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Archiver > FOLKLORE > 2001-05 > 0990067306
From: "Kath" <>
Subject: [FOLKLORE FAMILY] S T R A N G E D E S T I N A T I O N S
Date: Wed, 16 May 2001 19:41:46 -0700
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COOL TRAVEL MAIL'S
S T R A N G E D E S T I N A T I O N S
The Best Vacation Spots This Side of The Other Side!
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http://www.CoolTravelMail.com
Tuesday, May 15, 2001
Today's visitations include:
* MOMO: THE SHOW-ME SASQUATCH
* TIME-TRIPPING WITH TWAIN
* CAVES OF WONDER
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MOMO: THE SHOW-ME SASQUATCH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Pacific Northwest doesn't have a patent on hulking,
hairy hominids. Folks around Louisiana, MO, have told
stories of fuzzy wild men of the forest since the 1800s. In
1972, sightings of this Midwestern Bigfoot attracted
national attention and led to the recording of a regionally
popular country song about the beast..
They call him Momo * short for Missouri Monster. During the
'72 flap, this unusually aggressive ape-man (He was spotted
carrying a dead, bleeding dog and reportedly stole a peanut
butter sandwich from some picnickers.) was glimpsed all
along Louisiana stretch of the Mississippi River, from St.
Charles County north to Hannibal, according to author
William Stage.
(http://www.n2.net/prey/bigfoot/creatures/momo.htm)
For several years after the rash of sightings, Louisiana * a
slow-moving Mississippi River town of about 4,000 *
celebrated Momo Days, where fun-loving residents put wigs on
backwards and walked around in public. (Hey, what do you
expect from a town of 4,000, Animatronic floats and gorilla
suits?)
Although the celebration has gone the way of the
neanderthal, interest in the monster was rekindled late last
month, when an investigative team from the International
Society of Cryptozoology visited to look for Momo clues.
The expedition was led by Billy "Bigfoot" Riley, a native of
nearby Hannibal, and one of the key Momo witnesses during
the '72 sighting spree.
Riley, who didn't go public with his story for six years
after it happened, said he was walking alone at night along
Route B near Louisiana when he was startled by a stampeding
herd of cows. Behind the animals, silhouetted in the
moonlight, he saw a 9- to 12-foot-tall figure. A stench like
"sulfur and rotten flesh" turned his stomach and a
"god-awful" scream/roar split the still night.
The shadowy figure moved toward him, and Riley started to
run. He made it to a nearby farmhouse, but not before the
creature got close enough for Riley to see that he was
covered with human-like hair and had glowing red eyes.
Riley went on to form Bigfootbusters.com
(http://www.bigfootbusters.com), an organization committed
to "the search for truth and verification of the existence
of Bigfoot." It is also, apparently, dedicated to
collecting $20 membership fees, selling T-shirts and caps
with the Bigfootbusters logo (Minimum order: $45) and
advertising camping equipment and night goggles.
Riley's site details his frightening encounter and offers
some equally frightening photos of himself, circa 1972.
(Yes, I had flare pants and bushy hair that year too. I
never said you should hold it against him.) The site also
offers reprints of coverage of his recent expedition by the
Louisiana Press Journal, the Bowling Green Times and The
Quincy Herald-Whig.
As far as I can tell, the expedition made $3 a head for
delivering a lecture on the scientific search for Bigfoot,
but didn't find any new evidence. That would be a
disappointment from last year, when Riley's visit to
Louisiana turned up a 13-inch human-looking footprint on
Star Hill, a hairy hominid hotspot in 1972.
To learn more about Momo, I recommend a report by Loren
Coleman, a cryptozoological expert, university professor and
author, posted at http://www2.truman.edu/~adavis/momo.html.
If you're short on time, there's a concise item detailing
Louisiana's summer of '72 available at
http://www.theunexplainedsite.com/momo.shtml.
------------------------------------------------------------
TIME-TRIPPING WITH TWAIN
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Louisiana is a sleepy Mississippi River community known for
stately, Civil War-era homes, and Missouri's most intact
Victorian streetscape, according to the city's homepage:
http://www.louisianamo.com/index.html
That's fine for some. Some like sleepy.
For the rest of you, I recommend driving about 20 miles
upstream to Hannibal. Hannibal has historic houses, but has
the added tourist highlight of being the birthplace of
Samuel L. Clemens, better known as Mark Twain.
It's haunted, sort of. Not with the traditional lost souls
of the dearly departed, yada, yada, yada, but with the ghost
images of the cultural icons Clemens created in his
hometown.
Most Americans have grown up reading about Tom Sawyer and
Huckleberry Finn. At a minimum, they've seen one of the many
television or movie adaptations of the books. Tom's
fence-painting scam, and his and Becky Thatcher's adventures
in the cave running from Injun Joe are chiseled on the
American psyche. It's part of our culture.
Those stories were basically set in Hannibal. In recent
decades, the city has recreated itself to tap into this
literary common bond * one of the few left since they
stopped using Dick and Jane in first grade reading classes *
by renovating sections of the city to remind visitors of
the Hannibal Tom, Huck and Becky lived in.
A six-building museum tour takes visitors to the boyhood
home that inspired "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", complete
with whitewashed fence. The Twain Museum on Main Street has
a permanent display of 15 Norman Rockwell paintings used to
illustrate special editions of Clemens' books. There's also
a replica of a riverboat pilot house. Truly enthusiastic
Clemens fans can spin the pilot wheel and sound the
steamboat whistle. Hard-core fans can yell out "Mark Twain!"
while their traveling partners melt, red-faced, into the
anonymous crowd.
There's a good description of a day with Clemens' literary
ghosts available at
http://www.todaysseniors.com/travel/hannibal.shtml. Or, you
can punch up the city's tourism site at
http://www.hanmo.com/.
If you're planning a Momo hunt in the area, you might want
to time your vacation to coincide with National Tom Sawyer
Days, a family-oriented downtown festival Hannibal has
celebrated for nearly half a century.
This year, the event runs from July 4 to 7, according to the
city's events list.
(http://www.visithannibal.com/events.html) It features the
National Fence Painting Championships, a frog jumping
contest, mud volleyball tournament and a Tomboy Sawyer
competition.
Bed and breakfasts are definitely the way to go in any
historic town, and Hannibal is no exception. One proprietor
seems to manage a lot of cozy-looking properties. You can
check out the accommodations at http://www.lulabelles.com/.
Of course, if you're a serious sasquatch spotter, you'll
probably want to spend your nights in the woods. There are
at least three campgrounds that would welcome both you and
your infrared binoculars. Check out:
http://www.visithannibal.com/camping.html.
While you're in Hannibal, make sure you take a ride on a
riverboat (http://www.marktwainriverboat.com/) and check out
the caves that inspired the exciting finale of "The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (http://www.marktwaincave.com/)
-----------------------------------------------------------
SCREAMING JOHNNIE'S
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are tales of REAL ghosts in Hannibal, but the details
are sketchy. An American Ghost Society report on Hannibal
notes that "strange things" have been reported in the part
of Mt. Olivet Cemetery filled with Civil War graves, but
doesn't give specifics.
(http://www.angelfire.com/il/ghostsociety/han.html)
That same report talked about an unsettling visit to the
ruins of an old church known locally as Screaming Johnnies,
but doesn't offer any hints about where to find it. It is a
broken shell of a building desecrated by spray paint and
beer cans, the investigators said.
While the investigators were there, they had an uneasy
feeling, walked through several cold spots and noticed
slight movements on their electromagnetic flux readers. The
area around the ruins used to be a pasture with an open
well, according to the report.
One day, an 8-year-old boy named Johnnie fell down into the
well and drowned. After that, families living near the well
began to hear the screams of a young boy coming from the
well. They would investigate, but find nothing. Fearing
another child might fall into the well, local residents
filled it with dirt and sand.
Despite that, the screams are supposedly still heard on
quiet nights.
In 1856 a church was built on top of the well and a cemetery
established behind it. When the church caught fire a few
later, firefighters spotted a young boy standing among the
gravestones. One of the firemen tried to coax him out, only
to have the boy turn and disappear into the darkness. The
church was abandoned.
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If any of you have any more information about Screaming
Johnnie's, please let me know. It sounds like an interesting
place to visit after last call. As always, you can
contact me at:
<a href=" mailto: ">Email Fred</a>
Until next time.
Your editor,
Fred
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