Art of Persuasion

Paper #3 final

John Holtzman

Paper #3

December 5, 2008

WC: 1,908

Scared to Write

I, like many others, enjoy looking for a scare. My first experience with Gilbert’s Grove came one night when a few friends of mine decided that instead of sitting around town with nothing to do we would head west of town and walk around in Gilbert’s Grove with flashlights. Several legends about Gilbert’s Grove have told stories of a single body hanging from a tree while others have told of a baby wailing from inside a stroller. We drove out to the grove with the excitement that can only come from being terribly nervous. In the three miles it took to get to Gilbert’s Grove from the middle of town, we talked about how long it would take for someone to find us if we were all murdered. We speculated that it could be several days, which is certainly possible considering the rumor that several people who work at the dump are frightened of the grove because of the noises they often hear.

As my friend pulled into the grove, we noticed several dirty mattresses, a baby carriage, ropes on the trees, and trash that had been scattered by the wind. The grove was large and filled with dead and dying trees. We walked around, pretending to lose each other and all realizing that the others were doing just that, and while the excitement remained the whole time, the fear did not. We pushed aside tree limbs that scratched our arms and pretended our flashlights were dying. As we shined our flashlights, they revealed very little to frighten us; there was the occasional raccoon who would stare at us and then turn and run and the hoot of a single owl who seemed to want us out of his grove. For the most part, our panic was only heightened when a car drove by and we had to turn out our flashlights because we were terrified that we would be found sneaking around in a place we were not really supposed to be.

Hippie House, on the other hand, was a different story. The first time I went, I was with two girls. They were both juniors and had already been to Hippie House a number of times; I was a freshman in high school who was extremely terrified of all the stories I had heard about Hippie House. As we headed to the east of town, we talked about all of the terrible things we heard had happened. Was it the place Charles Manson actually conducted satanic rituals? Had he murdered people in the house? Would we find his writing scribbled on the floor? Was there, as was the rumor, going to be blood on the walls? As it turned out, I didn’t find out on this particular trip. After all of the talking, we were too frightened to even get out of the car. I did notice as we shined the headlights onto the house that the walls inside were a deep red. As we sat there discussing what could be inside the dirty white house and the broken cellar that was connected to it, we saw something move in the overgrown, but very dead grass.

We left and decided that in order to make the evening a little bit scarier we should take the dirt roads home and drive by an old cemetery on the way. It began to rain, and as we passed the cemetery, we noticed some sort of light. Frightened and unable to breathe, we all agreed that it was a candle.

I maintain to this day that there was a candle burning. In the rain.

I have gone past that cemetery a number of times since the night we saw the candle burning and have not seen anything similar even during the day.

A few weeks later, after having heard my story of the red walls and the burning candle in the cemetery, my fellow Gilbert’s Grove adventurers and I decided to head back out to Hippie House and see what we could. We got up the nerve and drove out with our flashlights in hand. As we got out of the car, we turned on our flashlights and paid no mind to the sign that assured us that we were violators and yes, we would be prosecuted. We opened the door and the first thing I noticed was that the walls were now white. Had someone painted them since my last visit or were the red walls I had previously seen a mere trick of my imagination? I’m still not entirely sure. My colleagues in crime and I made our way to the basement at which point bats flew from the rafters and seemed to surround us. Startled, we hurried back upstairs and out to the car when we realized the bats had only been birds.

At this point, Evan, the driver of the car, informed us all that he could not find his keys. To make matters worse, as we debated what we should do, cars began to drive past and we had to kill the flashlights. Scared and in the complete black that is the country at night, we saw red and blue lights that could only be the lights of a police car. Fortunately, the car was miles away and drove past Hippie House, probably doing nothing more than pulling over a speeding car. We continued to shine our flashlights and eventually found the car keys on the ground. As we headed back towards town, Evan confessed that he had thrown the keys on the ground and into the tall, dead grass when we got there because he thought it would be scary. It was.

Upon returning from these adventures, I began to notice that school was a lot less interesting than it had been before. Before our weekend excursions, I’d had no problems with school. Sure, some of the stuff we were learning in school was boring, but up until that point, I had never cared so little about the things we were reading in English classes (despite the fact that English had always been my favorite subject). Until then, I had gotten a lot of excitement from reading stories and novels, but regardless of what we read, it just couldn’t match the level of exhilaration I felt when my friends and I were exploring the haunted places surrounding our town. Yeah, I liked reading Lord of the Flies, but even when that book was at its scariest, it didn’t even come close to the level of excitement I felt when I was exploring the haunted places on the outskirts of town. It hit me the hardest when I got back a reaction paper to Lord of the Flies. D. Not good.

The English teacher who had given me back a D on my paper even took me aside and mentioned that he noticed that I didn’t seem to have much interest in what was happening in his class. Of course, Mr. Ginapp was fully aware of both Gilbert’s Grove and Hippie House; he knew all about them and the legends that came with them. He also knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t usually distracted in school.

He knew this because I grew up around his two kids; my grandma babysat for them when I was young and my grandma’s house is where I stayed when my parents were at work. Needless to say, the Ginapps and I saw a lot of each other.

Knowing how cool Mr. Ginapp was, when I got to high school, I immediately signed up for one of his English classes. When it was time for the school play, I signed up because I knew Mr. Ginapp would be directing. I ended up taking at least one class from Mr. Ginapp each year I was in high school and I acted under his direction in nine different plays and musicals during the school year and in the summers.

Anyway, back to that terrible D paper.

Having known Mr. Ginapp for much of my life even before high school, it was easy to tell him that instead of paying attention in his classes and reading the books he had assigned I had been daydreaming of visiting Gilbert’s Grove and Hippie House again. When I told him, his suggestion was to write about it. Get it out of my system. Let go of it and focus on it on the weekends. I didn’t think it would work, but I trusted Mr. Ginapp fully by this point and I decided I would take his advice.

What I wrote then is very similar to the first few pages of this memoir. In the eight or so years it’s been since I wrote about Gilbert’s Grove and Hippie House, I haven’t had much of a problem staying focused in school. Now when I seem to be losing my motivation for school, I write. I take Mr. Ginapp’s advice and write about something that’s interesting to me. I write about something that I don’t have to write about for school. I write about work or music or even about school.

By taking time out of writing for school, I’ve found that it helps me to write better when I do have to write a paper for class. That’s why I’ve taken poetry classes here at UNC. I will readily admit that I’m no poet and even though most of the stuff I write for poetry classes is terrible, I continue to do it. I like reading poetry and I like writing it and in doing that, I find that it keeps me from getting into the rut of letting my voice be strictly academic. Sometimes my academic voice finds its way into poetry and other things I write for fun and sometimes I find that a more conversational voice works its way into the things I write for school. After all, academic writing is academic writing for a reason; people often read poetry for enjoyment, not to have something taught to them.

So I try to break it up. When I am working on a research paper and I just can’t write anymore, I take a break and write a haiku (Cool, I know). Or a poem. Or a short story. Or some creative nonfiction like this. I write that stuff because I really enjoy it and it keeps me from hating writing.

It was Mr. Ginapp who first pointed out to me the idea that writing could actually be fun. It could actually be something I could use to my own benefit. It could be something that would help me to relive the exciting moments in my life.

In the end, it’s thanks to my adventures to the “haunted” places surrounding my little town that I am interested in writing. If I hadn’t gone to those places, had those experiences, and lost interest in other things, I wouldn’t be writing today. I would be sitting angrily at my computer, loathing myself for choosing to be an English major and detesting having to write research papers.

But I’m not angry.

I’ve enjoyed my time as an English major; I’ve enjoyed learning how to write. And when my life gets difficult in the future, I know that sitting down and writing something that no one will read will keep me from going crazy.