I didn’t really want to move to Clanton, Ala., but I didn’t have much choice at the time. After being in business for myself for five years, my company had failed and I had lost all the investment capital available to me. Then a newspaper chain offered me a job. I was recruited to be a publisher, but I would first spend three years as general manager of their newspaper in Clanton learning their operating methods.
I had no idea that it would lead to the scariest experience of my life and force me to re-examine my beliefs about things that go bump in the night. The story is one that I’ve told to very few people until now, because people think you’re either crazy or lying when you tell them something that can’t be explained.
Clanton is a small town of about 7,000 people on I-65 about halfway between Birmingham and Montgomery. I didn’t care for living in a place that small, but I was happy to have income. My then-wife, Melissa, and I started looking for a place to live.
It was difficult to find houses to rent there — and the ones that were available were expensive — so we were very happy to find a modern four-bedroom house priced at about half the monthly rent that everything else was. It was way too big for two people and one cat, but it seemed like a bargain and it was close to my office.
When we looked at the house, the basement was partially finished. It had originally just been a large open area with a concrete floor, but some rooms down there were in the process of having studs and Sheetrock put up. It looked odd because tools and construction materials — including dried trays of that mud-like substance used when hanging Sheetrock — had been left there with the work halfway done.
The woman showing us the house (the owner’s sister) told us that the last renters had been living there on a lease-purchase plan and they were planning to buy, so they were improving the basement in this way. She said that the other tenants suddenly moved out and wouldn’t say why. We thought it was odd, but we assumed it must be because of their own personal problems.
My utopia’s different from your utopia — and that’s just fine
Insane incentives create insane results as kids are paid to attend classes
No loneliness worse than being with others, but not the right one
What did you want in childhood? Did you abandon those dreams?
‘Let’s Make a Deal’: Democracy is like a dumb old TV game show
Only through death of empires can something new take their places
Is Paul Krugman serious or is this some kind of weird performance art?
Alternative cultures exist because mainstream culture is alienating
If politics sends you into a rage, is it really a good use of your time?