Walt Trizna's Blog, page 32

THE MARTIAN MISTAKE

                                 THE MARTIAN MISTAKE

One of my favorite movies is the 1953 edition of The War of the Worlds.

In both this movie, and the Tom Cruise version, the Martians make a major mistake resulting in their demise.

I will be discussing these movies in a future post.

What was their mistake and why did they make it?

Hint: The source of the Martian’s mistake is explained at the end of H. G. Wells’ book. The basis for both movies.

In seven days, I will share the answer.

CHILDREN AND CELL PHONES

                              CHILDREN AND CELL PHONES

First a disclaimer. I don’t own a cell phone. My kids are grown so I don’t have one of society’s major problems: Children and the influence of cell phones.

Even with the above disclaimer I am well aware of the problem cell phones are causing with our youth. You would have to live in a cave or under a rock not to be.

We have restrictions on our children to ensure their safety. They can’t drink until they are twenty-one. They cannot, or are not supposed to, drive until they reach an age designated by the state where they dwell. We categorize movies for the protection of our children. Why can’t industry produce cell phones made for children, say for children under the age of fourteen which are limited to only communication? Could it be that less sophisticated phones would cut into profits?

Cell phones are denying children their childhood by gluing them to a screen rather than participating in constructive play. Reducing children the opportunity to make friends.

I don’t think most children under fourteen have the means to purchase cell phones on their own so parents would have complete control over the phones their children can use.

Currently cell phones, right or wrong, are ‘practically’ a necessity. But why can’t there exist cell phones, for children, whose sole purpose is for communication. For children, bring back the cell phone of the past. For the use of moms to contact their children to see what they were up to and that they were alright. With these cell phones exposure to the outside world would be limited.

As children matured the phones could provide increasing access to the outside world and information. And by the time our children reach adulthood they have developed healthy habits in the use of cell phones.

THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY: HORROR SHORT STORY, PART IX

HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY: HORROR SHORT STORY, PART THE IX

This story was published by Necrology Shorts in January 2010.

                      THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY

  As I sat there waiting, I felt a strange fear creep into my bones as the waves gently caressed the shore.  All was quiet; most of the campers were fast asleep.  Would anything happen?  Of course not, that is the stuff of movies!

  The moon illuminated the water’s surface.  I was tired, drowsy and falling asleep when I noticed a peculiar glow in the water.  “The legend is not a legend!”  A glow rose from the murky depths, two red-hot coals just below the water’s surface.  Next, the unimaginable.  The surface of the water parted and what greeted my eyes was unspeakable.  The figure appeared a mockery of the human form.  And the eyes, they appeared as two suns.  I wanted to look away but couldn’t.  Suddenly jets of flame exploded from those orbs of doom and blinded me.  Entered my eyes, my brain.

I felt pain; I felt …

                                                 * * *

A local newspaper published an article telling of campers killed at Lake Harmony.  After four years, the incident was only a vague memory, until …

                                                            THE END 

THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY: HORROR STORY, PART VIII

This story was published by Necrology Shorts in January 2010.

                      THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY

  I could not believe that circumstances were putting me in the one place I felt evil that evil might lurk.  How could I tell my wife we should not go because of a legend I read in an old book?  I admonished myself, “Get a grip.  Too much Stephen King.”

We arrived at our campsite.  It was a beautiful June day, yet I greeted our arrival with apprehension.  We were camping with friends who occupied site 35.  The next morning promised to be a day of adventure.

  After a breakfast of blueberry pancakes with berries picked from bushes growing on the edge of the lake, we went boating.  The afternoon was spent hiking along a trail surrounded by mountain laurel in full bloom.  It had been a truly wonderful day.  After a campfire, we said good night to our friends as they went to their tent.  It was late and time to turn in.  I told my wife to take our two girls and get ready for bed, that I would watch the embers of our dying fire.

THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY: HORROR SHORT STORY, PART VII

This story was published by Necrology Shorts in January 2010.

                      THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY

Out of curiosity and fear, I searched the internet when I returned home to see what areas of Pennsylvania the Lenape Indians had occupied, and if that area included the location of Lake Harmony State Park.  The tribe had indeed lived in the area of the park.  I also looked up the history of the park.  The lake where we camped was man made.  A dam was built to allow a lake to form.  I remembered that, from our campsite at site 34 we could see two islands.  Could those islands have once been the tops of hills?  Could these be the hills that were once the home of The Ancients?  Was it more than a legend?  If these hills were indeed the home of The Ancients and the area had been flooded, then the tons of earth that trapped them would have eventually washed away. 

I had these thoughts during the fall of 2001 and could not get the possibilities out of my mind.  My mind considered powers unknown, evil unimagined.  We were planning a camping trip to Lake Harmony the next year.  My wife was to make the arrangements, and unknowingly, chose to camp on the four-year anniversary of the last unexplained event.

THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY: HORROR SHORT STORY, PARTVI

This story was published by Necrology Shorts in January 2010.

                      THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY

I carefully closed the book and felt a shiver as I recalled some newspaper accounts of horrible occurrences that happened at Lake Harmony remembering that they took place at four year intervals.

                                                            * * *

The latest incident occurred on June 12, 1998.  A group of four friends came to the campsite where we enjoyed camping.  Pitching their tent, they settled in for a few days of hiking and fishing.  It was reported that they were to leave the morning of June 13.  The morning of June 13 arrived and the surrounding campsites awoke to find that site 35 was empty.  The men were gone, along with their belongings.  They were never seen again.  They had disappeared with no word to their family or friends.  I remembered in the article about the fishermen, an earlier incident was mentioned of a horrifying occurrence that had never been solved. 

It was June 12, 1994.  A family of four, a mom, dad and two young sons were camping at site 34.  On the morning of their departure, no one stirred.  Finally, the time to vacate the site arrived and their tent was still standing with all their gear spread around the campsite.  A ranger stopped at the campsite and called out, “Time to pack-up and leave”.  There was no response.  He shouted that he was opening the tent and did so.  The poor fellow lost his mind with the sight that greeted him.  The mother and boys were there, murdered and horribly mutilated.  The father was gone and suspected of the crimes.  He was never found.

THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY: HORROR SHORT STORY, PART IV

This story was published by Necrology Shorts in January 2010.

                       THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY

Legend continued that one day Megwa, a young buck who wanted to prove his worth as a warrior, made a discovery that chilled him to the bone and sent the other warriors on a mission to destroy The Ancients.  Megwa had a best friend with whom he shared his childhood.  They would hunt together and talk about their future and their place in the tribe.  His friend, whose name was Sharak, had suffered a grave misadventure as a young boy.  Once their camp was attacked and Sharak, then a boy of six, ran from his shelter and was immediately clubbed by one of the invaders.  He was thought dead, and placed among the bodies of his family and friends, but he soon stirred.  The surviving tribe members nursed him back to health.  He regained his strength, became a warrior, and went on to avenge the massacre of his parents killed by the invaders, but he always carried a reminder of that fateful attack.  His forehead was indented with a deep crease that became a sign of his bravery and a reminder of his loss. 

The time of the glowing eyes of The Ancients came once again and, again, four members of the tribe were missing.  One of the missing Lenape natives was Sharak.  Megwa felt a deep loss, an emptiness in his heart and a sorrow that would not leave.  He grieved for his friend.  He did not know where he had gone or what had happened to him. 

Everyone knew that The Ancients must have been warriors in the past, for the entrance of their cave was adorned with skulls, the trophies of past battles.  One day, not long after Sharak disappeared, Megwa was walking by The Ancients’ cave when he suddenly stopped and peered closely at the entrance.  There among the other skulls was a new gleaming skull that he recognized, a skull with a deep gash in the forehead.  He reported this discovery to the elders of the tribe and it was decided that The Ancients must be destroyed.  The tribe knew they must wait until the eyes of The Ancients began to glow.  That was when they were at their weakest, and feared contact with the outside world.  With their eyes glowing like those of wild animals, they peered from their cave and would not venture beyond its entrance

THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY: HORROR SHORT STORY, PART V

This story was published by Necrology Shorts in January 2010.

                      THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY

Time went by, but Megwa never forgot his mission, his act of vengeance.  One day a member of the tribe reported that the eyes of The Ancients had taken on the red glow.  They knew the time would soon come, the special night. The night when the eyes of The Ancients would glow; glow as coals in the night.  This was the night they could be destroyed.  For once this night was over, they would regain new strength, new vigor as four more members of the tribe would be gone forever.  As the eyes of The Ancients glowed their fiercest, the natives crept onto the hill above their cave, and with the earth already loosened from their previous night’s work, caused a deafening roar as the loosened earth cascaded down the hill and covered the entrance of the cave.  The Ancients were never seen again.

As time passed, The Ancients’ story became legend.  Yet there were times when eerie moans, like the earth itself was in pain, would come from the area of the two hills which the legend had described as the home of The Ancients.  As time blurred the story of The Ancients, the haunting moans persisted; credited to the wind howling through the narrow valley between the two hills.

THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY: HORROR SHORT STORY, PART III

This story was published by Necrology Shorts in January 2010.

                      THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY

The story began: there is a legend among the local natives of a group of men they called The Ancients.  The Ancients were given this name because, when the first Lenape natives entered the land that would one day become Pennsylvania, The Ancients already inhabited one of the many caves in the area.  No one knew their tribe or where they came from and The Ancients offered no information.  They were wise old men possessing strange powers.   There were four, all men. 

 The natives avoided their company out of fear and respect.  They observed that The Ancients would age considerably over a four-year course.  They noticed another curious aspect of their appearance: as they aged their eyes would redden.  The Ancients’ eyes reddened to a point at which they would glow.  As the visage of their age increased so, did the glow of their eyes, when a curious event would occur.   Four members of the Lenape tribe would go missing.  Coincidentally, The Ancients, suddenly shed the mantle of approaching death; their faces now appeared almost youthful. 

THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY: HORROR SHORT STORY, PART IV

This story was published by Necrology Shorts in January 2010.

                      THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY

The story began: there is a legend among the local natives of a group of men they called The Ancients.  The Ancients were given this name because, when the first Lenape natives entered the land that would one day become Pennsylvania, The Ancients already inhabited one of the many caves in the area.  No one knew their tribe or where they came from and The Ancients offered no information.  They were wise old men possessing strange powers.   There were four, all men. 

 The natives avoided their company out of fear and respect.  They observed that The Ancients would age considerably over a four-year course.  They noticed another curious aspect of their appearance: as they aged their eyes would redden.  The Ancients’ eyes reddened to a point at which they would glow.  As the visage of their age increased so, did the glow of their eyes, when a curious event would occur.   Four members of the Lenape tribe would go missing.  Coincidentally, The Ancients, suddenly shed the mantle of approaching death; their faces now appeared almost youthful.