Unknown: One of the states that there are more hauntings than
any is my home state of Kansas. They said, for some reason,
there are a lot of instances and stories of hauntings, and the
majority of them come from that state.
Do you think they involve just a lot of pioneers that were, you
know, heading west, that suffered, you know, weathers or
what have you, yeah, getting stuck in the weather there in
the weather in Kansas is horrible, you know, and Native
American skirmishes, yeah, that perhaps may have occurred there.
You know, I lived in South Carolina for a number of years,
and that's a state that has experienced not only the Civil
War, but the Revolutionary War. You know, as evidence that the
motion picture, the Patriot with Mel Gibson, that's about great
movie, yeah, it is. That's about the Revolutionary War, and it is
set in South Carolina. Yeah, welcome to a podcast about music
and entertainment before it all goes down the disposal, this is
circling the drain.
Hey, welcome back into circling the drain. Of course, you know
me. I guess Johnny B. Johnny Bozeman, the other j, right over
here. Jay Harper,
yes, I we have met. Have we? Yes, okay, hey, good to see you.
Johnny B, it's good
to see you. Yeah, rated PG for pretty good, or x for extra
good.
Rated X, and of course, the man who's always rated X, that would
be the great Jim McCarthy. You know, you only see him from the
waist up, which is a good thing, because sometimes pants are
optional. Yes, they are not sometimes
all the time. Or I like those newscasters you always heard of.
You know, they to be wearing their underwear.
Well, you know, you mentioned that. I mean, I used to work at
a TV station in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I was the booth
announcer there, so I would always hang around, and I
usually came in in the evenings and did the spots and, you know,
tonight on midnight movie, you know, that kind of stuff. And
the the newscasters, they always were like, in shorts and tennis
shoes, but they had the suit and the tie and all that from here
on up? Well, sure, no, so it is a true thing.
Well, and Demetria caledimos, who was a big newscaster here in
Nashville, I understand she she wore these, like, slippers when
she was doing the Yeah, like house shoes, I'm kind of goofy
slippers. We were talking before we started on the on the show
here, we were talking about hauntings.
I know we were just kind of tossing around. You know, we've
got a different ideas for topics and stuff. We just started
extemporaneously. I don't know how we got on to that, but we
just started talking about things that we've kind of
witnessed in places we've been or lived, or what have you. And
hauntings came up. And yeah, then we said, well, shoot, let's
just, let's
do a, let's do a haunting episode. Yeah, a little
discussion about because there have been a lot of ever since
I've lived here, I've heard all kinds of stories about
hauntings, people seeing something out of the norm, or
experiencing something out of the norm. When I worked with
Phil Valentine, he had a cabin on his property that he and his
boys. Boys both swore, all swore that that cabin was haunted.
Do you know how old that structure was, or very old?
In fact, they had to piece it back together. He had bought it,
I think, in West Tennessee, and brought it back old log cabin.
They put it back together, and the boys would like be up in
their room, up in the up in the rooms at night and in the
morning. They said they would hear violin music, interesting,
as clear as a bell and go down stairs, nothing there, only in
the cabin, only in the cabin. And Phil would talk about lights
being on, and nobody had turned them on. And what's strange is
they said, after Phil passed, that the hauntings went away,
but now they say in what was Phil's office, sometimes the
light on the desk will be on and nobody turned it on. Wow. So
that's hard to explain so but you've heard these stories. I
mean, especially with us living near all these Confederate
battlefields and graveyards, right?
I mean, this area of Middle Tennessee has just been through
all kinds of very emotional turmoil, types of historical
events. A lot of blood in the dirt. Yes, certainly. You know,
again, my home is in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which
is about 3035, miles southeast of Nashville. But you know, a
huge Civil War battle took place there. A number of them,
actually. And you know, the whole stinking city, as is
Franklin, Tennessee plantation, yes. I mean this whole area, as
you say, man, a lot of blood in the dirt. And while one
particular area may be designated as the battlefield, I
mean, come on, let's get real, the whole area is a battlefield.
Oh, sure, sure. In fact, my my parents, my dad, my stepmother,
lived in leapers fork, and there was an old farmhouse that was
there, and it still had, you could see where they had tried
to fix it, but where a cannonball had gone through. And
they also said they had hung soldiers in the trees on this
property. Yeah, good grief. So, yeah, it had a lot of violent
history there.
When they were doing that, that they were like, generations from
now, they're going to be totally effed with
no but you know, there have been a lot of you talk about the
Opry. There have been stories of people seeing people like Hank
Williams,
yeah, at the right, at the right, the Ryman itself, yeah,
Ryman itself, yeah, that they're still haunting, yeah. Well,
certainly, if you believe in those sorts of things, it
certainly is reasonable to to expect that.
Well, it could happen. I guess just too many eyewitnesses to
say otherwise.
Well, we had this similar my dad and my stepmother at one time on
the Hank Williams house on Franklin Road, 4916 Franklin
Road, I can still remember the address. Now, Hank didn't live
there much. I think, I think it was toward the end of their
marriage that they had bought
the house. So this would have been 5253
probably early 50s. Yeah, and Audrey built on, built more to
the house. And it was really weird. It was like an orange or
orange. It was gold brick. Looked really oriental, like
even the outside cabana had kind of Oriental type roof to it. She
must have really been into, you
know, that was kind of a thing back in the 50s, that Chinese
provincial, yes, type of decor.
But that house had a lot of everybody that ever spent time
in that house had some kind of strange occurrence. Mine
personally, was there was a side of the house that Hank Jr used
to live in. It was an apartment that they had for him when he
was a teenager. And whiskey Benton hell bound had just come
out, and I'd gotten through the radio station, and sometimes I'd
stay in the apartment side when I wanted to escape my apartment,
like to avoid girls, or, you know, girls I didn't want to
see.
Yeah, I mean, you had such an influx of women chasing, oh,
they
were on the clock. I just couldn't get any
private burden, what a burden to have to carry? Right? To have to
actually get away from No to get away. What's that like? You,
too. Jim, right?
These are more like radio groupies. Unfortunately, I told
them where I live, right? So they show UPS anyway. I was
staying at the apartment side, and I had whiskey Ben hellbound,
and they had a record player up there. Well, as I put the record
on, all of a sudden, there's some kind of it was like an
electric like electricity being drained. And instead of that,
yeah, but it didn't start. It all of a sudden it was, it was
just barely moving. And I went, Whoa. This is weird. And the
room got cold, really cold. And I thought, This is too weird. I
took the needle off. I ran, fact, I think I ran back to my
apartment. Okay, girls,
like in every modern horror movie now, it's like the close
up on the face, and you see the eyes of realization there. And
all of a sudden, the camera slides a little bit to the left,
and there's a little bit of a blurry shadow down the hallway,
and you see the person kind of looking a little there's really
aware of those things.
So what? What do you think that? Do you think Hank senior was he
not approving of the direction that Hank Jr was going in time?
How do you think that was? I think it
was more. Audrey, I think, really? Yeah, well, see, Audrey,
it was very strange death, because Audrey, it seemed to me
like she was like she had committed suicide. She was about
to lose the house when she was found in it dead. And the room
she died in, which was her bedroom, was always cold, always
it could be the dead of summer, you know, in July, August, when
it's 100 degrees outside, with a 90% humidity, right? And the
room would just stay cold. I mean, freezing cold, but yeah,
she the IRS was going to seize the property the next day. Oh,
mercy, yeah, because she had not been paying her property taxes,
yeah, and so I think she was sad. And it's strange because
they also said, you know, because Deb, every now and then,
would have client parties. Where do you have sponsors of the
radio station come party and then hang out in the ballroom?
Several people that went to these parties swore they saw
Audrey amongst the party goers. Oh, wow, like she was hanging
out.
Now, did other family members tell of stories in that home?
Everybody did. Everybody experienced something. They'd
hear footsteps like because they there was a, there was a part of
the ballroom where you could walk up the it was really, it
was like a submarine staircase, one of those spiral things,
yeah, the spiral staircase that went up to an area where you
could play pool. There was a pool table up, and it was in
that area where they heard the footsteps. So, yeah, everybody,
everybody got crazy. The only people that didn't really
experience any of course, my dad never believed in this stuff, so
he When did he buy the house? Oh, man, good question. I think
it was around 78
so not so not long after you moved to town. Yeah.
Wasn't that? Yeah? She passed in 75 Yes, she did.
She was only 52 years old.
Yes, drug overdose in general, yeah, yeah,
sad, sad stuff. Do you know the history of the home before they
purchased it? No, so I'm just kind of curious how old the
basic structure of that home is.
And the weird thing was too right where I were the when you
went to the attic, which was right off where you played pool,
I found all these canceled checks of Audrey's. Oh, wow. And
I even kept some, some of them. They re they got taken from me.
I was moving, and a guy that was helping me move, I think got
those? Oh, yeah, you still have them. No, I don't. I wish I did,
because they, I mean, they, you know, it was to airline, you
know, right,
yeah, we've been really cool if you had some Hank senior or Yes,
Hank Jr, autograph, oh yeah, signatures or something, yeah,
yeah, yeah, that I, you know, again, when I had learned that,
you know, your dad had owned that home, at one time, I've
been meaning to ask you, man, were there some interesting
goings on in that house that seemed paranormal, and
apparently there
were, well, there's a lot of strange things that went on
inside the house, so paranormal and normal
or abnormal. Some of them were mine
when they because, whenever they be out of town, you know that's
you talk about, a great way to pick up a girl. Oh, I could have
maybe out in a nightclub and go, Hey, how'd you like see the Hank
Williams house? Oh, I would. Yeah. Okay, let's go for a
midnight swim. Yeah, that's, yeah, you know what? I mean, a
rather unique pickup line.
Yes, it is. Let's go home get talk. Oh yeah, baby. Let's go
room
and take a little midnight
swim. Somebody order a pizza.
And that was the cool thing too. Was the this the house had this
bar, and there was this heart, and you could light it up. It
would it lit up and it said Williams in it. And I think she,
I think Tammy Wynette bought the house later on, really, and she
sold that to Randy Travis, who, who owns it now?
I do, yeah, hopefully he still has it. I hope so.
You know, lib man have got it in the divorce.
But yeah, there are so many, as we say, so many historical
events and whatnot that have happened in this part of the
country. And I guess, gosh, everywhere in the country has
got its share of of tragic events that have taken place,
whether they be battles, wars or what have you I, my wife and I
used to live in a home in Gallatin that was an older home.
I think the original structure is from like the 40s or 50s, and
it had been re. Done over the years, and we used to experience
interesting things that would happen, there voices and such.
And there was one very real incident that happened while my
wife and I are just kind of laying in bed one morning, you
know, we just kind of groggy and had just awakened. And, you
know, it may have been like a Sunday morning or Sunday we're
just kind of laying there, and out of the blue, we hear on the
wall, there's a bedroom next to us on the wall, and a child's
voice say, Mom, mom, and my wife and I look at each other, and
I'm like, did you hear that? She goes, I heard that. Well, our
kids were not home at the time. Wow. You know, we did have a
daughter that was our daughter's room, that was on the other
side, but she wasn't she wasn't home. Our son was not there
either. They were off at my parents house. They were
spending the summer in the Houston area when, you know,
their grandparents at the time. So, but we had experienced
things like that quite a bit. There was a cat that that we
would see in the home. It would just be, you know, kind of the
thing where you would see stuff out of the corner of your eye,
yes, and then when you are become aware of it, and you try
to focus in on it, that's when it disappears. But we would see
this cat in the home quite a bit, and my wife actually claims
to have pet this ghost cat, if you will, that she saw the blur
and put her hand down, and the cat rubbed its back on on her
hand. Wow. So, yeah, there was certainly something going on in
that home, but it was, it was not ominous, you know, it was
everybody, not everybody, but most people. You know, you watch
these, all these goofy shows on TV, paranormal stuff, and
everybody freaks out. And every ghost or spirit is a demon,
yeah, they're malicious, yeah, they're all demons. Yes. You
know, whatever was in our in that home was certainly didn't
come across as demonic. However, my wife and me too, I mean,
we're kind of intrigued by all this kind of stuff, you know,
paranormal and whatnot. A number of years ago, my wife and I, we
try to go on a trip for our anniversary every year. We
haven't been able to do it every year, but here, a couple of
years ago, I planned a an anniversary trip to Arizona. We
had been to the Grand Canyon a couple of times, and there's a
story I'll tell one day about why the Grand Canyon is is kind
of an inside joke between she and I, but anyway, we went and
visited Arizona, and I had kind of set it up as this haunted
hotel tour, yeah. So I booked us into, you know, I researched it
and all, and booked us into these hotels that are deemed to
be full of all this paranormal activity. So we had stayed at a
number of different places, uh, hotel in Prescott, Arizona,
another in some other cities, kind of small towns, also in
Phoenix proper, Phoenix Arizona, we stayed at an old hotel
downtown, but the hotel, and I forget the name of it, but the
hotel we stayed at in Prescott, Arizona. And I had been to
Prescott before, when I was producing concerts way back
when, and just stayed at a regular place, but I was always
intrigued Prescott downtown. I mean, it's just, it's a cool old
town, a cool old western town, but we stayed at this hotel, and
while there, you know, I went into these places not expecting
anything, right? So it wasn't like I was, you know, laying
there awake, just waiting for something to happen. You know,
it's like, yeah, you know, just kind of kind of forgot about it
in one respect. But I remember being awakened in the middle of
the night on one of the nights we stayed there, and somebody is
choking me. I am being choked weird, and there is a pressure
on my chest. Now, I had learned that the room we stayed in,
reportedly, was a room where a of course, all these places were
brothels at one time or another. But reportedly this room, a
prostitute was murdered in this room and thrown out the window
of this room, and there had been. Stories about how men have
been attacked in this room, reportedly by this pissed off
prostitute that hates men because Yeah,
her yeah, she's into a weird kink.
Perhaps, you know, I know it wasn't my wife. Okay, that much.
I know. Are you sure I
met your wife? I wouldn't put it faster.
Yeah, she's been, she's been the world's greatest wife, but
anyway. But yeah, the word kink and my wife not in the same
sentence, unfortunately, but,
but anyway, and
there's like, I like, What in the hell is going on? So that,
that I did experience that in in one of the places we stayed, one
of the other places we stayed was, as I mentioned, this old
hotel downtown Phoenix. I think it was called The San Carlo, or
something to that effect. That, again, reportedly haunted. Yeah.
And the only thing that happened to me there I was, I was awake,
but I remember I was like, I think I was looking at my phone
or something, just kind of laying on my side on the bed,
and I felt somebody tapped me on the shoulder pretty hard. Wow,
you know, my wife's on the other side. I see her, yeah, you know.
And I, you know, it startles you. I mean, it didn't scare me,
yeah, but It startled me. It's like, what in the hell, you
know? I mean, somebody you know, didn't hear anything, but, but
was, was tapped on the shoulder. And we stayed in a couple of
other places where I don't really recall much of anything
kind of scary happening, but those, again, were some
experiences on that trip that that certainly, you know, the
one about, you know, being joking, yeah, that's terrifying.
Yeah, that was like, What in the hell is this? You know, you're
actually gasping for breath and everything, really, yeah, well,
and I again, how did it, how did it stop? You know, at first I
thought, Well, again, I was away. You know, am I dreaming?
No, you know, when I when I became aware, I started, well, I
wasn't screaming, but I was making a noise that woke my wife
up, and it's like when she awoke, that's when it stopped.
So I wake I'm out, yeah, yeah, it was, it was certainly a
sterile and as I said, I went into the whole experience not
expecting anything, right? You know, so well.
It's kind of like, you know, when we had Gary Gentry on, the
songwriter that wrote the ride, you know, he's told us that in
the story of him writing that song, that he was trying to
summon Hank Williams, right? He had done the candles that, yeah,
and he said he actually appeared. And what was he
saying? He said he was shirtless, right?
Had a fedora on, no shirt, in a chair, smoking a cigarette.
Yeah?
And that sounds plausible, because I could see Hank
Williams that way, you know, right?
Yeah, that was such a cool story that he told.
Well, the whole thing with that song, because there were always
so many weird things that happened with that song was when
Gary, you know, performed it at the opry land, at the Opryland
hotel and the opry Yeah, and it was on the opry land complex
that, when he got to the point in the song where Hank
identifies himself, all the power went out all across the
complex.
Made the Tennessean. Yeah, it did that story, making the
Tennessean.
And from the story, I heard that David Allen co read that story
and said, I got to record this.
Well, you know, again, circling back to the Hank Williams home,
Gary tells the story about how he actually, when he was like
1213, years old, went there and it got the tour of the house
from from Audrey Williams.
In fact, that's where he got the payoff line in the song, when he
says you don't have to call me Hank. No, you don't have to call
me Mr. Mr. The whole world call me Hank.
Yeah, that is that Audrey told him that. Yeah. Tuck that line
away in his brain for about 30 years.
That's a good song, right there? Yes, it is. But, yeah, there
have been a lot of ghost stories as far as coming. Country music
goes, and we've heard them all. In fact, there was an office
building. It's 1111, was it 17th or 16th? But the Jim Halsey
company used to be there, and there was another office
building there, and they had all kinds of strange happenings,
like they would go in and papers would be just strewn all about
the offices, or, you know, doors would be magically open that
were locked. And it turned out that there was a family that
lived there. It was a father, and he had a couple of daughters
that apparently weren't that. Mean they were rich, but the
daughters weren't beautiful. They were they were kind of
homely, and they didn't get invited to parties and such. So
they were kind of home bodies, and they think it was the ghost
of these girls that was causing so many problems at 1111 So,
yeah, that's strange stuff.
Now, you know Music Row is, well, like all of Nashville has
changed so much since you and I first arrived. You got here
about 10 years before I did. But you know, all the Music Row, it
was old homes, yes, and that's the reason that they started
recording there. You know, the publishing industry started
there first. Yes. But they started recording because it was
a quiet neighborhood, yeah, you know. And now so many of those
old home, you know, they're below stuff and putting up all
these old, ugly buildings
now, well, they're putting up, you know, they're putting up
condos, apartments, and what? Yeah, I mean, and it's really
sad, because a lot of these buildings have so much history,
too. In fact, it bothered me. I was on the air one day, I wasn't
aware they were going to tear down the sound sound shop, and
that's where Paul McCarthy recorded Sally G and Junior's
farm and and plus Alabama had recorded, I mean, there's so
many people that are recorded there. Yeah, that buddy killing.
Yeah, I was just watching it being just destroyed. And it
just made me sick to my stomach. Hey, that's progress. John,
yeah, it is.
It's the new Nashville. Now,
Jim, you before we started this, and one of the things that got
us talking about doing this topic is the fact that you claim
your your wife has seems to be extra sensitive to rather
interesting event. At least she was, yeah, not
so much ever after we had kids, but yeah, the apartment we lived
in when we first got here was there were some things that
happened in there that were kind of weird and unexplainable and
all that fun stuff, hearing voices outside the bedroom
window. And she literally woke up one night and she heard a
voice saying, Edward. And immediately, the funny thing is,
I think Edward Van Halen. Is he playing guitar? And she goes. It
was clear as a bell, like, is anybody standing out the window?
So I get out of bed, I opened up the shade, and nobody's there. I
said, you know, okay, are you having she's like, Yeah, I guess
I am. And there were a couple of other instances, like, she would
be brushing her teeth and, you know, rinse out and everything,
and look up and there'd be something standing behind her in
the mirror. There were like we had dogs, and a black light that
came along with the dogs that whenever we thought that they
might have peed or pooped in the owl peed mainly poop you could
generally find but we would take a black and light out and find
out where the dogs peed, and, you know, act accordingly and
punish them or whatever. But there was like, a large pool of
something underneath our kitchen table, in the kitchen area, and
drag marks going to the bathroom. It was like, you know,
the first thing that crosses my mind, I'm like, Really, you
couldn't change the damn carpet. If this was a murder scene, was
a crime scene, you know what? I mean, you clean the carpet
really, you know, unless you know something to seep through
the new carpet. But that was, yeah, I mean, it was
so many people think that structures have got to be old
and historic before some sort of perceived paranormal activity
can occur. But, yeah, it's, you hear stories quite often of
newer places that that have something going on, and they
build them on Indian burial ground. Yeah, that. Or, as we
were mentioning before, on the old battlefields and whatnot. I
mean, you know, but we, we see these stories of, you know, on
TV about, oh gosh, the subdivision was built on, you
know, an old cemetery, or what have you over the I mean, what?
What ground does not have problems. Probably buried
something. I mean, yeah, you know, especially back in the
days when people would bury family members on their
property.
Oh, sure. And, you know, you can still do that in Tennessee. Did
you know you can bury? I mean, you can bury. You can be, if you
want to be buried on your property, you can, yeah, as long
as they it's a certain debt.
Oh, man, I would, boy. I with my HOA. I'd love to do, you know, I
would love to just, yeah, okay, I'm gonna,
yeah, I've asked my wife to do that for me on our property.
Yeah, so that's where me by the bamboo. You're gonna, that's
where you gonna
end up. Yeah, that's where I want.
You can always ask the HOA to prove it. Yeah, fresh dirt right
there. Okay,
aware of that, because someone
that I knew said they're burying their uncle on their farm. And I
went, you can do that? And they said, Yeah, Tennessee, it's
legal, yeah, as long as you follow certain guidelines.
Oh, how neat. I'm sure. Yeah, there's a permit involved, I'm
sure.
Well, sure, of course. You know, the government has to find a way
to tax everything. Oh, yeah, get money out of you somehow. It's
funny, because growing up in the northeast, in Connecticut, you'd
think, because that was so connected to the Revolutionary
War and the founding of the country? Yeah, you know, the
Connecticut is known as the Constitution state, but not many
stories that I remember hearing growing up, a few here and
there, but nothing like down here. Yeah, you know, because I
wonder if it's like still fresh in the memory of the country and
still, you know, relatively recent. You know, the
Revolutionary War being 250, years ago this year, yeah, or at
least the start of it. So it was really interesting. I thought
about that. I'm like, I didn't really hear too many haunting
stories in where we grew up. Yeah, you'd think that there
would be, because it was a, you know, another bloody war,
apparently, because I've done a lot of you know reading on the
paranormal, and they say that one of the states that there are
more hauntings than any is my home state of Kansas. They said,
for some reason, there are a lot of instances and stories of
hauntings, and the majority of them come from that state.
Do you think they involve just a lot of pioneers that were, you
know, heading west, that suffered, you know, weathers or
what have you, yeah, getting stuck in the weather there, in
the weather in Kansas is horrible, you know, in Native
American skirmishes that perhaps may have occurred there. You
know, I lived in South Carolina for a number of years, and
that's a state that has experienced not only the Civil
War, but the Revolutionary War. You know, as evidence that the
motion picture of the Patriot with Mel Gibson, that's about
great, yeah, it is. That's about the Revolutionary War, and it is
set in South Carolina, yeah, you know, so certainly a lot of
things happening there Charleston. You know, I grew up
in New Orleans. I mean, those two cities are certainly known
for their their hauntings, New Orleans, especially New Orleans,
yeah. But you know, Charleston also has a dark past when it
comes to the slave trade. Certainly the same with New
Orleans. You know, good grief you had there on the the banks
of the Mississippi, you know, the the slave market there in
New Orleans. Well, yeah, that then you also have voodoo, all
that stuff, which is still being practiced in Louisiana, you
know, I mean, we had visited the grave site of Marie Laveau. It
is now closed off that cemetery because they just had so many
people going in there. I bet they have now closed it off that
cemetery, you can still visit, but I think now it's part of a
tour that you have to pay money and all that before you could
just go in the cemetery and and look at all that stuff. There's
some ex mayors, I think maybe even Louis Armstrong's buried
there. But anyway, that Marie Laveau grave, people would leave
pennies money, you know, cross, I mean, it had just a bunch of
stuff. I bet people pile on this. And of course, New
Orleans, you know, people are buried above ground because of
the water table, right? You know, you bury them underground,
and the graves, the graves, the caskets, pop up out of the
ground. Oh, sure that, yeah, so the above ground crypt. So yeah,
people would, well, frankly, I know they were trying to honor
or do whatever they think they're doing to the to the
grave site, but it's vandalized. Is what it ultimately is, you
know, with all the stuff that was happening to it, see, that's
why I don't understand that about people, because I've seen
it with a lot of celebrities, that people will just leave all
kinds of crap all over there. I mean, why just visit the grave?
That's all you have
to do, yeah, show some kind of respect. Well, it
was like with Leonard Skinner, they said they're always leaving
beer cans, you know, right, right, like they didn't get
enough of that in life,
trying to move on from that, guys. Thanks.
You'd mentioned Kansas being one of the most haunted states,
yeah, and it got me thinking about the concept of ley lines.
You ever hear of ley lines? No, no. They talk about it in
Ghostbusters and all sorts of different
you know what? I've never seen Ghostbusters. You have not. I
know I get that like, that's the expression I get from everybody
I tell that to, yeah, I've never seen that anyway. I'm sorry, an
American, I'm sorry, Jim, I didn't sorry to interrupt you.
You've never seen the guy. No, never seen that. No, no, i The
Godfather. Oh, my favorite film. But anyway, you were mentioning,
I'm
sorry, yes. So the theory goes that on these ley lines that go
criss cross the Earth, it tends to be a lot of supernatural.
Okay, I didn't real. I know what you're speaking of, but I didn't
realize that was the term
for it. And it seems like a lot of them run through the Topeka
area. Yeah, you know, as well as for a little while, there's a
major crossing in Nashville, there's a major northwest
Arkansas is a huge culmination of intersecting lines. And of
course, New York City and their their claim is that they all run
through the capital cities of every state. So, New Orleans,
surprisingly, not nothing runs through. What's Baton Rouge?
You know, Baton Rouge is the capital there. You know,
Columbia, South Carolina is the capital there. I mean, are these
the lines that run through, like where stone hinges and something
like that? Yeah, and the same thing down the pyramids, yeah,
the Mayan, Mayan ruins and whatnot. Yeah, that's an
interesting theory. Yeah, it is. It is
interesting. But who knows? Well, I tend
to believe in the paranormal. I do believe there are spirits
that
it makes me wonder. Like, you know, my father, he passed away
in no six, as we talked about. And my brother, he went and saw
a psychic afterwards, and she goes, Oh, this is probably, I
guess this is what this man here has been waiting for, for you to
come in. My brother was, course, like, okay, you know, she went
into the whole thing. I don't remember the specifics of it,
but he ended up having a dream about our father sitting at the
patio at the last house he lived in in Florida. And he says
everything in the house like everything they thought was like
paradise had kind of grown overgrown and moldy, and the
swimming pool was not usable, and everything is just dad was,
like, his 33 year old self, like, what we remember, remember
from pictures, yeah, and he says, off in the distance, like
across the river was a bright light. He says, In the dream, I
was like, Well, Dad, why don't you just go, go to the light?
And he says, and exactly how you'd imagine him saying this in
dad fashion. He says, I don't wanna, you know, he wasn't ready
yet. Yeah, you know. And it's like, you gotta wonder. It's
like all these things that these witness testimonies and accounts
that we hear, and all these different phenomena that seems
to happen. What's the deal? Man? Like, all of a sudden it's like,
if you it happens, you die, you cross over. Oh, you know. And I
was like, Hey, before you go to the next thing, do you want to
screw with anybody before you go? You got three tickets. You
want to you want to say a final goodbye? Because, I mean, my
Courtney's aunt, Courtney's uncle had a long bout with, I
want to say, I think it was lung cancer, and towards the end of
his life, he was, like, very short of breath. But, you know,
and he always told her, he says, you know, when I go, I'm gonna
make sure that you know it, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna blow on
your neck, like on the back of her neck, yeah. And so wouldn't
you believe she's like, you know, as soon as the hospice
people said that he had passed, I was sitting on the couch, and
I felt someone come up behind me and go, Wow. And she says it was
like he said he would do and he just knew he'd be able to do
that. Yeah? So, I mean, Courtney could tell you some story. She
was a hospice nurse, a home health aide for hospice, yeah, I
can imagine. So she's, I mean, when we were dating, this is her
intuition. We're hanging out watching TV, and she just kind
of sits up and she goes, I gotta go.
I'm going, Yeah, what'd I say? What did I do?
Yeah, pretty sure. I put on deodorant, yeah, I took a
shower.
Yeah, I haven't passed when lately, not yet. Yeah, right.
She's like, one of my patients is gonna die tonight, and
they're gonna die alone. I don't want them to be alone. Wow.
Okay, look, dude, if this isn't working out, just just be
upfront. She's like, No, no, I'm serious. I'm serious. Okay, next
morning call her up and said, So, how was your night? Yeah, he
passed at 230 really?
Wow. Well, I had a experience and with my mother. Don't want
to get too emotional about it. But this, my mom passed on
September 11 of 20, 2015
my dad was September 11.
Wow, yeah, I think we, I think we share that with they really
want us to remember them, yeah, I suppose. But on the night of
September 10, I'm kind of awakened at night with somebody
holding my hand, and it's not my wife and I had the sense that it
was my mom who was suffering from she suffered from leukemia
For a number of years. But after my dad passed, she stuck around
for another four years, but finally quit taking the chemo
and all she just had it. She was ready to go. But anyway, the
night of the 10th, I feel my mom's presence, holding my hand,
asking my permission to die. Wow. And, you know, and I, and I
was like, yes, go, you know, she was, she was suffering. I'm
like, go, go be with your husband. You know, yeah, I tell
people this, and I get the eye roll, but I'm telling you, it
happened the next morning. I'm on air in Charleston, South
Carolina. My cousin was staying with my mom. My mom did the host
the home hospice thing. She wasn't going to go to any any
facility, so they had her in a hospital bed in the living room,
you know. But my cousin, again, was staying with my mother, and
I got a text while I'm on air from my cousin saying that my
mom had passed that morning, you know. And it, it was, it was a
relief in one respect, right? You know, you know, no matter.
But having said that, I mean, no matter how much you prepare for
a parent's passing, if they're if they're ill, if they're sick,
if they're dying, you know, it's still, still not easy. No, but,
but, yeah, I, I, I believe that with all my heart and soul that
I experienced that the night before.
I don't doubt it. You know, I remember when my father passed,
you know, he was at my sister's home. What would usually happen?
Because I never used to go into my sister's home because I'm
I've got a real bad allergy to pet dander, and my sister had
dogs cats. She had menizer.
And dad was supposed to come to our house later,
and I remember that
my wife at the time and I were going to go to a friend's house
before dad came over later that night, and we were getting ready
to go. And something in me, I don't know what caused me to do
this, but I looked at her and I went, you know, my dad's 80
years old. I said, I don't know how much time he's got left. I
said, Would you mind if I didn't go today? I'm thinking about
going to my sister's house. And she said, not a problem. Said,
Are you sure you want to go to your sisters with I said, I'll
put up with it. I'll go outside, whatever. Take a few breaks
outside. But I said, I never know. I said, he's 80 man. He
should go at any time. And that day he did pass away when I went
over to
the right. And you know, in our father's episode, you shared
somewhat of that story, sure how you had kind of a real heart to
heart shortly before he passed, yeah, 10
minutes before he passed, we we had a real heart. And he said
something has stuck with me ever since he goes, son, you've got
to you've got to really appreciate the time you have,
because you never and those around you, because you never
know when your time's up. And that's 10 minutes later he's
gone,
yeah, you know. And no matter what age you are, you know.
Yeah, it.
It could be, could be your time. You know
exactly, we passed the anniversary of our death every
year.
This is true. I thought of that as well. Doesn't that bake your
brain? I know, man, I have looked at calendars many times
and thought something along those, one of
these 365, days is right?
Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, it was like I lost my very best
friend recently, Dave White, who I've talked about a lot on this
show. Maybe we'll dedicate this show to him. But then that one
took me by surprise, because it was just before Christmas of
last year, and I was at the house, I was listening to some
music, and I noticed my phone ringing, and it was Dave's
number. I'm thinking it's Dave, and I'm thinking, well, he's
calling kind of early. Hey, buddy, what's up? And all of a
sudden his wife comes on, and I knew something was wrong. I
said, What's what's happened? What's wrong? And that's when
she told me, said he passed away last night.
Gosh, you talk about just ripping your heart out?
Man, yeah, yeah, I had a similar experience with a guy that I,
even though I'm radio for quite some time, I still looked upon
him as a mentor there in Charleston, South Carolina radio
guy, play by play legendaries in the South Carolina the well, the
Charleston Radio Hall of Fame in the South Carolina one as well,
the Sports Hall of Fame was a play by play guy, and just radio
man in Charleston and South Carolina for years. And he had
been battling cancer and whatnot, but man was in
remission, had fought through it, and was driving home from a
party, had a heart attack, hit a tree and and died driving and
and you know that that hit me so hard. And there are times when
later on at that radio station, I would see him there, wow,
after he had passed, which made total sense, because the guy
worked at that station for, you know, 20 some odd years, it was
the flagship for the Citadel, the college there, you know, the
Citadel Sports Network, which I was a part of as well. So yeah,
again, I would see things in that radio station and which I
wanted to ask you, have you ever, did you ever experience
anything like that at a station that you worked at where, maybe,
you know, we had Vivi Ray Shipley on on a prior episode,
you know, was part of all the legendary WSM DJs and whatnot
that you know he tells stories about. I can certainly imagine
that, you know, a lot of those guys maybe, maybe popping up at
rate at WSM somewhere, but definitely. But did you ever
experience anything like that? I, you know, I've never
experienced anything like that at rate at radio station. No,
the only thing that weird thing about, you know, Phil Valentine
passing was the night before he passed, I went to the hospital
he was at. I couldn't go up because it was during covid, but
they had a bench outside, and I prayed, you know, I prayed for
him to get better, and I got this feeling of, man,
everything's gonna be okay. And I even went home to tell my
wife. I said, Man, I think he's gonna be all right. I said, I
got this really weird feeling that just came over me during
that, during praying for him. And then it was the following
day that we got the call that he passed away, and I was so let
down. I thought, Man, why did I get
that feeling? Well, maybe you need to look at it in a
different perspective. Well, it's interesting. You say that
he, he what he is, okay?
Well, that's what a listener as we were, we were basically
telling the audience the next day, that the day passed, we all
got on the air and paid tribute to him. And I brought that story
up, and a listener called in. It was a woman, and she said,
Johnny, I believe that he was trying to tell you, so I think
it was him and God trying to tell you that everything was
going to be okay. I've been released, and everything is
good. Everything's fine. And I tell you what as good as that
guy lived life. I've met a lot of people on this planet that
you know, you can feel God through them, or, you know,
there's a goodness, but I guarantee you that guy's bags
were packed. I know where he's at, you know, but I what's
really weird about Phil is I, I dream about him a lot, that he's
still alive, that we're doing a show, or, really, yeah, and it's
almost. Every night, really, yeah, like Dave, I haven't and
Dave was one of my dearest friends, and I never dream about
him, but for some reason, Phil is in my dreams.
A lot. Do you dream about your dad or mom, for that matter,
but Dad, Dad more than mother. Mothers are strange, because the
one dream of her I can remember is I'm in an airport and I'm
seeing all these faces I'm trying to get to my flight, and
all of a sudden, the last face I see is hers, and she's just
smiling, but she doesn't say anything. I said, Mom, I've been
looking for you for so long. Are you okay? And all she does is
smile, yes.
Since my mom and dad have passed, I Well, right after my
dad passed, and he did pass quite suddenly, pulmonary
embolism, just collapsed and died. And I recall, I think it
was the next night, or that night, or what have you I
dreamed of him, probably the most vivid dream I've ever had,
full color man. And I read he was the kind of guy. He would
just, you know, he was retired. He's 77 years old, you know, he
would have shorts on, no shoes, and just a, you know, a shirt,
you know, lounging around the house. And that's how I saw him
in the dream with a very puzzled, confused look on his
face, like, what the hell has happened? Wow. And I'm and I'm
thinking that, you know, he appeared to me with that. You
know, you hear stories of people that have had these near death
experiences, if they're confused and not really comprehending, is
this really happening? That's kind of what I took that
expression to mean, right? That I saw in him. And I've seen him
vividly in just a couple of dreams over the years, and
there, when I do dream of him, they are so real, yes, and so
vivid, that I see them as appearances, as opposed to just
dreams that, you know, and my mom the same way, and there's
really no verbal exchange. Don't really speak. It'll just be,
especially with my mom, it'll be a hug that boy is so real.
Yes, you know there, yeah. Well, it's like one of the dreams I
had of Phil. It was odd because I'll tell you the story of
talking to his wife, Susan afterward, but I had a dream of
him one night where I was walking on this street, and
there was like a walkway above me, and Phil was walking on it.
I said, Man, where you been? Was talking to him, and he was busy
on his phone. He said, Hey, I don't have time to talk. I got
to check up on car, his oldest son. I said, okay, bud. Well, he
said, I'm trying to call Susan. I said, Okay, I'll see you
later, and then I'd wake up later on. When I was telling
Susan about that dream, she said, that's weird. She goes,
because around that time, said I was having some issues with car
where I was worried about him. Oh, wow. I went, Wow, is that
ever weird? Yeah, that kind of, you know, kind of gave you the
goose, goose
bumps, yeah? I was like, you know, you heard me go, oh, wow,
yeah, I see where this is going, yeah, oh, man,
it was weird,
yeah, I, I do think there's a level of consciousness there,
that that knows more than we do in the in the physical sense
that we are currently in, yes, and whatever it is, whether it's
heaven or or what there's just there's an infinite knowledge
out there that I think at times when we let our minds go,
whether that's during sleep or what have you, that we're able
to tap into.
Yes, I do well. And one thing that was always strange to me,
too is the day I got let go from the radio station. As I went
home, my wife had found this Christmas she goes, Look what I
found today. And it was a Christmas card that Phil had
sent to me when we lost syndication we were both bummed
out about and it was this car, the station wagon. It said,
sometimes it feels like life's passing you by and you open it
up, said, or trying to run you over. He said, Remember, I'm in
your lane. Oh, wow. And it was 10 minutes after that that I got
the Zoom call that I was let go, and I thought he's still in your
lane. Man, that's kind of a weird coincidence.
So what you guys are really telling me is that when you
close your eyes, you. Don't dream about me
on wctd,
sorry, I had to break the heaviness of the complaint.
No, I was kind of waiting to hear, you know the who? Okay,
fine. See the ghost,
you'd figure I think there are a lot of haunting stories out of
Vegas when we worked out there, but nothing in the radio
station, which makes me think that all radio people go to
heaven. So because, you know, there's got to be some reward
somewhere.
Yeah, yeah, we've been in hell during our careers.
We sacrificed enough.
But, I mean, the funny thing out there was because of the mob
history and the rapid expansion that happened while we were
there. I mean, they were building and building and
constantly just expanding and expanding and expanding.
And, you know, there's dead bodies under a lot of things.
It was a regular occurrence, excuse me, out there where, you
know, well, construction had to be halted. Another body in a
barrel. Remember when Lake Mead? Yeah, drain, yes. All these
bodies started showing up. There are a lot of a lot of people in
New York and
Chicago getting nervous.
Yeah. Dude, it was, like, every two weeks in the lvrj, the
review journal was like, up, you know, so and sold on our homes
at the halt construction. Found a body, bones and teeth, dental
records the whole nine yards, man,
I tell you, I don't know what it is about the mob, but they've
always fascinated me, scared the hell out of me, but always
fascinated me that lifestyle, because we had, I remember on
Phil's show, we had Michael Francis. He was a son of a
mobster, and we always Phil and I had always after the
interviews, because we had him on several times. Do you think
he's still involved?
Who knows? I don't think there's any. There's no life after that.
No, they don't think there is. They ever tell you my
Henry Hill story that I bring that talk? I don't think so.
Really. I don't believe so. We had Howard Stern, who was a
syndicated show out in Vegas for one of our stations, and I got
into in so good with the engineers that they allowed me
to help out a couple of years because it was like, this was so
cool. He was one of my radio heroes growing up, right? And,
you know, to see how the everything worked. And it's
funny, this was so simple, but it seems so complex. But one of
the last shows, Courtney came out and hung out with all my
buddies while I was working, and they all had the free drinks
that the Hard Rock would provide. And I had to head back
to the radio station, and Courtney's like, she's like,
well, I'm going with your friends to the Spearmint Rhino.
And I'm going, Really, okay, that's a first. This will be
fun. But before that, one of the guests they had on was Henry
Hill, the actual guy, Ray leotas character, good fellows. And,
you know, I knew who he was, like an old guy at this point
and everything. And I go to the radio station, you know, text my
wife, Hey, where were this part of the spearmint rhinos? I show
up, walk in, and I see from afar that she's carrying a
conversation. And I'm like, Oh, look who it is, who she's
talking to. So I guess he came up to her, you know, good
looking, Red Headed woman, yeah, started struck up a
conversation, and she she eyeballs me and shuts the
conversation down. She's like, Thank God, thank you. That guy
was just talking. He had, like, no teeth. Do you have any idea
who you were just talking to? She goes, No. I said, you
remember Ray liottas character from Goodfellas? Yeah, Henry
Hill. I said, that's the real guy. Stay clear, because he's
made it known where he is, and I'm pretty sure he's still
marked. So, yeah, that was a interesting story.
Well, it's kind of like when Phil Valentine worked in
Philadelphia, when he first started his show, he had this
Godfather update, and he'd been talking like that. Oh gosh. So
he gets called into the program director's office. Said, Hey,
Phil, I want to talk to you about your godfather update. And
he said, Oh, you like it? He said, Oh yeah, it's funny.
Very well done. It's resonating with people,
Phil, you need to drop that today. I thought you liked it.
He said, Phil, I like it, but there's nothing to do with he
said, Phil, you're in Philadelphia. He said The
Godfather lives here, yeah, and he does not find your bit funny,
right? And, oh, okay. Can I
ask one question? Did he at least sound like that when he
called you?
Did you see the mini series? Have you guys seen the mini
series on the making of The Godfather? Oh. With the offer,
yes, yeah, with teller, what's the milestone? Miles? Teller,
yeah, yeah, fascinating, fascinating series, oh yeah,
amazing. Yes, maybe you've seen that, but you know, kind of
along the lines of what you've just described, where, you know,
the mob was, they're not pissed off about it. Yeah, they were
not happy about how Italian Americans were being depicted,
no, as the course, you know, throughout the course of the
film. But ultimately, used did use their muscle after they were
assured that that they kind of, in one way, got script approval,
actually, yeah, but use their muscle to help with
transportation strike and workers and the you know, the
union guys on the set and all. I mean, just a fascinating,
fascinating series. If you get a chance to see it, I think you
would enjoy it. Yeah, I
have one last story about, well, maybe last, my last story about
haunting. So we decided one weekend, I think it might have
been Father's Day. There's a really good place that we like
to get pizza out in Chattanooga. It's called Lookout Mountain
winery. Who think it's called that, and it basically, it's up
on a hill.
Yeah? I mean, I pass it when, when I go do my games,
do yourself a favor. Yeah? Okay, go visit. All right, got the
guys from Philly have to do that, and he makes killer pizza.
The wine is wine, yeah, yeah, it's, it's wine made on a
mountain. And the view is beautiful. The pizza is
exquisite. It is as northeast pizza as northeast gets. It's
wonderful. So we always, we had a hankering for it, and he
thought, well, we spend a night out, you know, in Chattanooga.
And looking around, we couldn't find anything readily available
that was like under 500 bucks, except these little like
bungalows that were near the the old dam. I can't remember the
name of it, but it's, it's like an old, you know, they put a dam
on top of an Indian burial site. Now it's forever haunted, yeah,
and, you know, wouldn't you know, we walk in there, my wife
being the way she is, and now my kids, kind of carrying that
trait, walk right through the door, and instantly they're
like, our dogs, you know, our dogs were, like, hesitant to go
in and everything. I'm like, Well, we already paid for it, so
here we are. But I swear by one of my dogs. Like, as we settling
down, we put our luggage away and everything, we're sitting
there just kind of, what's next? Let's go. When do we want to go
get pizza? And we're sitting on the couch discussing it, and our
the dog, who's the alpha at the time, is in, like, looking into
the main bedroom where Courtney and I are going to sleep, just
staring, not even moving. And as he's he could see the ears are
perking up, and he's, like, tracking something I'm going
court because what? Like, look at link. And she goes, Oh, for
crying out loud, yeah. Well, we'll spend White Night here,
but we get up and we leave immediately, yeah, but I think
it was one of those scenarios where I didn't feel it, but I
think everybody was unsettled. There was something that it was
malevolent.
It does seem that women and children are more perceptive of
these.
Yeah. Children's brains aren't hardwired correct.
In fact, my grandfather died. It was more the dog. I didn't hear
anything, but it was the day he died, and the dog was in my
bedroom and was barking at the window like he wouldn't leave.
He just stayed right at the window, barking, and we noticed
the next day that a piece of the pain had fallen out and crashed
on the ground. Very odd. So who knows, who knows? But you know,
I will tell you this, that if you don't like and subscribe to
circling the drain, we will
haunt you. Yes, all of us. All of us will haunt
No, that wasn't Roger Dalton. But anyway, do like and
subscribe to us. And Jay, if you wouldn't mind telling folks how
they can find
certain Well, the most well, dependable place to find us is
on the website that would be circling the drain.net. Of
course, you can find us on social media, our Facebook page,
if you're wondering how to find it, go to just search circling
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And be sure and visit certainly the drain.net because it's a
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it's getting there. Well, you got work. You. Two guys have
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