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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 
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| (Image from a Florida postcard) |
Weblinks to follow the weather:
www.nhc.noaa.gov - This is the official site of the National Hurricane Center. It's probably the most "official" site on the web,
so if you have trust issues, go here. They've improved over time, most notably with better maps and a new small news feed
at the top. In the past, their maps have been less definitive, with a huge cone, especially for slow-moving storms. Their
text descriptions are also very technical and dense. Plus, the site's not as colorful, and we all like colors, don't we?
www.wunderground.com/tropical/ - This is Weather Underground's tropical weather site. They are good if you want easy access to a wide range of information,
including things like the "historical" diagram which shows how similar past storms have moved. They have a good
variety of computer models (which are lacking on the NHC), and they're very easy to navigate. They're also the best source
I know of for hurricane blogging - Dr. Jeff Masters blogs about tropical activity pretty consistently, although if you're
a complete beginner he may seem a bit jargonish. Plus, they're the best location for hurricane news if you're trying to "one-stop
shop" for weather info at your mansion on Fisher Island, your home in the Hamptons, the Manhattan apartment, the London
flat and the Chateau on the Loire. On the con side, they are a commercial entity, so there are ads around the site.
www.skeetobiteweather.com - These guys have very clear diagrams that show not just where the storm will go, but how strong it will be in different
locations. They're also good for more minor systems, as they show details "investigation areas" that may develop
into depressions, which neither the NHC nor Weather Underground does. Their historical records, however, have not been updated
since 2005. They have a slightly wider variety of computer models than Weather Underground, though you need to visit both
sites to see all of them. They can be a bit slow in updating (they normally have a 45-minute to an hour lag in updating after
the NHC, as compared to Weather Underground's 5-minute lag), but that's because they end up presenting much more information
with their diagrams. They come across as no-frills, with their relatively plain layout and lack of things like "wind
history" that the other two throw in. --James Barrett-Morison
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Winners of the 2008 Florida Book Awards Book Design Gold
Medal: Emmett H.L. Snellings, Jr., Seminole Views Children's Literature Gold Medal: Susan Womble, Newt's World: Beginnings
Silver Medal: Donna Gephart, As
If Being 12 3/4 Isn't Bad Enough, My Mother Is Running For President
Bronze Medal: Loreen
Leedy, Missing Math: A Number Mystery Florida Nonfiction Gold Medal: Shawn Bean, The First Hollywood Silver
Medal: John Stuart & John Stack, Eds., The New Deal in South Florida
Read our review.Bronze Medal: Rodney Hurst, It was Never about a Hot Dog
and a Coke
Jeff Klinkenberg, Pilgrim in a Land of Alligators
Greg
Turner, A Journey into Florida Railroad History
General Fiction Gold Medal: John Dufresne, Requiem,
Mass.
Silver Medal: Tony D'Souza, The Konkans
Bronze Medal: Kristy
Kiernan, Matters of Faith
Debra Dean, Confessions
of a Falling Woman Genre Fiction Gold Medal:
Deborah & Joel Shlian, Rabbit in the Moon
Silver Medal: Lisa Unger,
Black Out
Bronze Medal: James Swain, The
Night Stalker
Patrick Kendrick, Papa's Problem
Martha Powers,
Conspiracy of Silence Poetry Gold
Medal: David Kirby, Temple Gate Called Beautiful
Silver Medal Winner:
Campbell McGrath, Seven Notebooks
Bronze Medal: Terri Witek, The Shipwreck Dress
Frank Giampietro, Begin Anywhere
Helen Wallace, Shimming the Glass House Spanish Language Book Gold Medal: Antonio Orlando Rodriguez, Chiquita
Silver Medal: José Álvarez, Principio y fin del mito fidelista Young Adult Literature
Gold Medal: John Tkac, Whispers from the Bay
Silver Medal: Anne Ake, Everglades
Bronze Medal: Julie Gonzalez, Imaginary Enemy
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