Paranormal Activity

David and I recently attended the 1st Annual Paranormal Expo in Granbury, Texas.  We heard about it when we visited there a while back and decided to check it out.  It wasn't what either of expected and we had really different expectations.  Neither of us have high expectations on the reality of a 2nd annual event.


I wanted to get there in time for the first speaker at 11 am and thought I might want to see the second one scheduled for 12:45 as well.  We were long gone by then.

The whole event is happening in this one room.  There are about 10 chairs set up for people to sit in while the speaker is speaking.

Those seats filled up really fast and I am pretty sure some of them were just lounging, like the guy on the end there.  When the speaker started, it was hard for me to concentrate on what she was saying because it is so noisy from all of the "booths" set up behind the seats.  I heard the speaker say something about women having sex with the devil.  I am pretty sure I missed some context for that statement so we decided to move on and check out the vendors.

David made one man at an equipment booth all excited by telling him we are going to Alcatraz soon and more important, we are doing the night tour.  He was practically salivating.  The guy, not David though he's pretty excited too.

My $1 souvenir.

There are about 20 vendors set up at tables (the "booths") taking up the rest of the room.  Most of them are tarot card readers and psychics.  There is one "animal communicator" table and I consider asking her if I can talk with Subaru, our family dog when I was a kid.  There are a lot of jewelry tables (crystals), 3 or 4 companies with ghost hunter equipment and/or services, one person cleansing auras and another photographing auras.

This seems harmless enough so I have my aura photographed.  We didn't do David's since we only have enough cash to do one.  The guy only takes cash because if he takes credit cards he would have to "start charging tax".  I think he misspoke.  I assume he meant he would have to start PAYING tax.

I am instructed to put my hands on the metal hand cutouts on the boxes.  The man prepares his camera and then tells me to, "call upon my spirit guides".  I have to admit, that threw me a little.  He is looking at me waiting for me to summon my spirit guides so he can continue.  So I think about my dead grandma.

All of this is her fault anyway.  I never used to think about ghosts or things of that nature until her death.

Meriam Bryan, my grandmother.

Grandma had some odd habits.  Such as calling the funeral home to find out who they had down there.  She might need to go take some pictures depending on who it was.

With my grandfather, Robert Lee Walker.  I am pretty sure someone told me this was taken on their wedding day.  I get my height from her.

My grandmother lived in Alabama so I only saw her once or twice a year.  We spent a lot of summer vacations visiting them and going to the beach with my dad's sister and her family.

My grandparents at my parent's wedding.  Grandma doesn't seem particularly happy here.  That was her boy and I don't think she liked my mom stealing her baby boy away.  And mom wasn't from Alabama either.  Strike two.

Or maybe it had nothing to do with mom.  This is grandma with her second husband, Bill Walker.  Yes, he has the same name as my grandpa but they were not related.  Grandma married a 3rd time after Bill died and her name became Bryan again (she married her cousin).  So her name was Meriam Maybelle Bryan Walker Walker Bryan.  But I digress.

My grandparents divorced when I was little so I don't remember them together.  I was looking at some information written in a Bible at my dad's house and noticed something odd about the dates of grandma's divorce and subsequent marriage to Bill.  They were 6 days apart.

Here is grandma with dad and we three kids.  I am the middle child.  Don't read anything into that either.  I am not a typical middle child.

Grandma died on Halloween in 2000 (coincidence?).  I traveled to Alabama with my parents to attend her funeral.  Several things happened.

1. My shoes filled up with water during the night.  We later realize that the cooler leaked but the path the water had to take to go into the shoes I had planned to wear to the funeral was pretty amazing.
2. The TV at the hotel came on by itself three different times.  The first time we had just arrived and I was alone in the room.  The second time was after the funeral and the third was while we were trying to sleep.  The last time my mother sat up and said, "Stop it Meriam!"
3. In the cemetery the day after the funeral, I was overtaken by a dust-devil.  My mother said, "They were just marking you so they could find you later!".  That comment didn't help when I was trying to go to sleep that night with cemetery dust in my nostrils.
4. After returning home the lights in the house started to malfunction.  Several broke, one that was on a dimmer suddenly came on full blast.
5. My husband and I were talking about Meriam and the chair at my desk started to swivel around on its own.
6. Some silverware flew off of the kitchen table when no one was in the kitchen.

After grandma had been deceased several years I came across several photos of her and grandpa with this woman.  I had no idea who she was.  While working on my genealogy we met with some people in Alabama I found over the Internet.  I had this photo out and the woman walked behind me and said, "Oh look, that's me."

Now, we blame all strange events on Meriam.  

5 generations:  (L-R) My great-grandmother Louisa Buck Bryan, my grandmother holding my oldest daughter, my dad, me.  My great-grandmother is the person who got me interested in genealogy.  David was the person who helped me figure out how to get started.

I wish I had been interested sooner, I would have asked more questions.  I ask them now but she doesn't answer, at least not in a way I can understand.  Flinging a knife off the table loses something in translation.  I know I can talk to her though, the aura guy confirmed it.

My aura photo.  The back has a key to tell you what the colors mean.  There is a white blob by my left arm and green one by my right arm.  The guy told me that those "are two people who have crossed over that are still with me all of the time."

That explains a lot.  So if you see me out in public someday talking to myself, I'm not.  I am talking to them - my spirit guides - I find they make really good listeners.