Month: June 2017

For some reason today I thought about the line from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka tells his group of guests in his factory about the Oompa Loompas and their country and how they came to his factory: “Oh, well, then you know all about it and what a terrible country it is. Nothing but desolate wastes and fierce beasts. And the poor little Oompa Loompas were so small and helpless, they would get gobbled up right and left. A Wangdoodle would eat ten of them for breakfast and think nothing of it. And so, I said, “Come and live with me in peace and safety, away from all the Wangdoodles, and Hornswogglers, and Snozzwangers, and rotten, Vermicious Knids.”

I sometimes wish that a place like the Chocolate Factory existed, and that those of us who wanted to, could go there. “

Well there’s Heaven” some people will say: “It’s a lot better than a Chocolate Factory” But, I’m not ready to go there quite yet. As the country song says: “Everybody Wants to go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die” That’s how I feel about it. (ok, that’s my limit for clichés and quotes for this post!)

The kind of place I am thinking about doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did. As the days grow more and more dangerous during this age and in this time, there is very little a person can do to get away from the world that wants to harm them, unless you want to move to one of the islands that the “Survivor” cast have abandoned, and start using their stuff and living like them.  That might be an option.

A lot of people have tried to create their own “safe haven”

Jim Jones, and his followers did. David Koresh tried.

A lot of people try to start their own Valhalla, and somehow it always seems to fail. I wonder why? Is humanity and human nature so geared to be combative and hateful to other humans who don’t “fit in” that no matter what we do here on this earth, we are doomed to fail when it comes to loving and protecting those who are different? You would like to think that wasn’t so, but tell me a time and a place where there has ever been a “Chocolate Factory” for the Oompa Loompas?

Sadly, I can’t think of any.  I know that all religions promise us a place like that, of one kind or another. Heaven, Nirvana, Paradise, you name it. We have been promised the reward of these places from them all. But that’s ONLY due to us after we die, and only if we have followed the rules of the religion we have been following.

I sometimes think long and hard about the theory which some preachers and philosophers espouse, that people are living their “hell” while they are here on earth.

Some people do I think,… of their own accord.

I know there are many, many joyful things that we have while we are here. Most of the time, we don’t really see them or appreciate them while we are experiencing them, and it’s only through the backwards mirror of “nostalgia” and memory that we look back and think about what we should have done, or might have done to make things better, or to enjoy things more. That’s probably why I reach back into the past so much through my writing.  It’s frustrating to not be able to just “live in the day” every day, and I know it’s often frustrating for those around me.  It’s just the way I’m constructed I guess.

Maybe I didn’t get it right the first time! Damn I sometimes wish that I had another chance! But…I suppose it is what it was.  There are no time machines, and no second chances.  There should only be looking forward and using the past as a guideline of what not to do.  Using the past as a textbook to make us wise in our old age with “experience”

I am growing more content with the things I have actually done as I get older.  I still wax nostalgic and I suppose I always will, but there’s no use in beating yourself up…because I believe everything happens for a reason and that the things which DO happen are what is supposed to have happened.  Does that make sense?

Forrest Gump may have had it right when he was talking to Jenny at her graveside, and said:  Jenny, I don’t know if Momma was right or if it’s Lieutenant Dan. I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I think maybe it’s both.

Maybe both is happening at the same time.

Yet sometimes when really bad and horrific things happen to good people you HAVE to wonder why. Senseless murders, children molested, wars and killings of innocents. Good people having to suffer with horrible, painful diseases. Where was THEIR safe haven? Life just never ceases to puzzle me when it comes to things like that. Why do these things happen? What can the purpose of this possibly be?

I guess it’s all in what you seek while you are here. I think none of us, from the Pope to the Dali Llama really knows, with absolute certainty what is waiting for us.

I kind of hope I open my eyes and I am walking into this big Chocolate Factory where everything is made of candy and……there are little purple guys walking around with smiles on their faces!

I was thinking the other day about the New Year, and wrote a short blog about 2007.  I started trying to recall the first New Year’s celebration that is logged away somewhere on the hard drive of my brain.  I can’t really remember a specific one.  Isn’t that strange?

I remember early Christmases.  Oh how well I remember that Red Wagon that Santa brought me back in 1954 when I was only 4 years old.  We lived in a little old Mill house up on Sixth Street in the proverbial “Mill” town of Trion, Georgia.  It was the last Christmas in that house before we moved to a new house that my Dad was having built in another part of town.  I guess things were not too bad that year.  If we could afford that wagon, and the set of Hopalong Cassidy guns and the outfit that I also got AND move later on to a new house then things were going pretty good.  We lived in that new house for eight years until Dad could no longer afford the payments due to extreme slowdowns at the cotton mill, and we had to move out, back to “Hot Town” just two streets over from where we were celebrating in 1954.

There were a lot of good Christmas memories at the “new” house.  My brother was born while we were there.  There were “cut down” cedar trees every year in front of the big “picture” window that my Mom was so fond of.  There was the year of the Lionel train; there was a year in which I got a telescope to view the Universe and its vastness.  I never appreciated the years there as I should have.  There was the one wonderful Christmas back in 1962 I believe it was, when it snowed.  One of the VERY few times that “heat miser” let it snow in Soutland!  How beautiful it was to come out and look through that big window that morning and see the snow falling in huge feathery flakes, and the snow already piled up high in wind drifts against the trees.  God Santa that was the year you were supposed to bring a sled, but we had to make do with cardboard boxes cut up into home made flexible flyers!  And oh we did.  We slid down the hill at the cemetery across the road from my house until the dead people there must have thought Jesus was coming back, what with all the commotion.  I don’t even have a clue what I got that year for Christmas.  I got a WHITE Christmas.  That was enough.  That was sufficient in itself to provide memories to last the rest of my life.  Surely any toy would never have been impressive enough to do the same.

Oh yes, Christmas memories are not hard to come by.  But New Years?  That’s another thing altogether.  My folks never made such a big deal about it.  Some of the time we were at my Grandparent’s house and went to be with the chickens even on New Year’s Eve.  Even when we were at our own house, I can’t remember any New Year’s parties, or any celebrations that were held in anticipation of a New Year.  It just came.  The years just stacked up, and you greeted them with the same anticipation that you did any other day.

NEW BEGINNINGS

After my wife and I married in 1969, we started marking the New Year.   We had a couple of parties while still at college.  There was one infamous New Year’s party where I made a total ass of myself by getting drunk as sailor on leave in Hong Kong.  I want to forget that one, but the irony of life is that I remember it all to well.  (And so does my wife, but she forgives me…I think)  For some unknown reason instead of being like most human beings, who when they imbibe too many spirits have a total period of amnesia, I unfortunately have total clarity and remember all the stupid, insane things which I did, but did not care I was doing at the time.  Fortunately, I was given enough intelligence to realize that drinking was NOT one of my best talents, and certainly not one that I wanted my kids to witness.  So, I stopped that one many, many years ago.  My children are all grown and out on their own now, and have probably witnessed their Dad doing tons of things he shouldn’t have, but being drunk is not one of them.

I think that every year now since we have been married, my wife and I have done something to mark the New Year.  We let the kids sit up and watch Dick Clark blather on, and watch the big ball drop at Time’s Square and the “Peach” drop in Atlanta.  I can’t remember if there were any years that we were not together, or not many really that the whole family hasn’t been around.  Just the last few years, I think we have gone our separate ways to some extent.  Most of the time now, we go to my daughter’s house and play board games and then do the count down.  Backwards from ten to zero and ZOOM, in comes another year.

It’s all pretty humbling when you step back and think about it though.  This year we are marking as 2007 A.D. (At least those of us who use the Julian calendar.  The Chinese and the Muslims both have a different “New Year” then we do.  This year the Chinese New Year starting on February 18 will be the year of the Dog.very appropriate.  The Muslims use the Hijah Calendar which was expounded by Mohammed)  Most people make the mistake of thinking that A.D. stands for “After Death”  when it’s Anno Domini or “In the Year of our Lord”  It was “invented” if you will in/about the year 525 by Dionysius Exiguus to figure out when Easter was.  But, I digress.  Think of 2000 and 7 of those babies!  Just think of all the monumental things that have happened in those 2007 years.  Break out your history books sometime and thumb through them.  There are some Earth Shaking years wrapped up there.   Some years that changed human history forever.  Some of them are ones that are a no brainer.  1945, the year that the first Atomic bomb was used.  That one changed the world forever didn’t it?  There are some that are more obscure, but nonetheless just as important.  How about when Martin Luther posted his 95 Thesis on the door of Wittenberg Church on October 31, 1517?  Although Luther didn’t know it at the time, that year broke the hold of the Catholic Church on Christianity.  Just think how much that change our world.

How about September 11, 2001 as a recent year that changed history?  It definitely has, and will continue to, as we move through all of the ramifications and repercussions of moving through this Brave New World we are now entering into.

BRAVE NEW WORLD!!

Think about all the new technology that has developed since World War II.  For some reason, that particular War more than any other has seemed to be a catalyst for the development of Science in leaps and bounds.  It’s amazing what has taken place, but it’s scary at the same time.  I just heard a man talking on the Radio not more than a week ago saying how one day soon all humans would have special chips inserted into their hands so that they would not have to have cards, or even any other forms of identification in order to buy things, or go places.  No more credit cards, or passports just that little non-removable chip to tell the world who you are.  I am glad I am about past the point where I might be around when they institute THAT little bit of Science one of these New Years.  I am afraid that they would just have to skip me on that one.

I have also heard where more and more people are now using biotechnology which identifies human embryos outside of the human body for things such as disease, genetic malformations, and most prevalently for the sex of the baby.  Pretty soon it’s going to get down to the parents being able to say:  “I want a boy with blonde hair and blue eyes, who has an I.Q. of at least 150, and we are going to want him to be a pianist”   The new Eugenics, and yes it will probably get to that point one day if whoever decides on this type of thing (and who will that be?) decides to let it get that far.  If it’s our Federal Government, then God help us, it will certainly be a mess.  It could already be in use as far as we know in some countries out there.  Think about it.  There are a lot of countries who don’t even have the constraints of Ethics which we have in the U.S.  (And that’s saying something right there, buddy)

Now there is also word of a new Computer program being developed which can store everything which is on a human beings brain on the hard drive of the computer.  It can’t store the emotion, or the spirit of the person.  Just what they knew or know.  Think about the uses for that, when a program can be bought which you can store Grandma or Grandpa’s knowledge on.  Maybe they will fix it up where you can put a 3-D likeness of the person on there, and actually program it where it can seem like you are communicating with them.  “Hey Grandma, do you remember back when I was 13, and fell down your steps and broke my arm?”  “Of course I do Honey” it answers back.  “That was really a bad day”

Scary.

They say what the mind of man can conceive can be turned into reality.  And to think I have been reading Stephen King for years.  Oh boy.

That’s all pessimism though, and maybe things will actually turn out for the good in some of the upcoming New Years.  They are coming up with treatments and cures for more diseases every day, and doing things to relieve the suffering of humanity.  Yes, believe it or not there ARE still some humans out there who work on things to benefit others without the thoughts of greed or manipulation guiding them.  (Not enough of them though!)

I heard where there are Cancer treatments being developed through genetic research, where people’s own cells (I believe stem cells if I am not mistaken) can be used to attach a killer “trigger” to, which only affects cancer cells, so that when the cells are introduced into the body they kill ONLY the Cancer and leave everything else healthy.  What a good year it will be when they can use that one.

That type of genetic research, where genes are modified to take care of human problems and suffering can be a good outcome.  What if they could eliminate suffering of all kinds?   Some people would think that a world without suffering would be wonderful.  But I wonder.  I wonder if ALL suffering should be eliminated.  Seems like that would take away a little bit of what it means to be human, but that’s just my opinion.

Then there are those that will tell you that all of this must be leading up to the “end of time” Yes, that’s right, the end of all the “New Years.”   In Christian beliefs Christ himself is going to return again in one of these New Years for those who are his children.  According to many Christians, the signs are out there for all to see.  The diverse Earthquakes and disasters (remember two years ago on the day after Christmas?) the continuing problems in the Middle East, especially between Jews and Arabs.   The widespread advent of disease such as AIDS.  The famine which affects more of the world every day.  The lack of Love in people for other people.  Matthew chapter 24 chronicles what Jesus had to say about it.  Read it and decide for yourself.  A lot of people already have.

I am not sure of everything that is happening, I will tell you that for certain.  At my age, a lot of the new technology is fascinating, but it’s like a double edged sword.  My religious upbringing says the signs are out there, but the scientist in me is in conflict with the theologian.  The reader of the written word in me, the seeker of knowledge, wants to keep abreast of everything that’s going on in the world, but sometimes over analyzes or doesn’t understand the significance of what is being input and processed by my teeny brain.  The realist in me knows that things can’t stay the same, but the dreamer wants things to stay like they are, or go back to the way they were!

Remembering New Years?  Do you see know why it’s hard to do.  When you get stuff like this in your head, then it sometimes just starts to run together like syrup across pancakes.

I am glad it’s almost 2007, and I am super glad I have made it this far and if nothing happens I will be watching the ball drop in times square at midnight December 31, and I will be hoping that this year may just be THE year when everything starts to come together for the good of everyone in the world.  Happy New Year to everyone in The Year of Our Lord 2007.

Nowadays at my age, the long hot summer days are just not as much fun as they used to be when I was a kid.  Back then we really had nice long breaks from school.  None of that six or seven weeks out, and then right back in the school building.  Back in “the old days” we had three FULL months out for summer break.

None of that year round school for us old timers!  May 31 rolled around, and it’s see ya’ later to the teachers until the first week of September….Yahooo!!  Heck, that was so long, I forgot most of what I’d learned the year before in school!  I think that’s why the first six weeks every school year back in the good old days were “review” weeks.  “Reteaching” weeks for some pretty good school teaches.  But, we made it through, and I wouldn’t take anything for the memories of those long, hot summer days back when I was young.

I tell you, spring and summers were the best back in the 50’s and 60s’.

I would go to the old wooden toy box back in my room, and starting digging down to the bottom, looking for my old  worn out, smelly leather baseball glove with “Pee Wee” Reece’s name engraved in it.  I don’t know how I ended up with Pee Wee, as I never played a lick of ball in the infield.  I was always an outfielder.

I tried out for third base once, but after I had stopped the first four hard bouncer’s that came my way with my face instead of my glove, the coach thought it might be safer to put me in left field.  I agree with his decision.

I liked left field.  It was one of those positions where you could kind of day dream a little.  Most everything that came out that way was either an easy pop fly, or a one bouncer.  I was a cinch at catching those.  None of that “hot corner” stuff for me.

I once was standing out in left field during a game and looking down at the ground trying to spot any four leaf clovers that might be growing there.  I heard the loud crack of the bat, and looked up to see the baseball headed over my head.  Way over my head.  I didn’t want to look completely stupid, so I turned around and stuck my old glove out and ran as fast as I could towards the fence.  The ball dropped right into the webbing of my glove.  I never saw it until it did.  I heard a cheer go up from the stands, and when we came in, I got more pats on the back, and attaboys then I had ever gotten before.  I just said “I had it all the way”

I could never bring myself to disappoint all those people by telling them it was just pure luck.

The other great thing about warm weather was spring lizard and craw dad hunting at Grandpa’s and Grandma’s house.  When warm weather hit, we would go up there a lot more often.  It was difficult during the winter time, because there were only two bedrooms downstairs at their house, which meant the remainder of the guests, had to sleep upstairs.  During the winter time, sleeping upstairs was just like sleeping outside.  There was NO heat.  I spent many a winter night with 10 quilts piled on top of me, unable to turn over, but desperately trying to conserve what little body heat was emanating from me in order to be alive the next morning.  I always managed to do it somehow.

So, besides at Christmas, I didn’t like Winter time visiting at the old folk’s house!

But with spring and warm weather coming, there was the promise of fishing, and in order to fish there had to be bait.  This meant my favorite activities of digging in the dirt for worms, and turning over the rocks down in the little fast running creek in front of the folk’s house for Spring lizards and Crawdads.

The only draw back to trying to catch a bucket full of these water dwelling creatures was that they were also favorites of the snakes that prowled the banks of that same creek.  I was never really too afraid of snakes when I was a kid until after my Grandpa’s Uncle “Lark” Davenport killed a rattlesnake one day that he stretched across the old dirt road leading up to Grandpa’s house.  He stuck its head end in the bank on one side, and its tail end in the dirt bank on the other side.  Now, that little old road was narrow, but I estimate it was at least 7 feet across, so my respect for the snakes in those parts increased tremendously after that.  I asked Uncle “Lark” how he killed it, and told me he cut its head off with a hoe while he was out in his corn crib.  Apparently the rattler was stocking up on some of the rats that always frequented that place.  “If he hadn’t been a rattler I’d have let him be,” said Uncle Lark.  I’d have let him be anyway, I think.  He would have owned the corn crib after that.  Rats and all.

Some of those spring lizards that we used to catch back then were as big as small snakes.  Imagine turning over a big old rock, and seeing something black wiggling around that’s about a foot long.  Would you stick your hand down in there and grab it?  I sure did, and laughed about it the whole time.  “If the bass don’t bite that,” I thought “then it might bite the bass!”  Either way, we get the fish.

The crawdads were harder to catch then the spring lizards.  Have you ever seen one of those little boogers take off?  They are like a backwards rocket!  I don’t know how they do it, but when they get scared they shoot water out their rear ends, start flapping their tails and away they go.  You had to be good at estimating where they were GOING to be, not where they had been, in order to catch them.  I never had the least idea that humans ate those things when I was a kid.  The first time I went to Louisiana as an adult, and someone tried to serve me a dish made with Crawdads, I got kind of nauseated.  After I tasted it though, it wasn’t half bad.  I kind of like Etouffe’ now.

Yep,  that’s how I feel today with all this heat in the air.  I remember how cold that creek water was, even on the hottest of June, July and August days. I remember how I would even dare to reach down and bring a handful of that pungent water up to my mouth and drink it in deeply.

My blood is partially made from that creek water, and my soul is partially lodged in that mountain land.

That little old creek is still there, but I don’t know what the new owners of the land would think about an old man tromping down the middle of their creek with a Styrofoam bucket and yelling yahoo every time he came up with a lizard.

I wonder if there are even any left?

Source: Corpsewood

Source: Grandpas

Out of all the senses that we as humans possess, I believe that touch is the most important.

For over 37 years now on most nights, I rub my wife’s back while I read and she is going to sleep.  It’s sort of a habit now, but many times I do think about it.  I don’t think anything symbolizes love between two people more than touch does.  I feel very grateful that I have been allowed during my lifetime to touch so many people that I love.   I feel incredibly sad sometimes that one day I will not be able to touch those people any longer.  Either I will move on, or they will and that ability, that privilege will be lost.

All three of my kid’s were touched a lot by my wife and me.   I can’t count the times I heard people say:  “You’re going to spoil that child by holding them so much!”  Not so.  I don’t think you can hold a child and love them too much.  You can figuratively hold ON to a child too much and do it for selfish reasons, and cause problems.  But to hold and lovingly touch a baby?  Nah.  I don’t believe that.  I think (I hope) all of our three are well adjusted.  Sometimes if you can’t even bring yourself to say the words “I love you” a touch will suffice.  It will communicate that love.  Don’t get me wrong though, I think it should still be said with words.  The people you love NEED to hear it, for confirmations sake.  But at the very, very least, give them your touch.

Now our grandchildren have also been given the same treatment as our children. Both by us, and by their parents.  I still sometimes hear “You’re spoiling them” but at this point I don’t care.

Even if they had been blind and deaf like Helen Keller, they would have known, someway, somehow that they were loved.  They would have known by touch.  That’s all that Helen Keller had to go with, and look what a human being she turned out to be!  Just through touch and touch alone.

Many times we look but we don’t see, and we hear but we don’t listen.  We taste life and then never give it a second thought.

Our other most powerful sense, the sense of smell we reserve for our subliminal memories most of the time.  We catch a sniff of something and a memory automatically pops into our heads.  Sometimes pleasant, sometimes not.  But touch is the one that we have to consciously associate with things.  It serves us well as a protector when things are too hot or too cold, and we might remember when it saved us from getting badly hurt because of that.  But, to associate touch with love is something we don’t often do.  It’s something we have to learn to do.

Even when we are touching someone in an  act of love, with love, we have to teach ourselves that that is the reason we ARE doing it. We have to teach ourselves that touch is best.

Michelangelo painted God with his hand reached out towards Adam in an effort to touch him.  That is the most poignant scene of the entire Sistine Chapel ceiling to me.  God reaching out to touch us, to imbue some of his spirit and his soul to us through his all powerful touch.  I think he touched us, but do we appreciate it?  He reached us, but do we think about it?  That touch made us what we are.  It elevated us above the state of being just an animal and imbued us with a spark and a soul that will never die.  Wasn’t that a wonderful gift?

I really believe that when we die that our sense of touch is the last thing to go.  I can’t say for sure, I haven’t died yet and hope not too for a while longer.  I HAVE seen many people lying in a hospital bed unconscious and seemingly oblivious respond to a slight squeeze of the hand, or a brush to the head.  I know that they know that someone they love is reaching out for them, and touching them.  I think as people slip out of their human costume and in to their eternal form that when that last vestige of touch leaves them, that last connection to everything they are leaving behind, that there is just a moment of sadness that is felt before the call of the next life takes over.

Think about it next time you touch someone you love, and appreciate that moment.  You never know when those moments are going to run low and then run out.  You might regret that lost opportunity.  I don’t want to.

Gargoyles stared down with their unblinking gaze at the  bodies of the two humans, and two huge dogs which lay decomposing on the floor of the medieval style castle nestled in the serene backwoods setting of rural Chattooga County.  Eerie pictures depicting scenes of violence still hung undisturbed on the walls, while the rooms of the castle were in massive disarray; looking as though a tornado had plowed through the middle of the house and ripped everything to shreds.  Volumes of books concerning Satanic rituals, and other black arts lay strewn haphazardly among the ruins, while over it all hung a strange, sickening odor.  “I can still see it.  That smell, ugh. I can still smell it.”  “There are times when I am in situations where it all still comes back,” said former prosecutor Ralph Van Pelt,

“Other than the smell of death, the whole place just had a funny smell that you can never forget.”  (Summerville News, Dec. 10, 1992).

This was the scene that greeted Chattooga County lawmen at the residence of Dr. Charles Scudder, and his live-in companion Joey Odom on December 16, 1982.  Scudder and Odom, along with their two English Mastiffs lay murdered inside their self-constructed stone “castle.”  Over the next several months, this would become the most infamous murder case in Chattooga County history.  The “devil worship” murders, as they came to be called, would attract national attention because of the nature of the individuals who were murdered, and the bizarre and foreboding setting.  It would wake up an entire community, naive to the lifestyle of satanism, homosexuality, and drugs that was secretly going on in their backyard, and pull them instantly into the this violent reality.

Scudder had been an Associate Professor of Pharmacology at Loyola University in Illinois before he and Odom moved to Chattooga County in 1976, to “escape the city.”  (Summerville News, Dec. 10, 1992).  It took Scudder and Odom three years to complete the construction of their medieval style home, complete with gargoyles, skulls, and old European antique furniture, including a centuries old harp.  They had named the rambling two story brick castle “Corpsewood Manor,” because of the rows of dead trees which they had found strewn around the property when they had first seen it, reminiscent to them of neat rows of corpses.  Only a few very trusted individuals had ever been allowed inside the house.  Fewer still, were allowed past the kitchen into the “inner sanctum.”  Outside, some distance away from the house was a three story building which became known as the “chicken house.”  At the top of this building was a room completely painted in pink, containing only a mattress and bed springs, sheets, a chair, and a kerosene heater.  It was in this pink room that Dr. Charles Scudder played out his homosexual fantasies with various partners, utilizing drugs and other paraphernalia to increase his pleasure.  It was this penchance for sex that lead to his downfall and death at the hands of two people he apparently trusted; Kenneth Brock, and Tony West.

It was Brock and West, along with two other companions, Joey Wells and Teresa Hudgins, who approached Corpsewood on December 12, 1982 in their red 1970 Javelin with murder and robbery in mind.  Already high on “toot-a-loo,” an extremely potent mixture of paint thinner, glue, and alcohol, the two men along with their companions arrived, and apparently at first suggested to Scudder that they be let into the house.  Scudder was apparently unwilling to do this, so it was suggested by someone that they go to the “pink” room.  When they arrived there Brock suggested that they all needed plastic bags to sniff the glue mixture and get high.  Scudder slipped down the ladder from the pink room, and returned with 4 plastic baggies and some home-made wine.  A few minutes later Brock suggested that they needed some more toot-a-loo, and went down the ladder.  When he returned with a 22 rifle Scudder said “bang, bang.”  It was at this point that Brock and West turned violent.  Brock pulled a hunting knife and put it to Scudder’s throat.  “What game do you want to play?” said Scudder, still apparently not believing the men were serious.  “I’ll play your game.”  Brock and West then cut up one of the pink sheets and tied Scudder up, and began to demand money.  Wells and his girlfriend became frightened at this point and wanted to leave, but West also threatened them.  “Tony, you don’t need this on you!”  begged Wells. (Summerville News, December 1992) West would not listen, and went back to threatening Scudder.

Brock then took the 22 rifle, and went down the ladder of the chicken house, and to the back of the manor.  Odom, who was apparently unaware of what was happening turned toward the door when he heard Brock’s approach, and was promptly shot in the head by Brock, through the door.  Brock then went into the house and shot the two huge Mastiffs.  Brock and West then brought the bound and gagged Scudder into the house past his dying companion and into the living room, where they asked the grieving professor one final time where his money was.  Telling them once again that there was no money on the premises, Scudder moaned his final words:  “I brought this on myself.”   West then shot Scudder in the head.  “Now tell me by God I don’t have the guts to kill somebody,” exclaimed West to Brock and the horrified Wells and Hudgins. (Summerville News, Dec. 1992)

Brock and West then ransacked the house taking several items such as a jeweled dagger, a silver candelabra, and some coins and silverware.  Gary McConnell who was sheriff at that time, said these items were valued at about $25,000. dollars, although West and Brock probably got much less for them.  Brock and West and their companions then took Scudders jeep, and drove away from the death house.

With the realization of what they had just done dawning on them, West and Brock took their two companions to West’s sisters house, all the time threatening them not to tell what they had witnessed.  Hudgins could not contain herself, and told West’s sister while she was taking Hudgins home to get some belongings so that she could stay at her house, as Wells put it, “until things cooled off.”  Both West’s sister and Wells again warned Hudgins not to tell anyone what she had seen.  In the meantime, West and Brock had taken off through Alabama in Scudder’s jeep, apparently heading for Mexico.

Realizing that they would probably be reported, and that Scudder’s distinctive jeep, with pentagrams on the sides would be easily recognized, they stopped at a rest stop in Mississippi where West summarily executed Lt. Kirby Phelps in order to get his car.  They then wandered aimlessly across Texas, finally parting ways with each other after an argument at a topless bar in Austin.

In the meantime, Ms. Hudgins had called Sheriff Gary McConnell, and told him what had happened.  The authorities had already discovered the slaughter at Corpsewood because a friend of Scudder and Odoms had noticed some bullet holes in the mansion when he had come to tell them of the death of a mutual friend.  Lt. Phelp’s body had also been discovered in Mississippi by a Civil War relic hunter.  Dr. Scudder’s jeep along with the box of 22 shells that West and Brock had taken, was discovered about ten miles from the scene of this crime.

Knowing that his unexplainable crime spree was over, West came back to Chattanooga Tennessee and turned himself in to Officer Gene Haas.  Because of a mix-up in identifying West’s name, he was almost let go.  However, a call to Chattooga County yielded a very definite yes to the question of whether or not Tony West was a wanted man.  Kenneth Avery Brock hitchhiked back to Georgia, and called his mother from a phone booth off of I-75.  The phone call was traced by police from Brock’s Mother’s phone, and Brock was arrested on the spot.  Both criminals were returned to Summerville to stand trial for the murder’s of Scudder and Odom.

Kenneth Avery Brock confessed at least twice to the murders of Scudder and Odom on the ride back to Summerville from Cobb County, even though he had been read his rights several times by authorities.  He subsequently pled guilty, and was sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison by Judge Joseph Loggins.  Although first admitting over five times to police that he was guilty of murder, West recanted his confessions, and pled not guilty to the murders.  His trial took place in March of 1983, and although his defense attorneys Ben Ballenger, and Skip Patty tried to contend that West’s and Brock’s murderous rampage was caused by being under the influence of LSD administered to them  by Scudder, he was convicted of murder, and was sentence to die in the State’s electric chair.  This death sentence was later overturned, and West’s sentence was commuted to life in prison.

No one can ever be sure what was in the mind’s of these two young men on December 12, 1982.  Was it drug induced rage that caused the spree, or as prosecutor Ralph Van Pelt stated, just plain old robbery and murder, which was sensationalized by the media due to the unorthodox nature of the victims?  Did Dr. Scudder predict his own death in a supposed self portrait found at Corpsewood depicting a bound and gagged man with a wound to the head?  Was it as West now claims that Dr. Scudder’s soul went into him (West) causing him to do these awful things because Scudder wanted to die so that he could be re-incarnated? (Summerville News, Dec. 1992)  Did Scudder plan to make the Corpsewood Manor a haven for Satanists and subversives?  Was he second in command in the United States to Anton LeVay, the purported head of the Satanist movement in this country?

There is enough written material about this murder to fill many, many volumes with speculation, superstition and innuendo.  The basic facts however, seem to point to plain murder and robbery for which the guilty parties are now behind bars, hopefully for life.

The ghost like remains of Corpsewood are now overtaken by trees, weeds and vines to the point that it would be difficult to know that the castle was ever there.  But although nature is fast reclaiming this spot, I would not want to be there at night…especially on any December 12!