![]() ![]() ![]() And then I remembered: I already wrote that . It’s hard to say exactly what sparked it other than ? It is a daunting experience. Elizabeth is a good person. She’s a good student. She has a huge heart. She’s a loyal friend. She’s funny too. She likes Death Cab and Spinal Tap and comic books and reading. The other day, she told me that her favorite movie of all time is “The Godfather.” I mean, she is more me than I am. But she is 1. 4, and in some ways that explains everything. Happy Monday to you! Be sure to come back tomorrow for some DG 12th Birthday goodness! Do you have a Word of the Year? I always thought it was a frilly idea until I. Tammy, we were informed when my dog was 1 yr old that she had a liver shunt. She had surgery to band the shunt. She has been on Science Diet l/d, milk thistle. Dream or nightmare – you decide. 17-year-old Russian powerlifter Yulia Viktorovna Vins, or Julia Vins, has the face of a perfect doll and the body of someone who. When Tysen Benz of Marquette. ![]() In some ways it doesn’t. There are times I feel closer to her than ever . Farther away? Further away? One gorgeous day in autumn, I was sitting on the porch, working, and she came outside and sat next to me, and it became clear after a few choice words about tattoos and nose rings and such that she had come out for the sole purpose of starting a fight. There was no specific reason for it other than she’s 1. I’m her father, and this is the timeless story. Hand-in-hand with a menace: British paedophile suspect pictured brazenly walking with 11-year-old girl in Cambodia. Michael Jones arrested in Cambodia on suspicion of.There have been other things, trying things, unforeseen things, a punishing year, and one day I came up with this idea. I would take Elizabeth to see “Hamilton.”We have a flaw in my family, one that goes back generations: We tend to grow obsessed with, well, stuff. What kind of stuff? OK, my mother through the years has had been possessed by countless activities including (but not limited to): paint- by- numbers; cross- stitch; stamp collecting; Harlequin Romances; computer programming (the most profitable of such obsessions); various soap operas; various reality TV shows; crossword puzzles; cookbooks; Candy Crush; all sorts of collectibles and, most recently, coloring books. She recently had coloring pencils shipped from Sweden or Switzerland or some such place. She’s very good at coloring. You can find her work on Facebook. Dr Pepper is a carbonated soft drink marketed as having a unique flavor. The drink was created in the 1880s by Charles Alderton in Waco, Texas and first served around. This is just how the family mind works, I guess. I have known all my life about my weakness for growing obsessed by things. This is the reason I haven’t seen Game of Thrones or The Americans or Downton Abbey or House of Cards or any other recently popular television show. It isn’t because I dislike television — it’s the opposite. I like television too much. ![]() I know the only way to avoid free- falling into that television hole is to never start watching in the first place. I don’t mean this theoretically. For years, people have been on me to watch “Mad Men.” Three weeks ago, I caved in and decided to watch. I have now seen every show, all seven seasons, 9. That’s in three weeks. In other words, I have spent roughly four of the last 2. Mad Men. That’s not healthy. I mean, the show was superb but I’m glad it’s over. I would rather obsess about something else. Elizabeth is one of several million people — so many of them teenagers — who have become obsessed with the Broadway show “Hamilton.” It is funny, if you think about it. Kids all over America are smitten by a show about a previously minor Founding Father who probably would have gotten chucked off the $1. Lin- Manuel Miranda. When I was Elizabeth’s age, we all wore Rush and Black Sabbath T- shirts and sang about how Mommy’s alright and Daddy’s alright, they just seem a little weird. These kids are singing about Alexander Hamilton’s argument with Thomas Jefferson over a plan to establish a national bank and assume state debt. All of Elizabeth’s friends seem to be into Hamilton. One of them will periodically and for no obvious reason break into “You’ll Be Back,” a song where King George tells the colonies they will eventually return to England’s rule (. Another somehow got to see the show back before it became a national phenomenon and this has turned her into something of a superhero. But of course, Elizabeth is more consumed by the show than most. She has memorized every word of the musical, read every word she can about Alexander Hamilton, and, naturally, she has asked us to start calling her “Eliza” after Hamilton’s wife Eliza Schuyler. She wears one of her three Hamilton T- shirts every single day that she’s allowed, and she regularly says things like “Thomas Jefferson was the worst,” though it has nothing at all to do with what we were talking about, and she will actually tear up a little thinking about poor John Laurens. This is all hilarious, of course — a 1. Founding Fathers — that is until you realize that it isn’t going away. All of this reminded me, strangely enough, of the Cleveland Browns. They were my first obsession. Even now, I’m not sure I can put into words how consumed I was with the Browns. In classes, when I should have been learning how to find the area of a circle or how circuits work or what the heck Hawthorne was talking about (things I still don’t know), I was scribbling stupid little stories about the Cleveland Browns. You might think this was because I wanted to become a sportswriter, but no,I had no idea about sportswriting, no ambitions to be a writer. I was writing these Browns stories because I couldn’t stop thinking about them — no, more to the point, I did not want to stop thinking about them. I was happiest pondering Bernie Kosar and Earnest Byner and Kevin Mack and Hanford Dixon and all the rest. I was happiest dreaming up imaginary plays that might work, strategies that might pay off, preview stories that might come true. Now, of course, I see it: The rest of life was kind of scary. School was scary. Girls were scary. My parents were scary. Homework was scary. All the other kids seemed to me to know something I did not know. They knew who they were. They knew how they fit in. They knew what they wanted to do with their lives. Of course, they did not really know any of that, but they sure seemed to know, and here I was, too small for one sport, too uncoordinated for another, too stupid or lazy (or both) to excel, too homely to ask out the cheerleader, too nearsighted to give up the glasses, too shy to be the class clown, too unimaginative to play Dungeon and Dragons, too uncool to be first, too uncommitted to think about it all very much. Ah, but the Cleveland Browns. That was a world I understood. I did not want to leave. Elizabeth does not have any of my weaknesses — she has lots of friends, works way harder and does way better in her classes, is beautiful . It is scary being a teenager. But it’s also exhilarating. She finds herself seesawing between childhood and and adulthood, enjoying a few minutes of peace doing girlish things but then growing outraged when the waitress gives her a kid’s menu, proudly interviewing and getting a summer job but then wanting to know why she can’t just stay home and read. It’s all so confusing. It’s so much safer in the world of Alexander Hamilton. So, one day, I decided to take on a speaking engagement for the sole purpose of raising enough money to take Elizabeth to see Hamilton. You probably know that it’s hard, almost impossible even, to get Hamilton tickets. This is true but it’s also not true. It’s true that getting Hamilton tickets involves lotteries and luck and trying to buy tickets months in advance and knowing somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody. But . How much money? I still can’t say the number out loud. Rain fell in New York the night we saw Hamilton. And Elizabeth held my hand tight and couldn’t stop crying as we walked into the theater.* * *“I may not live to see our glory(I may not live to see our glory)But I will gladly join the fight(But I will gladly join the fight)And when our children tell our story(And when our children tell our story)They’ll tell the story of tonight— The Story of Tonight from Hamilton. The thing about seeing Hamilton RIGHT NOW at its peak moment is that even before it begins, the entire theater is filled with wonder. Every single person would rather be here than anywhere else in the world. As a sportswriter, I often feel that sort of energy at the biggest events, at the Masters or the Super Bowl or the Olympics, but it’s even more pronounced in this theater. People look at each other with the same wide- eyed expression: “Can you believe we’re here?”And then the show begins, Aaron Burr on the stage, talking about that bastard orphan Hamilton, and within about two minutes you realize the thing makes Hamilton magical is this: It’s going to be even better than you had hoped. How do you know only a minute in? You just do. The charms of Hamilton are so overwhelming and come at you from so many different directions that it’s hard to pinpoint. The music is fantastic, of course, and of every style. The actors are all thoroughly wonderful. The set, which is so simple, is ever changing as people bring things on the stage and take things off, almost without notice. Lin- Manuel Miranda’s lyrics are so fun and surprising and joyful and glorious . You know these characters and don’t know them at all. You know the story and don’t know it at all. I can’t remember anything quite like that. When the second act begins, Aaron Burr introduces Thomas Jefferson (“You haven’t met him yet, you haven’t had the chance/. Do you know what I mean? You might be aware that Thomas Jefferson really didn’t look like Prince and he wasn’t much of a hip hop performer. He was a Virginia slaveowner. But by the time the second act begins, no, this is Thomas Jefferson. It feels exactly right. This is the closest experience I’ve ever had to that feeling inside a dream. You know: In the dream, you are talking with your best friend only he’s actually a grizzly bear wearing a stethoscope, and you’re inside a car that’s not exactly a car and you’re parked inside the Taj Mahal but it’s orange and looks a bit like old Shea Stadium . None of it seems unfamiliar. It doesn’t just make perfect sense, it feels perfect. There are goosebumps detonating because, my God, look, that’s Thomas Jefferson. No, I guess I cannot put you there in the theater, though I wish I could. I wish you could see it if you have not. I don’t even know you, but I wish you could see it because you will be happier after you see it. You will be happier after watching Hamilton and Jefferson have a hip- hop rap off about whether the U. Enfield Poltergeist: The amazing story of the 1. North London girl who 'levitated' above her bed. The rasping male voice sent a chill through the room. Hauntingly, it delivered a message from beyond the grave, describing in graphic detail the moment of death. The recording was made in Enfield, North London, in the Seventies, several years after his death. Janet Hodgson, aged 1. It could have been a scene from the film The Exorcist - but it was real. Most horrifying of all, however, was that the voice was coming from the body of an 1. Janet Hodgson. She appeared to be possessed. It could have been a scene from the film The Exorcist — but it was real. What was going on? This was the case of the Enfield Poltergeist, which held the nation spellbound 3. It involved levitation, furniture being moved through the air, and flying objects swirling towards witnesses. There were cold breezes, physical assaults, graffiti, water appearing on the floor, and even claims of matches spontaneously bursting into flame. A policewoman even signed an affidavit that she had seen a chair move. There were more than 3. Most inexplicably, the young girl at the centre of the events seemingly acted as the mouthpiece for Bill Wilkins, a foul- mouthed, grumpy old man who had died in the house many years before. His son contacted investigators to confirm the details of his story. The events unfolded for more than a year behind the door of an ordinary- looking semi- detached council house, on a suburban street filled with similar houses, and left those they touched permanently scarred. Naturally, many questioned whether it was all a hoax — but no explanation other than the paranormal has ever been convincingly put forward. The events unfolded for more than a year behind the door of an ordinary- looking semi- detached council house. Now, the episode is to be revisited in a film, planned for release at Halloween next year. Just what happened in Enfield, then, all those years ago? Where are the Hodgsons now, and have they escaped their ghosts? Could they have made the whole episode up? And who lives at 2. Green Street now? The story, as the Hodgson family told it, begins in 1. Peggy Hodgson was unusual, at the time, in that she was a single mother to four children — Margaret, 1. Janet, 1. 1, Johnny, ten, and Billy, seven — having split from their father. It was the evening of August 3. Mrs Hodgson was keen to get her children into bed. She heard Janet complaining from upstairs that her and her brothers’ beds were wobbling. Mrs Hodgson told her daughter to stop mucking around. The following evening, however, there was an altogether more bizarre disturbance. Mrs Hodgson heard a crash from upstairs. Cross, she went to tell her children to settle down. Entering their bedroom, with Janet’s Starsky & Hutch posters on the wall, Mrs Hodgson saw the chest of drawers move. She pushed it back, but found that it was being propelled towards the door by an invisible force. It seemed as if some supernatural presence was trying to trap the family in the room with the heavy oak chest. Many years later, Janet would tell a Channel 4 documentary: . Mum said: “I want you to pack it in.”. She saw the chest of drawers moving. When she tried to push it back, she couldn’t.’Janet’s sister Margaret explained how the activity increased. None of us got slept. Vic, a burly builder, went to investigate. He says: . I was beginning to get a bit frightened.’ Most of the activity centred on 1. Janet. She went into violent trances, which were awful to behold. Margaret adds: . WPC Carolyn Heeps saw a chair move. She said at the time: . Daily Mirror photographer Graham Morris, who visited the house, says: . One shows Janet’s elfin form apparently being thrown across the room. In others, her face is distorted in pain. The BBC went to the house, but the crew found the metal components in their tape equipment had been twisted, and recordings erased. Next, the family sought help from the Society for Psychical Research (SPR). It sent investigators Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair, a poltergeist expert who subsequently wrote a book, This House Is Haunted, about the affair. The author Will Storr spoke to Grosse, who has since died, when researching his own book Will Storr vs The Supernatural, which also features the case. Grosse told him: . Everybody was in chaos. Then I experienced Lego pieces flying across the room, and marbles, and the extraordinary thing was, when you picked them up they were hot. Sofas levitated, furniture spun round and was flung across the room, and the family would be hurled out of their beds at night. The investigators found themselves caught in a maelstrom of apparently psychic activity, with every poltergeist trick thrown at them. One day, Maurice and a visiting neighbour found one of the children shouting: ! It’s holding my leg!’ They had to wrestle the child from what all involved insisted was the grip of invisible hands. The ongoing knocking was one of the most chilling aspects of the case. It would run down the wall, fading in and out as it apparently played an unnerving game with the family — who became so scared that they slept in the same room, with the light on. Most of the activity centred on 1. Janet. She went into violent trances, which were awful to behold. On one occasion, the iron fireplace in her bedroom was wrenched from the wall by unseen forces. Family members also claim to have seen her levitating — floating clean across the room. She told Channel 4: . I really don’t like to think about it too much. I’m not sure the poltergeist was truly “evil”. It was almost as if it wanted to be part of our family. It had died there and wanted to be at rest. The only way it could communicate was through me and my sister.’Some cast doubt on the events, however. Two SPR experts caught the children bending spoons themselves, and questioned why no one was allowed in the same room as Janet when she was using her gruff voice, apparently that of Bill Wilkins. Indeed, Janet admitted that they fabricated some of the occurrences. She told ITV News in 1. They always did.’Now aged 4. Janet lives in Essex with her husband, a retired milkman. She told me: . My dad has just died, and it really upset me to think of all this being raked over again.’She describes the poltergeist activity as traumatic. It’s one of the most recognised cases of paranormal activity in the world. But, for me, it was quite daunting. I think it really left its mark, the activities, the newspaper attention, the different people in and out of the house. It wasn’t a normal childhood.’Asked how much of the phenomena at Green Street was faked, she says: . They did all sorts of tests, filling my mouth with water and so on, but the voices still came out.’'I was bullied at school. They called me Ghost Girl and put crane flies down my back,' said Janet (pictured above: A scene from the 1. The Exorcist)She says: . I remember a curtain being wound around my neck, I was screaming, I thought I was going to die. The man who spoke through me, Bill, seemed angry, because we were in his house.’ The situation had a huge effect on the family. Janet says: . They called me Ghost Girl and put crane flies down my back. The front door would be open, there’d be people in and out, you didn’t know what to expect and I used to worry a lot about Mum. She had a nervous breakdown, in the end. I want to move on. But it does come to me now and again. I dream about it, and then it affects me. I think why did it happen to us?’Her brother was called . Janet herself was on the front page of the Daily Star with a headline: . My mum felt people walked over her at that time. She felt exploited.’Shortly after the Press attention drifted away, Janet’s younger brother Johnny died of cancer, aged just 1. Janet’s mother then developed breast cancer, dying in 2. Janet suffered the loss of her own son, in his sleep, when he was 1. She rejects any suggestion that the whole story was faked in pursuit of fame or money. I don’t care whether people believe me or not, I went through this, and it was true.’Asked whether she believes the house is still haunted, she says: . It is a lot calmer than when I was a child. It is at rest, but will always be there.’Janet reports that it was a priest’s visit to Green Street that resulted in the incidents . Call me mad if you like. Those events did happen. The poltergeist was with me and I feel that in a sense he always will be.’Who lives at 2. Green Street now? After Peggy Hodgson died, Clare Bennett and her four sons moved into the house. Last week, she said: . There was definitely some kind of presence in the house, I always felt like someone was looking at me.’Her sons would wake in the night, hearing people talking downstairs. Clare then found out about the house’s history. They moved out after just two months. One of her sons, Shaka, 1. I ran into Mum’s room and said: “We’ve got to move,” and we did the next day.’The house is currently occupied by another family, who do not wish to be identified. The mother says simply: . I don’t want to scare them.’Though cynics may scoff, the story of the Enfield Poltergeist has clearly lost none of its frightening power.
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