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Sunday, October 5, 2008

The haunting season is here!

          After reading John Marc Carr's informative book, Haunted Fort Lauderdale, I decided to take the next step--I went on his ghost tour. I gathered my friends Kathy, Yaddyra and Lou (I was too scared to go alone) and we met up with Carr and other locals and tourists in front of the Cheesecake Factory one Saturday night in July. Our first stop was the Stranahan House.
          I discovered that Carr goes into even more detail on the tour than he does in the book. For example, Carr brought an EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) player with him, and allowed us to listen to Ivy Stranahan's ghostly voice. He also goes into more detail about the history of the various locations-we learned much about a young woman named Pink who died in the Stranahan house, jilted by her two-timing husband. While the book briefly touched on the incident, on the tour, Carr's detailed account made us feel the pain of the poor young woman's final hours as he described her bleeding to death after childbirth.
            A couple odd things happened on the tour. First, a teenage girl among us fainted in front of the Stranahan House, just as Carr was beginning to tell us about the ghost of Ivy Stranahan. Yaddyra and Lou claim it was odd how she fainted-it was in slow motion, as if some unseen force was gently lowering her to the ground. At the King Cromartie House, which is said to be haunted by a "pink lady," several members of our group claim to have seen the curtains moving slightly. I have to say I didn't see anything I couldn't chalk up to an air conditioning vent, but Carr explained that on a previous tour, people saw the curtains open more dramatically, as if by unseen hands. A video of this can be seen on Carr's MySpace page.
           Can I tell you first hand that Fort Lauderdale is haunted? Nope. But I can tell you this--a dinner out on Las Olas Boulevard will never be the same for me.

--Susan Parsons

10:10 pm edt

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The Florida Book Review

Winners of the 2010 Florida Book Awards
Children's Literature
Gold: Jan Godown Annino, She Sang Promise: The story of Betty Mae Jumper, Seminole Tribal Leader
Silver: Mary GrandPre and Jack Relutsky, Camille Saint-Saens's The Carnival of the Animals
Bronze: Henry Cole, A Nest for Celeste
Bronze: Brad Meltzer, Heroes for My Son
Bronze: Harvey E. Oyer III, The Last Egret: The Adventures of Charlie Pierce

Florida Nonfiction
Gold: Margaret Ross Tolbert, AQUIFERious
Silver: Julian M. Pleasants and Harry A. Kersey, Seminole Voices: Reflections on Their Changing Society
Bronze: Lu Vickers, Cypress Gardens, America's Tropical Wonderland
Bronze: Anna Lillios, Crossing the Creek
Bronze: Randy Wayne White and Carlene Fredericka Brennen, Randy Wayne White's Ultimate Tarpon Book

General Fiction
Gold: Mark Mustian, The Gendarme
Silver: Patricia Engel, Vida
Bronze:
T.M Shine, Nothing Happens Until It Happens to You
Mary Jane Ryals, Cookie and Me

Popular Fiction
Gold Medal: William Culver Hall, The Trouble With Panthers
Silver Medal: Randy Wayne White, Deep Shadow
Bronze Medal:
Joyce Elson Moore, The Tapestry Shop
Charles Martin, The Mountain Between Us
James Grippando, Money to Burn

Poetry
Gold: Carol Frost, Honeycomb
Silver: Lola Haskins, Still, the Mountain
Bronze:Kelle Groom, Five Kingdoms

Spanish Language Book
Gold Medal: Jose Alvarez, Los Alamos del Parque

Young Adult Literature
Gold Medal: Christina Diaz Gonzalez, The Red Umbrella

Visual Arts
Gold: Jason Steuber, Laura K. Nemmers, and Tracy Pfaff, Eds., Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art at Twenty Years: The Collection Catalogue
Silver: Margaret Ross Tolbert, AQUIFERious

For more information on these and past winners, please visit the Florida Book Awards website.

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