at school. When we made it to the ranch in Texas, we saw the land and the animals and picked out our bedrooms in the humongous house. Then our Mom and her boyfriend had us come into the office with a Marlin Hanging on the wall to call our Dad. They told us not to tell him where we were. Not just because it was against California Child Custody laws to take a child out of the state without permission but because this was all so wrong on so many levels, and they knew it. I spoke on the phone cautiously to my father, and I felt like a liar and an obedient child at the same time. But when my little sister got on the phone, she couldn’t help herself. She was brave and took the only chance she could to tell our Dad we had been taken away to Texas. She got on the phone and said, “Hi Daddy! We’re in Texas!” The events that followed after that phone call were filled with so much confusion, heartache, and trauma that my sister and I only need to refer to this time in our lives as “Texas.” In Texas, our Mom and her boyfriend constantly fought, partied, and left us for days on end with strange people who were not fit to look after children. And while I was there, I felt the child in me die. I couldn’t play pretend anymore. I didn’t remember how. I started having panic attacks on
the way to school, but I didn’t know what they were. I just knew I had to handle it. I started daydreaming. Maybe that was my new form of play, but it wasn’t for fun. It was for survival.
(Pic 3. “Me, age 11, dissociating on my Mom’s Texas boyfriend’s yacht in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico”.)
After a few months in Texas, we were taken back to our apartment in California, just as abruptly as we had left. It was scary to leave the small amount of stability I had known in Texas whether it was stable or not, but I was relieved to go home back to California. I returned to school the next day, to everyone’s surprise. My teacher had me come inside before the rest of the class to speak with me. She said “Lauren, unfortunately we didn’t know if you were coming back, so the class auctioned off all your pencils.” I just stared at her face processing the information. What was she saying? An auction? We never had an auction in class before. How did that even work? Like rabid scavengers they bid on my special pencils? I couldn’t find the words to express my feelings because I had never really done it. Inside my mind I was thinking very clearly, “Ok, so then I should be given my pencils back, right? Because I’m back. Give the kids back their money or whatever they used to bid on my stuff and return my pencils to me!” My teacher just gave me a dumb look like “Gosh yeah, they’re gone. So… sorry.” But they weren’t gone. They were at different desks in different pencil containers around the classroom. My heart was honestly broken. Those pencils were mine. They were one of the few things left that made me smile. Objects I loved had become my home, a focus. After all I had been through they represented the last of any happiness I had left inside me to feel. My teacher did not have the students give back my pencils and none of the students even offered them to me. There was just an awkward silence at my return. Things only got worse before they got better. After school I was disgusted and extremely disappointed to find my Mother and Putrid together in the car. I had thought we had gotten rid of him. They took me and my sister to Frozen Yogurt. As we sat there, I told my Mom about my pencils. “Oh well, honey. I’m sorry.” was all she said. And Putrid, who had no business being there anyway just stared at me, observing me with his smarmy self-satisfied smile. He never smiled out of joy or kindness, always when someone was feeling badly. I felt so alone. The injustice of everything was beyond my scope of rationalizing. I imagined an invisible grown up there in the yogurt shop with me. She knew this was totally fucked. She knew I was right about everything and everyone. That all of these adults who never had my best interests at heart were completely messed up. I wasn’t the ridiculous one. My feelings about wanting my pencils back were valid. Feeling livid and defeated at Putrid being back in our lives was valid. Feeling traumatized about having to leave my Daddy to go to Texas was valid. Feeling ostracized at school because I was now “the girl who disappeared and returned mysteriously” was valid. I was amazing and I didn’t deserve any of this. Over the next year, our Mother bounced back and forth between Putrid and her Texas boyfriend, dragging me and my little sister along. Every departure was abrupt, fueled by my Mother’s passionate love or anger towards her partner. She took us back and forth to Texas twice before she finally got rid of her Texas boyfriend. After that we moved to Los Angeles for my Middle School years. Then one night in L.A. he came back- Putrid. Our Mom told us she was taking us back to live with him in the same house we had escaped years before. I felt like I was slipping down a slide into a sea of lava. But this time, I couldn’t hold my emotions or words back. I was 13, but I screamed and sobbed like a 3-year-old. I begged, and pleaded. As I sat in my chair, my legs shook and bounced up and down, tears and mucus dripped down my face, and I did not care. I didn’t care that Putrid was observing me and smiling sickly. I didn’t care if I was going to be called ridiculous or if I was disobedient. I could not live with him again! And like all the times before and what I had already known was that crying, screaming, and begging did not change things. Grown-ups were going to do what they were going to do.
Finally, one day, I became a grown-up too. A grown-up who is so effing rad! My Mother and I have since made peace, and she’s grown a lot. She left Putrid years ago. I’m so grateful for the relationship we have. I’m also grateful for the grown-up I turned out to be. I got a Film degree from Calarts and I love to make movies with my Best Friend. But my day job, my career is being a Nanny. I get to be the person I always wished was there for me, like the invisible person I imagined supporting me in the yogurt shop when I was eleven.
(Pic 4. “Me as a rad, grown-up who understands kids. I am an Auntie or have been a Nanny to all of these children!”)
Last year, I was looking at vintage pencils on eBay. Surprisingly, I found my old favorites. Ted D. Bear, The Pinwheel, My Good Luck Troll, Putt Putt Putt and the rest. I hesitated about spending money on pencils, but then I spoke to my sister. She said, “Lauren, if it’s going to heal a part of you that you lost, Treat Yo’self!”
My sister gave me permission to buy my pencils back. So I did. When I finally had them all collected, I put them in a glass brick with transparent glass beads. My heart swelled. Unlike other nostalgia I’ve collected that simply made me happy to look at, these 1980’s Vintage Russ Pencils represented justice. Justice I never got. That I now have given to myself.”
This week’s post is by my friend @bigfunbeth, who is the co-owner of one of my favorite stores: @GreenwichLetterpress
“My So-Called Life, 30 Years”
“My So-Called Life debuted on April 25, 1994. It was the summer before I started high school and I was fourteen years old.
On that Thursday night in 1994, a small group of my friends convened at Jessica’s house. We all crammed onto her couch to watch the pilot debut. “An honest look at growing up in the 90’s said the ad that ran in TV Guide. Wait, we were growing up in the 90’s and who were all of these people that kind of look like people who could know? Plus, the show already had its own scandal- the main girl wants to stab her mother in the first episode, we heard? “Wait, is she really going to say that?”
After the pilot ended I remember immediately thinking, “I don’t know if I’m the same person I was an hour ago.” I looked around me. None of my other friends had liked the show very much.This felt like something that had separated me from them irreparably. We never got together to watch it again, and my hair was dyed orange by the end of 8th grade. I was Angela Chase, and at the time, it felt like I was the only one.
For the next handful of months, I was obsessed, and then, as suddenly as it had exploded into my life. It was over. There were rumors. Poor ratings. The lead actress wanted to pursue movies instead. I remember asking my mother about it like she wrote for Premiere magazine or something and had the inside scoop. There was no social media to turn to, there was no 24 hour news cycle. What had just happened to the thing that felt like my actual life just spread across nineteen episodes of TV? There was an online petition to bring it back, which at the time was groundbreaking. Then, just nothing…until MTV.
When MTV got the right to syndicate the show, I got to see my old friends again. They would cut the promos in fun and clever ways. There were all-day marathons, and one was hosted by Claire Danes and Jared Leto. I can remember the very 90’s dELIA’s looking shirt Claire wore. Her hair, OMG, it’s kind of strawberry blond now and shorter, and OMG, Jared’s hair is short now, too. I was so thirsty for content. I was starved for it, or whatever.
When the “Self-Esteem” episode come on it was like, everyone please stop talking and leave the room. He’s about to grab her hand in the hallway. For me, this was the epitome of love on screen, and I yearned for that love to happen to me in real life. As did every single person I have discussed that scene within the past thirty years. In fact, we all screwed up countless relationships holding out for that exact moment.
MTV gave the show a new audience and anyone who had missed out the first time had a chance to watch it. I remember meeting new kids in high school who now loved it and watching repeats with my sophomore-year boyfriend. There was a community growing around this show and it was like, cool. It was actually just cool. People were connecting with something that felt honest, inspired, and real. Only if it now only existed in reruns.
I recently showed the series to my husband for the first time, who was in his 20s, when it premiered. He was so taken with how dark the show was. Not the mood, he said, but the literal lack of actual light, which he thinks impacted how it was received for the first time around. I’m like, yeah, babe, that is the light that you bask in as a teenage girl filled with angst, lust, emotion, and uncertainty.
Since I own a shop, I have to comment on the merch. MSCL had virtually nothing to offer its obsessed fans. There was an early VHS set and soundtracks on cassette and CD. My sister and I of course had the soundtrack on both mediums and were horrified to discover that “Late At Night” by Buffalo Tom was missing. Nooooo. In 2002, there was a DVD set (no bonus content) and then a deluxe version that came in a lunchbox. By 2007 there was yet another DVD set, but this time there were extras. Finally, something else we could grab onto. Creator Winnie Holzman and Claire Danes sat down together and discussed what might have happened in season two. When I first watched this conversation, I felt like crying and then passing out. It was 1995 all over again. A love triangle between Angela, Jordon, and Brian!? Sharon pregnant?!? Graham leaves Patty?!? The agony was unbearable. It honestly still is.
All of these years later, despite just that single season of TV and lack of physical ephemera, this show doesn’t just quietly linger on (cue the Cranberries) – it has a foot firmly planted in the hearts of everyone who fell in love with it thirty years ago. In fact, it’s a barometer. I use for when I meet new people. The second someone can have the MSCL conversation, I think, “This is my person, and I am their person.” Countless times I’ve acknowledged with friends and fans about how this show made us realize we were transitioning into adulthood. How, with every rewatch, you start to connect more with Patty and Grahan and drift a little farther away from lockers and boiler rooms. When I was a teenager, I thought it was gross how much sex her parents had on the show, and now I think it’s hysterical. What 40 years with kids and careers has the energy for that much sex? Plus, now, I am four years older than Patty Chase was on the show, Hold on, I’m calling my therapist…
“Patty, we’re forty!”- Camille Cherski
As for someone who lives and breathes nostalgia and often wonders if it’s a mistake, I never feel like rewatching MSCL is a waste of my time. The things that made me laugh or cry all those years ago still do, and I feel like I learn something new about human nature every time I revisit. There is so much that has already been said about this show and, what its place was in the 90’s and how it might resonate to young people today. This is not that. This is just my little ode to a time and place that was for me, My absolute So Called Life.
Stray Thoughts
Was the Chase’s cat name Lady Di?
Tino is the JAWS of the 90’s, much more powerful to never see him
Shit ok, Brian IS cute!
It’s insane that Graham tells Neal about his affair in the kitchen while Patty is within earshot.
Andy Cherski is probably a babe.
I love that Graham is shocked Patty can make curtains and she’s shocked he can hang wallpaper.
“Brain Krahow?” “I like Buffalo Tom, I do!” “Stephan Dieter guy. Still funny.
I want to be friends with Vic Racine and Mr. Katimski and share coffee with them in the teacher’s break room. I also desperately want to be invited into a teacher’s break room, anywhere.
Weekend, Life of Brian, The Substitute and Self Esteem are my favorite episodes.
If you can find a friend to tell off Jordan like Rayanne does, you’ve arrived.
Occasionally, I get asked what movies I have been watching lately. So, I decided to blog about five films or series I recommend!
Dream Scenario (2023), starring Nicolas Cage and Julianne Nicholson. Directed by Kristoffer Borgli
Nicolas Cage stars as Paul Matthews, a professor obsessed with biology and everything animal theme. He feels like his identity and image are not important enough even though he has tenured as his job. However, he claims fame when people start telling him that he has been randomly popping into their dreams, which causes a downward spiral in his life and that of everyone around him.
Ghosts (UK version 2019-2023) – starring Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby and Martha Howe-Douglas
I am a fan of ghosts! This comedy series is one of the few times I had to pause the show because I was laughing so hard that I could not focus on what was happening next!!
Farewell China (1990) starring Maggie Chung and Tony Ka Fai Leung. Directed by Clara Law.
I watch these on the Criterion Channel. Tony Ka Fai Leung starts as Zhou, who tries to find his wife after she goes to New York City and separates from him.
Late Night with the Devil (2023) starring David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, and Georgina Haig. Directed by Cameron and Colin Cairnes
A lost episode from a late-night show from 1977 that causes chaos and terror.
On my watchlist: Baby Reindeer (2024)
Starring Richard Gadd and Jessica Gunning. Richard Gadd stars as Donny, who meets a woman who tells him that she is a lawyer. An interaction occurs between the two, and instantly, an obsession is made.
It was 1997 when I first came across Jeffrey Eugenides’s novel The Virgin Suicides. I was in my public library browsing through the many sacks when the book’s title made me stop walking. I took it out of the row and was intrigued. I did not want to read the back of the book. Instead, I decided to check it out and take it home. I went to my favorite reading spot at home and opened the first page. I was totally engulfed by the words because I felt like it was a Southern Gothic novel set for teenage girls. I read the whole book in one sitting because it felt like those words on the pages were similar to what I thought I was going through as a pre-teen. Middle school was rough for me because I felt like a loner.
My best friend was books because with books, I could escape and live many lives through someone else’s pages. Jeffery Eugenides captured all of my pre-teen emotions fully in this book. I read the book thrice that year until I finally convinced myself to buy my copy.
It was not until the year 2000 that I was walking by a store and saw the movie post for the movie:
I was surprised that there was a movie made from it. I wonder if the film would capture all of my teenage emotions. Did the movie capture all of the gothic spookiness I felt between the words from the book?
I was able to track down the movie on cable a couple of years later on the Sundance channel. I absolutely loved this movie. It captured many emotions I felt the first time I read the book.
But what stayed with me for a very long time was the soundtrack:
The Air (the score version) and the movie soundtrack stuck with me for the longest time. For most of my teenage years, I had to rebuy both versions of the soundtrack because I played it so much that I made a clear hole out of the CDs. The movie soundtrack introduced me to such artists as Todd Rundgren and 10cc.
And yes, this scene made me fall in adoration for Trip Fontaine:
Even to this day, this movie’s soundtrack and score play in constant rotation in my playlist. Because it captures the eternal feelings of all of my teenage emotions and has a good set of songs!
What movie soundtrack(s) was the soundtrack to your teenage years?
The Criterion Collection is having a spring sale until May 27, 2024. Here are five Criterions that are on my want list!
To Die For (1995):
Spine number 1213. Directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix.
Based on Joyce Maynard’s book with the same title as the movie, this dark comedy revolves around a character named Suzanne Stone, who dreams of becoming famous and being on TV by any means.
Spine number 1227. Directed by Paul Brickman and starring Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay. (this is a preorder date of July 23, 2024). I didn’t watch this movie until three years ago, but it is one of my favorite movies from the 1980s.
Spine number 58. Directed by Michael Powell. Starring Carl Boehm. This movie is one of those films that sticks with you after you watch it. One man’s weird and addictive addiction to voyeurism turns deadly.
Spine Number 277. Directed by Gus Van Sant. Starring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves as two young swindlers on the streets with no home or attachment to anyone or anything other than the two of them.
Happy Mother’s Day to all who celebrate! Here are some book and movie recommendations to celebrate some fantastic mom characters!
Terms of Endearment (1983):
Starring Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, and Jack Nicholson. Directed by James L. Brook, Shirley MacLaine is magical in this as Aurora, and Debra Winger as Emma. They play two personalities that clash constantly but come together as mother-daughter when times become difficult.
Betty by Tiffany McDaniel—I read this book two years ago. It touches on topics such as poverty, violence, and abuse. Betty is one of eight siblings living in a dilapidated farmhouse the town claims is haunted and cursed. Therefore, anyone who lives in it shares those same characteristics as the farmhouse.
Carrie (1976):
Starring Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie and Amy Irving. Carrie is not like your average teenager. She doesn’t make friends easily and has an extremely strict household.
Mommie Dearest:
Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford. I read this book every couple of years. I remember when I first read it, I was taken aback by Christina’s shocking claims. However, reflecting back on what I read and the recent claims that have come out about the book, I still wonder which parts were the truth and which were not.
Baby Boom (1987):
Starring Diane Keaton and Sam Shepard. A few years ago, I was in a bad mood and wanted to slip away and watch a funny movie. I turned on Turner Classic Movies and saw this movie was on. It was such a cute and funny movie about J.C. Watt, who is very career-minded; however, everything stops when she learns she has inherited a baby.
The Exorcist:
The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty: Regan and her mother live in Washington, D.C. Her mom is a famous actress currently filming a movie in the area. Everything seems pleasant and wonderful until Regan starts to act weird.
What movies or books do you usually watch during this time?
Nannie Doss had many nicknames: “The Lonely Hearts Killer, the Black Widow, and the Giggling Granny. She was born in Blue Mountain, Alabama, on November 4, 1905. She had four other siblings and had an abusive and micromanaging kind of father. He often did not want Nannie and her sisters to wear makeup or any revealing clothing because he wanted to deter any men from sexually bothering them. Her father also would never allow them to go to social events such as dancing or socializing with other people outside the family. This made her despise him because he forced Nannie to work on the family farm and not go to school, which caused her to have no formal education.
When Nannie was seven, she was on a family trip to southern Alabama. She hit her head on a metal bar while sitting down on a train when the train made a sudden halt. After that accident, she had various headaches, blackouts, and major depression. Nannie said that this accident served as a significant culprit to her mental state when she killed those people.
Growing up, Nannie Doss enjoyed reading her mom’s romance magazines and fantasizing about her future love life. She was particularly fond of the Lonely Hearts section.
Her first marriage was to her co-worker at the linen factory, Charley Braggs, at 16. They dated for only four months before her father gave them consent to marry. After the two got married, her husband was steadfast in wanting to continue to live with his mother since he was her only child.
Charley Braggs’s mother took up an extreme amount of time and attention. The couple had four children and were utterly dependent on Nannie. This resulted in Nannie constantly drinking and smoking, which became a nasty habit. It created a rift between the two and started the blame game of them having affairs, and Charley Braggs would not come home for days on end.
Tragedy struck in 1927 when two of their daughter died due to food poisoning, which caused Braggs to take their other daughter and run away from Nannie. Only the youngest, named Florine, stayed with Nannie and Braggs mom, but she also shortly died. The couple got divorced in 1928 because Braggs was scared of Nannie.
Nannie remarried in 1929 to Robert Franklin Harrelson and moved to Jacksonville with Melvina and Florine. A few months into their marriage, Nannie discovered that her new husband was an alcoholic and had an assault charge. However, this was her longest marriage on record, 15 years.
In 1943, one of her daughters, Melvina, gave birth to a baby girl. She went to visit her mother shortly after she gave birth. Melvina was heavily tired and groggy due to the fact she was given ether while giving birth. She was not sure, but she thought she saw her mother put a hatpin into her baby’s head. However, when she asked her husband and sister to recall what happened, they said that Nannie had informed them that the baby had died, and they saw that she was holding the hatpin when they were told. The couple had another baby shortly after the death of the first one.
The death of their baby drove Melvina and her husband apart to the point that Melvina was dating a soldier. Nannie did not like the soldier and constantly argued with Melvina about it. While visiting her father, Melvina left Nannie to care for her baby, and the baby ended up deceased on July 7, 1945. The cause of death was asphyxia for an unknown reason. However, this did not stop Nannie from collecting a life insurance claim for $500.00 two months after he was deceased.
In 1945 Harrelson raped Nannie, and the following day she put rat poison in his whiskey jar. Harrelson was deceased by that evening.
Nannie went on to marry another husband, Arlie Lanning. They met while commuting through Lexington, North Carolina, through the Lonely Hearts column. They married three days into their relationship; however, Arlie shared traits similar to those of her previous husbands. He was a womanizer and drank heavily, but Nannie would be MIA for months at a time but still played the dutiful wife when she did come home. So, it was no surprise that Arlie Lanning died of supposed heart failure. In Arlie’s will, he left his house to his sister; however, it burned down under mysterious circumstances, but the insurance money was given to Nannie since it was still considered the couple’s home.
Nannie quickly left North Carolina and went to Arlie’s sister’s place to stay. However, Arlie’s sister became bedridden and promptly died under Nannie’s care.
Nannie was still looking for a husband and married Samuel Doss in June 1953 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was a Nazarene minister who did not like his wife’s romance novels and did not allow them in the house. In September of that year, Samuel was in the hospital with symptoms that resembled the flu; however, he was diagnosed with a severe digestive tract infection. On the mend from treatment at the hospital, he was released from them on October 5. Unfortunately, Samuel ended up passing away on October 15, 1954. Nannie killed Samuel to collect two life insurance that she put on him. The doctor who treated him saw a red flag in that and ordered Samuel to have an autopsy. There was a noticeable amount of arsenic found in his body, and finally, Nannie was arrested.
Nannie Doss admitted to killing her mother, her mother-in-law, four husbands, and her grandson. However, it is believed that she may have killed more than what she pleaded guilty to. Her guilty plea was made on May 17, 1955, in the state of Oklahoma, and she was sentenced to life in prison since the death penalty was not an option due to her sex.
She died in 1965 in Oklahoma State Penitentiary from leukemia.
With the new spring season, I am always interested in what books come with it. Here are five books I am looking forward to reading this spring season:
Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal. Professor Kathleen DuVal teaches early American and American Indian history at North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This is her second book, and this new book discusses how Indigenous Americans made multiple cities way before North America was founded.
Bugsey and Other Stories by Rafael Frumkin. This collection of five stories brings funny and creative tales that break away from your regular reading material.
The Swans of Harlem by Katen Valby concerns five ballerinas from the Dance Theatre of Harlem during the Civil Rights movement. This absorbing book finally tells the stories of endurance, dance, and friendship.
Husbands by Holly Gramazio. Lauren goes to her house one night and sees a lovely, fully decorated home. She is greeted by her fantastic husband. The only problem is that she is not married!
Spring always feels like a new opportunity and a new beginning for me. I guess it is because winter has always been so bitterly cold. When warmer weather comes around, I feel like it’s a new chance to look at things and people differently. This winter was a bunch of twists and turns regarding challenging my personality and limits. I was also able to expand my frame of mind and have met many new people in the process. What does spring mean to you? Comment below!
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