"What's Weird Around Here?"

Kevin Coolidge

Sleep, I never seem to get enough of it. The world looks and feels different at 4am. It looks surreal, gloomy, and the shadows mess with my head. I am edgy and nervous from too much caffeine and nicotine. I jump at creeping shadows and am startled by noises. My overactive imagination whispers in the darkness of things ancient and eldritch <>, and every spooky story I’ve ever read slithers into my thoughts and gnaws at my memories.

Yep, nights can be strange, even eerie. You’ve had that creepy shiver scamper down your spine like someone was watching you, or seen something flitter on the edge of vision? Of course you have, and what’s more, I like to read about other people who have. Whether it’s haints, spooks, oddities or stuff that’s just plain freakin’ weird?

Obviously, I’m not alone, because the series Weird U.S. by Mark Sceurman and Mark Moran is a national phenomenon. These guys love to ask, “What’s weird around here?” Did they ever get that question answered? Actually, they had so many responses that they are working on a “Weird” book for every state in the union. They started with Weird New Jersey and yes, there’s a Weird Pennsylvania.

This strange travel guide is filled with roadside oddities, ancient mysteries, ghosts and bizarre beasts from the Keystone State. You can read about the “Devil’s Road” in southeastern PA, whose twisted trees have already been on the silver screen in M.Night Shyamalan’s The Village, and home of the infamous “Skull Tree”. There’s the “Ape boy” of the Chester Swamps, and the bizarre beast of Helltown, and don’t forget the big alien cats and the ghosts…

If you love reading about ghosts, spirits and strange phenomena in Pennsylvania, then be sure to check out Haunted Pennsylvania by Mark Nesbitt and Patty A. Wilson. This entire book is devoted to hauntings and spooks with ghosts from Penn State, Civil War battlefields, the hand print from beyond the grave in Jim Thorpe PA, and the fiddling phantom of Potter county. Yes, Pennsylvania is a state with a haunted history. So, if you are looking to take a different type of vacation this summer, or just love reading about the bizarre and supernatural, you’ll want to read these titles.

The only disappointment for me was a lack of tales from our own geographical area, and no tales at all from Tioga County. Weird Pennsylvania could very well be titled Weird Eastern Pennsylvania. There is a lot of information from the eastern part of the state, but not much from the western or northern reaches. Haunted Pennsylvania has a broader spectrum of specters, but still none from Tioga County. I was born here and I know different. What about the ghost of Sara in North Hall at Mansfield University? The deserted village of Leetonia? And don’t forget Wellsboro’s very own “Mad Hatter”. So, I feel compelled to ask, “What’s weird around here???”

Have you had something peculiar happen to you? Have a ghost story, or personal experience with the paranormal? Is your house haunted? Have you met the “walker in the woods”? Had a brush with the occult? Been probed by aliens? Would you like to share your strange tale with the world? Your neighbors? Then email me at frommyshelf@epix.net .I’m thinking it’s time that the world saw another side of Tioga County, the strange side…