THE WISCONSIN TROWEL MURDERS - the birth and metamorphosis of an original ghost story.

REDISCOVERING THE PAST.

I recently discovered the video recording of The Festival of Ghost Stories 2018 where I told my original ghost story, The Wisconsin Trowel Murders.  I am pleased to be able to share this with you.  I thought you might also be interested in hearing about how the story changed over the years. The link at the end of this article will take you to the  video of my concert telling in 2018.  But the creation of the story goes back 45 years!  

 

A note about recording our storytelling:

I encourage people to record their stories so that they can actually see what they look like when they are telling.  Over the years I have become pretty comfortable on stage when I tell stories.   It has been interesting for me to see my minimal gestures and body language that I use these days; a far cry from the big, exaggerated style that I used while doing story theatre with a troupe of actors on a stage without microphones.

ABOUT THE WISCONSIN TROWEL MURDERS.

The Wisconsin Trowel Murders began as a story I created  in 1975 while I was learning Archeological Field Techniques in the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior.  Our crew of students had a 40 minute walk every morning to get to our main excavation pit.  At first, people talked while they walked.  But after the first week, people walked in silence.  While I walked, I quietly  began to create a story about a group like ours where something murderous happens in one of the excavation pits.  Originally there was an ancient curse connected to the murders.  I finished the story before the end of the summer.  I told the group about it and they begged to hear it.  We had  a proper storytelling  gathering around a fire.  They loved the story!  It played upon the sorts of irritating  things that happened to us over the summer; small group politics, mosquitos, and black flies, bland food,  feeling isolated, etc.  They thought it was a kick that they all got killed in the story.  That was the only time I told the story in that form.

Archeological Field School excavation pits.

I went  back to Beloit College to visit my friend Bill  a year or so after graduating.  While walking the familiar campus I met two Anthropology majors. When they found out that I was a professional storyteller they said  “Hey if you are a storyteller, you’ll love this story collected from The Apostle Islands!”  They told my own story back to me.  It was still pretty close to the original!  Apparently the other members of the field school passed the story along!  There is an interesting lesson in collecting folklore and ethnography here, but I won’t go into that now.

The author sifting for artifacts.

I think I only told the story once to our group.  After a few years I was tempted to tell it again but I couldn't find my usual notes or story outline.  The opening scene was very vivid in my memory; like a pitch for a movie.  But I could not remember how it all resolved?  I didn't give up completely.   I went back to the Apostle Islands on a camping trip with my daughter Madeline in September of 2010.  I thought I would recreate the story and expand it into a novel.  I did research, bought some books about the area, and local folklore, interviewed some of the local folks who lived in the Bayfield / Ashland area on the Wisconsin mainland.  I wrote a few chapters. A few months later I decided that the story really only wanted to be a short, spoken tale.

In early Fall 2018, I needed a story to tell at the annual Festival of Ghost Stories down in Bloomington, Indiana.  I was inspired to take the basic setting and create a new story.  I set my story in 1976, told in first person.  I again used many of the real details of learning to do archeological fieldwork.  I started the story off with how and why we sharpened our trowels and dropped empty beer cans into our excavation pits. I added that we each had distinctive whistles that we used to call back and forth to locate each other while surveying the thick undergrowth of the islands.  These details were important to know for what would happen later to the central character, Jamie Bayswater. Jamie was not part of the original story of an ancient curse.  In this version of the story, she is the victim of a student hazing prank gone terribly wrong.  Jamie transforms from a sweet innocent to the embodiment of revenge.  The string of murders that ensue  come to be known as The Wisconsin Trowel Murders.  I don't want to spoil it  for you.  I hope you watch the video. 

So that's how I dug up an old story of mine, discovered how it had traveled, and reimagined it for telling again using my life experiences and imagination.  Anthropology and rediscovering the past have played an important role in what I have done as a professional storyteller.  Please take a look at the video and let me know what you think.  I hope you'll "dig it."

LINK TO THE VIDEO

 Community Access Television Services in Bloomington, Indiana made the recording in the auditorium of the Monroe County Public Library. 

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog article.  If you have a bit more time, please watch the video. Let me know what you think. 

Copyright © ℗ 2020 by Ken Oguss   All Rights Reserved.

KenOguss@gmail.com

Links to my other sites:

https://linktr.ee/kenoguss

 

BREAKFAST AT THE UP TOP CAFE.

( PREFACE:

I create stories with a writing group every other week or so.  I tap into my experiences, sense of character, and inviting plots in much of the same way that I do when I create spoken stories .  I often see my stories as a film in my mind.  It is all STORY.  In all the media I use to express story I try to create a narrative I would like to see, hear or read.  I hope you enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed creating it! )

            BREAKFAST AT THE UP TOP CAFE.

            At 5:30 AM on a Friday, at the end of August, the sun had not yet broken the horizon of brick buildings and the rattling cage of the elevated in downtown, Chicago.  Old Roy, a very large man, walked with a cane, his thin white cotton shirt already wet under the arms.  Young Charles, a tall teenager with thick glasses, loped half a step ahead of him wanting to go faster.  There were open windows in the apartments over the small shops and businesses the men passed.  An occasional window fan or wheezing air conditioner droned like cicadae. The two men slid through the humid air talking quietly.    

            “Damn, it’s hot already!” said Young Charles, looking at the sweat glistening on his outstretched arm.

            “This isn’t hot! Man, you don’t know hot,” his elder said.  He puffed slightly at the effort of walking; his bad hip making him grimace.  “N’orleans.  Now, that’s hot.  You step out in the morning there, your glasses fog up.  All of the wrinkles in your clothes just drop away.  You learn to leave early and you go slow.  Nobody with any sense is in a hurry in the summer.”

            “Is that why we’re walking so early and slow in the morning for breakfast?  It’s not like the Up Top Cafe won’t be there later this morning? I wish we could be in that AC right now,” said Young Charles.

            “You never know”.  Old Roy paused and then began his story. “There was this place back home, like the Up Top Cafe.  Best breakfast in the ninth ward.  Had murals painted on the sides; Kings and Queens and animals bowing to them.”

            “What, you mean like the Lion King?” asked Young Charles.

            “It was called SIMBA'S.  Simba means lion, you know.   The owner’s name was Simone Barton, SIM  BA.  She could cook!  I loved that woman, I mean for real. But come Katrina…” He paused to think. “ I went back there a few months after the storm, but she’d left.  The building was gutted.  The murals were washed away up to seven feet off the ground, leaving just the tops of the crowns, and two birds in the treetops.  Gone."   

            The two walked in silence for a few moments. Young Charles looked down trying to imagine it.  His boss stared ahead.  It was as if it had happened yesterday.

            “So you left?” asked Young Charles.

            “ I rode my bicycle over the bridge at Pontchartrain and then out of the city.  Got a lift from an old couple in a pickup truck.  I rode in the back while it rained.  They had all their precious things in that truck; boxes of family pictures, a sewing machine, a big metal lockbox, tools, suitcases, and cardboard boxes of books. The books were getting soaked. The couple didn’t have a tarp to put over it all.  I was wearing a poncho, you know, one of them cheap plastic deals. I put my poncho over the books.  It was a long night. They dropped me off the next day in Tennessee.  The old man came around to help me get the bike out of the back. I told him to keep the poncho… for the books.  He placed his hand on my forehead and blessed me!  He was some old country preacher I guess?  He told me they kept the Bible up in front to stay dry. But that those books were his treasures."  

 "He said that God helps those that help themselves. And books are one of the ways men help each other.  It’s like the words of God coming from men’s mouths through their books, the old country preacher said to me.  And that was my calling! I knew my mission in life.”

            “So, is that why you have a bookstore?”  asked Young Charles.

            “I am glad to hear you ask that.  It means you are paying attention.”

            “We’ve walked to the Up Top Cafe a dozen times, Mr. Roy.  You’ve told me stories; some of them more than once.  But you never told me why you sell books before?”

            “You never asked me, young man.  But now you know. You should ask more questions. You’ve got to be curious about the world if you’re going learn anything,” said Old Roy looking at the boy’s face.

            “So… why today? Why did you tell me about the books today?” asked Young Charles.

            “Because… it was fifteen years ago today that I left. It clicked when you said it was hot today.  It was hot then too, just before Katrina hit.  The rains came.  Then the floods. Then the Exodus.  Those ideas are all connected in my mind.”

            “Do you miss New Orleans, Mr. Roy?”

            “Does a boy miss his momma when he has to leave home too soon?”

            “Well, I guess that depends on what his momma was like.  I mean if she’s not…,” Young Charles started to say.

            “Stop!”  That was a rhetorical question.  Means you’re not supposed to answer it.” said Old Roy, annoyed.  They crossed the street and stood in front of a store window displaying Mardi Gras decorations. “ Well, we’re here, and I’m hungry!”

            Young Charles held the door as Old Roy stepped up into the Up Top Café.  They were the first customers of the morning. Gladys, a greying middle-aged woman stood behind the counter and smiled at them as she poured two coffees. Without glancing at the menu on the chalkboard Old Roy said, “I’ll have the usual, Gladys, but just black chicory coffee today; no cream.  I need to cut back on the fat.” He patted his belly.

            Gladys marked her pad as she called over her shoulder. “Grillades and grits, pain perdu, blueberries…” She looked over at Old Roy. “Honey, we’ve got fresh beignets this morning.”

            “Oh, you know I can’t resist. Okay. And one for the boy.” Old Roy smiled.

            “What else for you, Honey?” she looked at Young Charles.  

            He stared at the board of  handwritten specials speckled in French “Ah, just ham and eggs.”

            “That’s your usual isn’t it, Mr. Charles?”

            “I guess so.” He smiled, feeling more adult. “Yeah, I guess so.”

            The two men sat in their usual booth.  Old Roy didn’t bother to slide in all the way. He hoisted his cane over his lap and set it next to the wall.  He pulled some napkins out of the dispenser and wiped his forehead.  

            Gladys brought their coffees and beignets.  Old Roy closed his eyes as he bit into the light pastry coated with powdered sugar.  He chewed slowly with obvious pleasure.

            Young Charles took a sip of the bitter coffee and added sugar and cream.  “So, you left fifteen years ago?  That’s when I was born!”

            “Eat your beignet before it cools off," said Old Roy.

            “Do you think you’ll ever go back again, you know, to live?”

            “I go back in my mind nearly every day.  You know, imagination is a powerful thing. But I also go all over the world and into the minds of thousands of people who write those books we sell.”

            “Do you ever wonder what happened to Miss Simba?” Young Charles asked, licking the sugar off of his beignet.

            Old Roy laughed.  “I do!”  There was a touch of sadness in his voice.

 "Well, what if you was to come here some morning and she'd be the new chef?  And you’d go back to your apartment and she’d cook for you!  And you’d read aloud to her at night from your favorite books. And you’d get married!”

            “That’s a good story, Charles. You have a great imagination. It’s a lovely dream, like thick sweet cream in my coffee.  I can taste it.  And I want it.  But…” He looked across at the young man who had powdered sugar on his hairless lip.  Changing the subject, he said, “Maybe you’ll be an author someday? Hum? Write one of those books that we sell. You think?”

            “Order up”, the cook called from the kitchen.  

            “You gentlemen want more coffee?” Gladys asked from behind the counter.

            “Bring it on,” said Old Roy, his arms raised like a preacher.

            “You know, It was hot walking here, but now I’m cold?” said Charles, hugging his arms.

            “You’ll get used it," said Old Roy watching for the rest of breakfast to arrive.

            “And I guess we’ll be hot again walking back to the bookstore," said Young Charles.

            “So you say.  So you say," said Old Roy spreading a fresh napkin across his lap. 

            “And tomorrow will be another day,” Young Charles said, his hands folded.  

            “You never know,” Old Roy said.  “But let’s hope so.  Amen.”

            

 

 

 

Copyright © ℗ 2020 by Ken Oguss.

All rights reserved.

 

  

The Second Time Around

 Written by Ken Oguss

Storyteller, Documentary Filmmaker
Digital Audio Editor and Transcriptionist for The Life Stories Project
KenOguss@gmail.com

I am sitting at the computer in my apartment in Broad Ripple with the windows open. I can hear the singing of birds, and in the distance, sounds of street work being done outside to accommodate the new apartments, grocery, and parking garage next store. Five years ago, before they were built, I sat in this chair listening to the first interviews recorded for the Life Stories Project. I was listening for short stories to edit and upload to the Life Stories Project website. http://lifestoriesproject.net When you listen to those diverse stories you get a better feeling for who we are here in Central Indiana!

In the past five years we’ve collected over 160 life story interviews. I wrote in a blog about that process back in August 2013, “I Am A Man Who Listens.” https://storytellingarts.org/2013/08/i-am-a-man-who-listens/. Now I sit in this same chair not only editing the new recordings twice a year, but I have joined Celestine Bloomfield and Stephanie Edwards in the new and important work of transcribing ALL of the interviews so far.

Transcribing is a careful process of listening to and typing from the audio recordings word for word. It takes a long time to do well; several hours to do a 45 minute interview. I use a foot pedal to play and pause the playback. I can adjust the speed. I not only listen for good, short stories from a person’s life, but I am also trying to replicate the nuances of spoken story in writing. I have always been a student of language, but this experience of transcription has sharpened my ear to the way folks actually talk! It is different than the way we write literature. I listen carefully to the way the stories are flavored with accents from all corners of our country as well as the spices of foreign lands. Those accents, place names, and other specialized terminology can make our transcription work especially challenging. My colleagues will tell you more about that in future blogs.

Having come from a background in Anthropology I have taken particular notice of the “metrics” of these interviews; in particular, how fast people speak when they are telling their life stories. I would say that the average Midwesterner may speak a range of 120 to 150 words per minute (WPM). However, within the first year of collecting life stories in this project we have had the extreme range of as slow as 111 WPM to an amazing 196 WPM. I happen to know both of these people. They are both gifted storytellers. They are both African American women. They are both beautiful, and as spirited as wild birds.
Like wild birds, many of us have come to Central Indiana bringing our distinctive melodies along.

So here I am, sitting in that same chair, listening for the second time to those stories we began gathering five years ago. I am picking up new details on the second listening, much as you do when you reread a favorite book. Outside my window the birds are singing about who they are, where they have come from, and how it feels to be in Central Indiana in the Spring. They are happy because many of them have been here before. I am happy to be doing important work for future scholars of our life stories. And I feel especially lucky to be hearing these stories the second time around.

( Originally published in the Storytelling Arts of Indiana Blog May 15, 2018. https://storytellingarts.org/2018/05/second-time-around/ )

I Am A Man Who Listens.

 Written by Ken Oguss

Professional Storyteller/Public Speaking Coach/Screenwriter
Documentary Film Maker/ Author of Flash Fiction and Short Stories
KenOguss@gmail.com

As the audio engineer for the project I listen for short, short stories within the longer recordings that I can edit and post to the Life Stories Project website, www.lifestoriesproject.net. I listen for stories that can stand alone, stories that will give people an idea of the richness of the collective oral history that we have in this city.

Each story contains little treasures of human experience. Let me entice you with clues to some of the stories on the website. See if you can figure out whose stories these are:

1. Who deliberately moved to a newly integrated neighborhood to learn about the realities of inner city life?

2. Who was born a few days before a terrible fire and then spend most of her life searching for the full details of the story?

3. Whose mother showed him why a pound cake is called a pound cake and taught him how to “measure by eye.”

4. Whose teacher helped him overcome one of life’s greatest fears by encouraging him to join the high school debating team?

5. Whose father’s life may have been saved when her brother had to go to the hospital for a tonsillectomy?

6. Who saved milk tops to go to Riverside Park and then vowed to never go back there again?

7. Who traveled far abroad to visit holy sites and in the process learned about the origins of the potato?

8. Who describes a time in America when the nights were pitch black, families could not travel, and many houses displayed simple flags with stars on them?

9. Whose life would be changed by a woman he met by going to the wrong laundry mat?

10. Who found success in her vision of an interactive learning experience despite theater experts telling her it would not work?

11. What act of violence would turn a future librarian and a future minister into civil rights activists?

Here are a few things I’ve learned listening to these stories. You can’t really tell from a person’s photograph or voice what kind of childhood they had or how many years they attended school. You can’t tell how brave people have been or how hard they have worked or how creative they have been from first glance. But when you sit down and listen to them tell stories that matter from their lives you begin to appreciate who they really are and collectively, who we are. So join us. Come to the website, www.lifestoriesproject.net, listen to the short stories, sign up to tell yours. I’ll be listening!

(Originally published on the Storytelling Arts of Indiana Blog, August 11, 2013  https://storytellingarts.org/2013/08/i-am-a-man-who-listens/ )