CMU vs. Nazis

Image: hoganisms.com

The university I went to doesn't get in the national news much. Sometimes in sports news when the football team goes to a bowl game. But yesterday a story from my alma mater started popping up on Facebook - from quite a few people who didn't live anywhere near mid-Michigan. And it wasn't a good story.

Apparently the College Republicans group was handing out Valentine's and one happened to have a picture of Hitler with anti-semantic speech on it. You can google what it said, but I'm not posting a picture of it. I prefer my picture of Captain America punching Hitler instead.

The political climate in this country has gotten really bad. But I would have hoped that even college kids would realized that this is so not okay! The group posted a weak apology on their Facebook page, but CMU is investigating it. I truly hope that whoever thought it was funny gets their butt expelled.

I'm several generations from the one who fought in World War II. But I've always been interested in history and the time period of that war is one of my favorites to read about. But I didn't really get a true sense of the horrors of the Holocaust until Schindler's List.

I was 16 when the movie came out and I remember my mom taking me to see it. The movie is horrific, but because of what really happened to those people in the Holocaust. My mom and I had a long talk about it afterwards. I only watched it once again in college because I was a film major and I'm pretty sure I had to watch it for a class. But honestly those images were seared into my brain.

I'll watch Schindler's List again with Emily when she's old enough. Especially in the times we are living, it's so important to know our history as to attempt to not repeat it. It's sickening that those kids at Central Michigan University didn't have the knowledge to realize what they were doing was absolutely wrong.

My Ghost Adventures - Cinema Ghosts

My previous encounters with what I thought might be ghostly spirits weren't very conclusive. My basement may or may not have been haunted and my dorm mates may have been pulling a prank on me. But my next encounter I'm sure was ghosts.

When I was in college I got an awesome job working at a movie theater. We had a four screen theater and two older one screen theaters downtown. The two downtown theaters were call the Ward and the Broadway, and they both were (are?) very haunted.

I worked mostly at the Ward which had the bathrooms down a level from the concession stand and the theater. Even though the bathrooms were on the same level, the women's bathroom was nearly always 10 degrees colder than the men's bathroom. I would hear noises sometimes when I was down there alone as well, but the Ward ghost wasn't scary. It was just there.

The Broadway theater's ghost on the other hand was scary. There was a feeling of gloom and the air was heavy in the Broadway. I always felt very uncomfortable there and was thankful that I only worked there a handful times. I did see Sleepy Hallow there and that movie is creepy on it's on, but the gloom and coldness got worse as the movie went on.

My boyfriend at the time was a manager at the theater and part of his job was to put the movie reels together. He'd have to watch the movie to make sure it was put together correctly. He and another manager were in the Broadway alone and they started hearing noises. They had a video camera with them because they were both Broadcasting majors at the college. They shot some video and when they reviewed it, there were voices on there that weren't theirs.

A big chain came in and built a 12 screen theater. They knocked the four screen theater down and sold the Ward and the Broadway. The Ward became a church and the Broadway ended up being a community theater.

After college, I went to visit my college best friend for the weekend. She was involved with the community theater and I helped her backstage with the current show. We started telling old stories about the Broadway to a friend of hers and as we did so the temperature got lower and lower. I felt very uneasy and I was very glad to get out of there. That was the last time I visited either theater.

I know without a shadow of a doubt those two old theaters were haunted. I didn't mind the Ward's ghost but there was something evil and menacing lurking at the Broadway.

Up Next - Office Hauntings!

My Ghost Adventures - Help Me!

Last year, I wrote a post about how I always thought my basement was haunted. I never had any concrete evidence to prove that though.

When I went to college, I had a great interest in ghosts even though they freaked me out. When October rolled around, I saw that they were offering free ghost tours of the campus the night before Halloween. One of my roommates and I decided to go.

It was the first year for the ghost tours and the people running it hadn't expected such a large turnout. We waiting in the cold for hours but finally it was our turn. Our tour guide had a flashlight but we were pretty much in the dark.

We walked around the oldest part of campus learning about all the ghost stories. One story was about a girl in one of the dorms that would see the words "Help Me" in the bathroom mirror after a shower. We ended up in the courtyard of Barnard Hall which was not being used at that point in time. We heard about the most famous ghost of CMU which was Carolyn.

Carolyn was a girl who had gone to Central in the 50's. She had gone to a dance with her friends but had gone back to her room complaining of a headache. Her roommate found her dead in the morning. It is said that she roamed the halls of Barnard ever since.

It was the eeriest part of the evening and I had a hard time getting to sleep the next day. I didn't have any early classes in the morning so I had the dorm to myself. I locked the door and took a shower. When I came out, the words "Help Me" where on the mirror.

Needless to say, I was extremely freaked out. I never mentioned it to my roommates, because I didn't get along with the majority of them and knew they could have been playing a joke on me. I took cold showers for the next month of so.

When I was brave enough to take a warm shower, it appeared again. And would every time I took a warm shower in that dorm room. It was extremely freaky but still not a solid case for a ghost.

Next time, my experiences with the Cinema Ghost!

College Memories - Li'L Chef

Image: www.flickr.com

I was always pretty much a homebody. I liked hanging out with my parents in high school and just being at home. I was never one to party.

But my mom wanted to help me spread my wings so she insisted that I got to a college out of town. I decided on Central Michigan University, in part because it was were my dad had gotten his Master's degree.

It took me seven years to finish my degree. I changed majors three times and had some issues with classes. But partly I just loved being in college and living in Mount Pleasant.

Mount Pleasant has a main road that runs right by the school. For the majority of my time at CMU I didn't have a car so I had to walk everywhere. There were fast food places that you could get to, but Li'l Chef was one of the restaurants you could go to without having to cross the massive street.

Li'l Chef also was the only 24 hour restaurant within walking distance to the campus. I had many meals in there, often on Saturday night after LARPing. We'd sit with kids coming from the bar and talk about what had happened in the game.

Yesterday I saw on Facebook that the Li'l Chef in Mount Pleasant was closing. It's sad because I have a lot of memories of that place, but it's been probably ten years since I've been there. I've moved on since college and I guess so has Mount Pleasant. But I'll have fond memories of that place that was a part of my experience.

Me and Football!

Image: https://www.facebook.com/NFL

It’s Super Bowl Sunday! In honor of the big game today, here is the story of how I became and stayed a football fan.

When I was in high school, I was part of the marching band. This required me to be at every home football game. A lot of the other kids would just talk and ignore the game, but I decided that if I had to be there every Friday I should know the basics.

My parents always watched the Lions on Sunday. Though my dad did more watching and my mom would often nap on the couch. But they were both more than happy to explain how football works. I started watching the Lions with them nearly every Sunday.

I continued to watch football in college though not as regularly. I would often go to the home games for my college, Central Michigan, in part because it was a cheap way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

After college, I started dating Todd. He loves football so once we moved in together Sundays were football days during the season. When we first started dating, he watched more college football but he always preferred the NFL.

When we bought our house, he was excited to get DirectTV for the NFL Sunday ticket. That he could watch any game he wanted, including our team the Lions. Emily knows that on Sundays in football season, Daddy gets the TV in the living room. She’ll play in the living room while football is on. She picks teams to root for by the color of their uniforms, but she knows how to put her arms in the air when a team gets a touchdown.

Emily is excited to watch some of the big game tonight with her mommy and daddy. I’m not sure which team she’ll be rooting for but I’ll try to live tweet her responses to the game on Twitter. Todd doesn’t really care which team wins either but I’ll be rooting for the Seahawks because they are my friend Judy’s team.

I hope everyone has a great Sunday – with football or without!