Spooky on the Road | Michigan Wendigos, Manitous & Melonheads with Stew Miller

Conversation transcript prepared from a new automatic transcription of this episode’s released recording. Long run-on passages received automated punctuation restoration, checked to preserve their words. Speaker names are not assigned where turns are uncertain. Not checked word for word by a human against the audio; transcription errors may remain.

Hello my spookies. And this is a very special bonus episode that I am doing, and not only am I doing it unexpectedly, but it is completely unexpected. I got settled in my cabin up in northern Michigan and then decided: you know what I want to do? I want to talk about creepy Michigan folklore. Well, luckily I have a friend everywhere, it seems.

So I've got my good friend, Stew Miller, over here hanging out with me to tell me a little bit more. How's it going? I'm good, Stew. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. You are way away from me in Michigan. But welcome to the Mitten State again. I'm sure you've been here many times. I am way away from everything. I know where you are.

I know where you are, at least roughly. But, yeah, you're a good, I would say seven hours for me, seven hours, yeah, yeah, wow, that's. That means that I live closer to Carp Lake than you do. Yes, you do, wow, okay, because I'm from southern Ohio. Well, no, that's not true then, um, yeah, well, I guess not. Maybe it's six hours. No, I'm.

I used to go to Marquette and it took me eight hours, so I don't know, um, how that worked out, but it's weird. Yeah, anyway, I get it, though, because I'm from Ohio and Ohio is a big square state. Yeah, so people will be like, oh, you're going to Cleveland, is that like next door? And I'm like, no, that's three and a half hours away, you know, like that's on the opposite side of the state.

So it's actually closer for me to go to where you live than I believe that it's just between us now. Yeah, absolutely so. Anyway, I'm on a uh work retreat up in northern Michigan, actually in Carp Lake, Michigan. Um, staying right on a cabin on the water, because, let me tell you, northern Michigan is my new favorite place to vacation in the winter, because the entire state is on sale.

I I cannot resist a bargain, and so what I do is, in like around September, I start hunting for deals in January in northern Michigan. It's a good place for that. Everywhere is cheap and I love snow. Yeah, I do too, actually, at least I wouldn't live here if I didn't. Well, I would hope, yeah, I'd hope you'd get the heck out, but I love snow.

So, uh, the lake effect is so incredibly intense here that they're like, oh, it's snow, it's gonna snow on monday, and you're like, oh, yeah, it snowed, and then tuesday it snows, and then wednesday it also snows. And they don't even mention it on the forecast because it's like, who can keep up with all of it? You know, it's not only that, but it's who cares.

You know, if you live here, you know that from the end of november till about the middle of april, it's probably gonna snow one day or two days a week. Yeah, and it's already just like, yeah, yeah. And last year I was actually in Grayling, Michigan. I don't know if you're familiar with Grayling. Grayling is a beautiful town. I think next year I'm going to return to Grayling, although I'm really liking Carp Lake, though, and I'm staying in like a classic wood cabin- nice, it's very well, except for the sound booth I built, which literally I'm an adult in a blanket fort.

It is, oh, that's so much fun. That is really fun. Great time to be in here because it's so cold, yeah, but it doesn't matter that it gets to become a sauna in here, yeah, and it's even funnier if you think of the, of the differences in the amount of snow between you and I, you probably have what on the ground, maybe more.

Uh, you mean right now, yeah, oh, there's no snow on the ground, indeed, oh, okay, so it is the same as it's down here. Yeah, so interesting? Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's an interesting experience. So, anyway, uh, so I decided- I had this wild idea- that I should do an episode of Weekly Spooky called Spooky on the Road, and we talk all about Michigan, because Michigan has a very rich amount of folklore.

Yes, so, and, and I know that, uh, one of the big things- and you'll especially notice that the further north you go in Michigan is, there has to be a lot of, I would assume, Native American folklore, because nearly every town, road, bridge and lake river has a native name. Yeah, that's pretty much throughout Michigan in general. But, yeah, you're going to find more of that north, correct?

Yeah, yeah, so is there? Is there what kind of? Okay. So, first of all, where did you grow up? In Michigan, uh, Kalamazoo, right where I live, um, I, yep, I am not really straight too far, uh, from here. I did go to college in Marquette, which you're not too far from now. Uh, that's in the northern ish point of the up, um, so, yeah, we got a lot of the.

You step outside and it's just gorgeous woods and the winters were long and hard and you know you don't have a little bit of Michigan in your blood. It's a. It's a big change from even down here. Um, yeah, yeah, everyone I've talked to in Michigan says the up, the upper peninsula- for those who are uninitiated- is a different planet. It's just a completely different place.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, and, um, yeah, it stays colder longer, gets colder earlier, that kind of thing, as you can imagine. You know, the further you get north. It's just that way, um. But yeah, I'm from here, Kalamazoo, which is like I, south of you quite a bit, um, and born here, lived here, got married here, have kids here. You know, I haven't really strayed too far from here.

Okay, cool, I just wanted to make sure I had a full understanding and also, I'm impressed there's a college in the up, because the up seems to be very sparse in a lot of ways. Actually two or three up there, wow, northern Michigan is the biggest. Then there's one in Houghton which is west of Marquette- Michigan Tech, I believe it's called. So there's actually a couple up there, but obviously the biggest ones are down here.

Well, sure. Yeah, and the mitten. Not the U.P. We're the trolls, by the way. That's what they call you when you're below the bridge. Yeah. No, seriously. That is what it is. Yeah. So I'm actually on tuesday or no, on wednesday. Uh, I'm actually gonna go and check out the up, because I'm not even 15 minutes from it. Yeah, right, right, and the bridge is a trip.

If you've never been over the bridge- never, um, have you been over a bridge like that's that long? Uh, I don't know if I've been over a bridge that's exactly that long, but I've been over a bridge that's over a mile or two long. So it is, it is wild, it is, and if it's the least bit windy, you're gonna know it.

Put it that way. Oh, but why would it be windy over the middle of the great lake? What are you talking about? Yeah, it's great. Yeah, I mean, it's not like it's an ocean, there's no sharks, but it's, it's a trip. I've I've been over it, oh god, probably close to 100 times, and it never ceases to amaze me anytime I'm. So, yeah, whenever I take a bridge to an island, um, yeah, it is freaky if it's, because, if the bridge is more than a mile long, there there comes this point where you're like: oh, everything is bridge.

Now, behind me is all bridge, in front of me is all bridge, there's no land. And then you start praying to your given deity about survival. It's, it's all. Yeah, it basically is like that scene in the beyond in louisiana where it's just nothing but bridge and a blind woman with her dog standing there. You go, that's exactly right. Yeah, people walk across that thing too.

Oh, anyway, yeah. So so to get to folklore, because we could goof off forever. Stew and I are very pally, so we, we will. Now we will start to goof off if we're not careful. Um, so, when you were a kid, was there like a go-to ghost story or a go-to monster cryptid kind of thing you heard a lot about? Yeah, um, I think being in scouts was the big, oh, yeah, the big trigger for, uh, you know, if you wanted to know about creepy outdoor cryptids, things which I didn't, you know we didn't look at it as I didn't were back then.

I mean that that was we're talking mid-80s, um, but we knew what we were scared of and our- you know our- troop leaders and scout, you know the scout masters and the older kids would always, you know, sit us down at the fire and talk about, like the Manitou and the- um, you know, indian, it's always Native American stuff. That was the scariest, uh, scariest things and you know they would, you know, drop in creepy, just random things, like there was always like the, the local insane asylum that accidentally somebody broke out and, uh, went on a murderous rampage.

You know that wasn't necessarily cryptid related, but it was always scared the piss out of us anyway, because we're in a woods and we all know something or someone is out there, but yeah, that's. I think scouts was the big, the years of my life where I learned the most about that stuff. So what is the Manitou? I'm not super familiar, so you're, you're.

This is straight up educational for me, sure, sure, yeah, the Manitou is like uh, um, indian, uh spirit. I hate to say india, I don't want to keep native americans, it's all right. You heard it back when that, when they still said that all the time, exactly, that was not a thing. Back then it was, it was india, yeah, and it's like a vengeful spirit, um, that I believe is from a, a, uh, a deceased indian that would come out, uh and and seek uh vengeance on whatever killed it, you know.

So it could be like a, um, a white man, you know, and it would seek out the area or whatever the location and just uh nightmares, just kill, kill everything in its path. But it was always a spirit kind of thing. It was never like a? Um, a regular human, you know. It looked like: uh boy, what was the manatee? Um, I almost want to equate it to like it would have like a deer head and like a?

Um, a creepy, like big footage kind of body. Yeah, I think I've seen art renderings of a- oh yeah, they're all over the place- creature. Yep. So because one of my one of my Speaking of deer, one of my absolute favorite Native American kind of creepy folklore, is the deer woman,. Yes. Yeah. I don't know if you guys get the deer woman out in Michigan or if that's a little bit.

I think that's a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. For those who don't know, the deer woman is this beautiful woman, almost a siren like woman who comes to men and gets them all hot and bothered. and they don't realize because they're so enthralled with her beauty that her hind legs are a deer leg or deer legs. She has a deer's legs and she tramples you to death for being.

It depends on what part of the country the story is, because it can be a punishment for something or it can be as simple as like a morality tale about like, you know, be careful where you go. In some areas, the dear lady is very vengeful. In some areas, the dear lady is very kind and only helps people who need revenge or who have hurt people.

It really depends on what region, what the dear lady really represents. I know that further west, the dear lady tends to be more of a, oh, you were being a bad kid. Well, the dear lady might stomp you. Be careful out there. You never know who the dear lady is. And in other areas, it would be like, oh, well, the white man does something bad.

The dear lady stomps him. Um, see, when I grew up, uh, thanks to mexican folklore, I had la llorona, so I was afraid to get out of bed. Yes, yeah, I can honestly say that that is one that's probably my top uh, five things I would not want to run into, even at a distance. That is absolutely terrible. Oh, because it is a human, more or less.

Yes, and just the sound that comes out of out hard is is shilling. I mean, yeah, that's, that's absolutely on my list. Well, and our, my favorite cryptic cryptid right now is your adorable doggy running around. It's no big deal. Yeah, oh yeah, I can see, I can see him just a little bit. He's, he's pumped, he's having a great day, he has a little bit of the zips every morning.

That's what's happening right now. Yeah, oh, that's sorry, it's super cute. Oh, no, no, it's all good. People are under no illusion that we're not just chatting with each. There you go then are you done? Really okay, but, uh, uh, oh yeah, I could talk about la llorona forever because, oh, yeah, that was my boogeyman growing up, so you know, it'd be like you know, uh, I was called ricky when I was a little boy.

I'd be like little ricky if you get up in the middle of the night and walk around the house, you'll hear her wailing: oh my god, and your parents taught you this. Uh, my stepfather did. Oh my god, what is wrong with that? My stepfather was was born in mexico, oh so, and that's an excuse, I guess. Oh, oh, yeah, no, no, I always joke.

It's like you know, if it was a caucasian family, it's child abuse. If it's a mexican family, then it's just okay. Yeah, it's all right, I love it. So I, yeah, but I used to. I used to lay in bed when I was like six years old, debating, just peeing the bed to not risk going to the bathroom. Right, right, you'd have to right.

And and the version: take one, one step off that bed and something's grabbing you. And the version, I was told, was that la llorona, two little boys. So that it was that she needed a little boy. She needed little boys. So that it made it scarier for me. I have not heard that version. That's like adding insult to injury. No, that's exactly.

Because this is already bad enough, let's throw kids in there too. Hey, man, you know, uh, but you know, I, I straightened up and flew right, I was, I was always in my bedroom at night, that's for sure. But you always had wet sheets, man, because you couldn't get out of bed. Why'd you pee the sheets, ricky, well, why do you think?

Oh, the worst is, he would say that her wailing would sound like a song to her victims. So you would follow it because it had a beautiful melody. Yeah, I can see that. So that was kind of siren like to that. Yeah, yeah, no, it is. It's just I always pictured her wailing is just like absolute ear splitting cattle wallet. There's no melody or anything to it.

You're just like, yeah, you're shattering. Well, the, the, the version I was told as a kid was that you hear her wailing like the wind, like it's, it's as light as hearing the wind outside, but you have to go to it, you have to get to it. Um, a version that, uh, I read about- I think it was in colombia- was, uh, that the, that la llorona's wailing would actually get quieter the closer you got to her head, which I thought was really creepy.

Yeah, that's interesting, oh, yeah, but la llorona has never really been traditionally a threat to adults. It's always been a threat to children because it's a way of keeping, you know, a nice, a nice, uh, folksy, catholic way to keep you in bed. Stay in bed anyway, because we got a lot more kids to make. We got, yeah, yeah, I guess I kind of grew up with similar things, but mine was always like, not so much folklore related, it was just like you know something's in the closet.

You know, that was always my, my go-to, and nobody ever told me there was. It was just I assumed there was sure, you know, so I'd get up and I'd be like, hey, you know, you can check my closet, something's in here. Um, and there wasn't, as far as I know, but, uh, they could have just been lying to me. Um, yeah, but I never got the, I never got the benefit of the, of the.

Uh, while you're on a folk, folk tale, but that would have been so, huh, I, I, I, straight white growing up, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just say uh and leave it at that. So good idea. So we have the man too, which is a, a deer, creepy, deer bigfoot like manifestation of a spirit. Yeah, yeah, so one of my favorite. So I'm gonna bring it up.

Yeah, because the last time I was in northern Michigan I kept joking about it is the Wendigo. Yes, the Wendigo is something that has always captured my imagination. Yes, so for those who don't know anything about the Wendigo, the Wendigo is a kind of creature, again deer like, which makes sense because deer are, yes, a predominant species, especially hundreds of years ago in the americas.

Deer are just everywhere. Everywhere has deer, so it makes sense that deer are a major part of folklore. Uh, it's a deer-like creature that is summoned by cannibalism. Yes, and the Wendigo is kind of a cautionary tale about cannibalism because of how brutal the winters would be in this part of the world. So when you were a kid, Or when you were an adult, even,.

I mean, did you ever hear any Wendigo stories? Did you ever hear anything about where the Wendigo is or anything like that? I did. Again, this goes back to Scouts. Scouts is a great place. It's the way to go. Yeah. It taught me how to fear everything until you grow up and then you realize, oh, that wasn't so bad. But yeah, we would hike and camp everywhere in Michigan.

And that was always one of those. I think it went along with the Manitoub kind of tale. Because the Wendigo, I believe, has a full deer body and then the upper part of it, I believe, is sort of like a maciated skeleton, yeah, and then the deer head isn't so much a deer head- at least this is the way I was told it's aylers on a skull.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this thing, I guess was, like you said, brought on by by cannibalism, which, now that you say that it brings back some, uh, memories, um, and there's a sentence you don't hear a lot. Once you said: cannibalism, oh, brought back so many memories, just fantastic memories. You know, and we're in this couch, eat what you eat. We, uh, we'd sit in our tents and, just, you know, you couldn't sleep.

There's no way you could sleep after you know, and you knew that the people that were telling these stories were crazy and and it was your own friends that were like, well, good luck sleeping. Now that you know about this thing, don't, don't, don't, be a cannibal in your, in your tent. Uh, I think we knew we couldn't bring them to us, but uh, yeah, we, we learned about them and and very visual storytelling gave you that picture in your head of, of we could almost see it, and then you'd look around at the, at the campfire, and you'd see the, the lights of reflected eyes all around you and you know, you know, part of your brain is like, okay, it's just raccoons and and and you know, maybe even deer, but it's probably not this thing- and in, but your brain is like, oh yeah, it's totally this thing.

You're, you're in trouble. But yeah, again, scouts is the way to go if you want to learn about this stuff, man. No, the moment you said you were in scouts, I was like, oh man, scouts in Michigan, you've got to be hearing all kinds of interesting Native American stuff, because, I mean, the scouts teaches a lot of that anyway, let alone in a place like Michigan.

Yeah, because like Michigan or, uh, upstate new york- for people who aren't super familiar with this part of the country, Michigan, Michigan and upstate new york- well, New York in general, but especially upstate in particular, are very Native American focused in their town names, lake names, river names, areas, stuff like that. Yeah. Because they have such a very rich history of Native American.

And if you look at the counties in Michigan, I would say over 80% of them, just by looking at them, you know that they're Indian names. Names. And, uh, going back to the um, Wendigo, you know, I think near you where you're at now, there is a lake that's actually called Wendigo lake. Uh, I was looking it up yesterday. It's spelled differently, yeah, and in fact you can spell Wendigo like 16 different ways from what I've seen.

But I thought that was pretty interesting that they've that. The lore has gotten so deep, uh, into that area that they're naming like: oh, there's Wendigo lake. You know, just in case you're in america, I believe there are three Wendigo lakes. They're spelled w-I-n-d-I-g-o. Yes, a little less than the traditional, a little bit different, yeah, but there's also Wendigo Michigan, which is in the upper peninsula, on the.

Is it called like the mount royal island? Yes, yeah, absolutely yeah. And uh, yeah, and it's a place you can only access by boat or airplane, you think, an airplane that can land? You're right, right, but it's like a resort area that is completely, completely closed when even a hint of winter exists. Yeah, you can't get out of there. That's the problem.

And all I could think was like, oh, why wouldn't you want to shack up for a nice winter's nap in windigo Michigan, to go? Yeah, none of that sounds like you're going to make it out of there alive at any point. You know, my first thought when I saw the on the map, windigo, Michigan, was: can I go there in the winter and like stay for week, like that was that's the person I am.

No, I get it. I get it. It makes sense. I mean, if you're like deep into that, uh and that excites you- which absolutely if you're here, that kind of stuff's gonna be gonna intrigue you, I gotta go check that out. But you know, I just I'm not the outdoor guy that I used to be back in the old scout days. I just I've almost had my fill of, yeah, okay, I get in Michigan.

You know, I see it so much of it. Well, you don't want any more heaping helpings of pure Michigan. Uh, I would. I like the. I like that. You know that's a cool. Uh, it used to be tim allen doing those. I don't know if he still does, but anyway, that's off the subject. Yeah, well, home improvement- funny, this is just a quick side note.

Sure, being from Ohio, Michigan was always right up there and it was a very common place to go for camping, hunting, fishing, things like that. Yeah, and that's why we loved home improvement in my household because he was just in Michigan. So he'd mention like Saginaw, and he'd mention all these places and he'd be like, oh, yeah, your uncle goes to Saginaw to ice fish.

And you'd be like, oh, that's so cool, it's like the tool man's right by me. You hear the place names? Yeah, exactly, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, we're gonna take a quick break but we'll be right back to talk more about Michigan folklore. All right, we're back and I am here still with Stew Miller. He has not escaped this episode of Spooky on the Road yet.

But we've been talking about the Manitou, we've been talking about the Wendigo. The Wendigo is probably my favorite Native American folklore next to the deer woman, but I don't find the deer woman as scary as the Wendigo. The Wendigo scares the heck out of me. It's creepy, yeah, so that was the first joke I made the first time I stayed in super snowy northern Michigan, as I was like it's really nice here, and somebody was like, oh, it must be, it must be quiet there.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, if you sit totally still, you can hear the Wendigo scream like that's how quiet it is here. Do they look around like, oh, my god, this guy's hurt it too? Yeah, yeah, I'm always like, I'm like frying spam and eggs and I'm like I hope this doesn't smell too much like human flesh or the Wendigo is gonna go check it out, right, right, um, I have one.

If you want to hear my no, I'd love to hear it. Yeah, I, I think I mentioned it to you. Uh, we have a thing called the Michigan Melon Heads, uh, as in watermelon heads, uh, not that it's, that's what it means, but that's, their heads are huge, I guess is going with this and, from what I understand, they are- and again, this is a scout story- they are, uh, the children of escaped lunatics, of course, why not?

Well, sure, from any number of asylums around here, a Kalamazoo has one very well known, uh, and they have bred or inbred, and the offspring of said inbreeding are these giant headed, drooling, slovenly, cannibalistic humanoids, um, and they wander the woods, uh, here, and I don't know if they um kill for like spite or anything like that. I think they just do it because you're in the woods and and you know, and they're there, uh, and that apparently they do eat.

They do eat the people they they kill. So, um, I have never seen one, obviously, I don't know anybody who has, but apparently they are actually real people that live in the wilds, uh, of this state. Whereabouts I have no idea. I would rather not know their address, frankly, um, but that's another one of the of the folklore slash, potentially real things around here, I think, and I could swear I've heard of Melon Heads or something like that in Ohio too.

Yeah, there might be and, yeah, that it could be true. I'm not sure if they spread their uh existence to other states. I've read about this because this is super weird: three states have melon head legends and they're Ohio, Michigan and Connecticut. Oh, that's a stretch, huh, yeah, that's what I was thinking too, like I would have, if it's at Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, or, yeah, Wisconsin.

Or. Or Ontario, vacation on the east coast? Yeah, apparently, go to the ocean. Yeah, that's funny, I didn't know that. That's yeah, I, I just I remembered reading about this briefly because, um, you know, obviously, for Weekly Spooky, I do a lot of research on different topics and since we- we recently launched the terrifying and true program, which is on most mondays and- and because of that I don't have to necessarily do the heavy research, we, we hire people to write the stories, but I do have to know what to tell them to write about.

So I'll sit and google like creepy Ohio folklore or, uh, unsolved mysteries of the midwest, and I have to get at least a cursory idea to tell them what to write about. Yeah, so I'm almost certain that one of my major lists might say Melon Heads in it, because very, very basically about that. So were there ever any stories about areas being where the Melon Heads are, or that you shouldn't go to this part of Michigan or anything like that?

I, I think so. Um, and it's always like in, uh, the most desolate, like the middle of the state, desolate locations where you tend to just drive through on your way to somewhere else. Of course, You know like you don't ever want to stop there, especially like, oh, it's nine o'clock at night. I got to pull over and pee. No, you don't.

You just want to keep going because who knows what's waiting on the side of the road. And it always seems to be that too, like car found on shoulder of road, two shoes and passengers, nothing else. And who knows if that's what it is, but you know, it wouldn't surprise me if it's something similar to that. You know, I mean, we have plenty of ways to die in this state.

Why not have it be the Melonhead's too? Yeah, why not? But no, I don't know exactly. But our state's full of pockets of nothing. So, you know, it's probably any number of those. Any state that has a lot of drive-through areas feels that way to some extent. It does. Oh, it does, yeah. Especially when you have no reason to stop there and actually see what's there.

You know, if you're only potentially hitting a gas station, I see Menard. You're really going to wonder. You'll really wonder, like what, what just happened? You know what's happening here. Uh, what is you know? What is the story here? Why have I never heard of it? Which is also the other thing: when you're traveling a lot, there's kind of this like I almost want to say narcissism, where you're like, well, I've never heard this place is worth going to.

It must be something must be up, because, like I'm here in Carp Lake, which is, I mean, I mean you want to talk about out in the middle of nowhere, like the traffic lights aren't on, they shut them off, because why bother? Like there's? Like I was. I was driving around at 5, 30 p. M and I saw like three up three other cars tops, like that is weird.

I mean, I'll drive through tiny towns around here, even around just within an hour of me, and if anything, they at least have one on the traffic. You know there might not be anything else, but they got the flashing red going. Oh well, yeah, they're, they're functionally stop signs, but the traffic lights are not on any kind of timer or any kind of schedule at all.

They're just sitting there making sure, you know, that you probably need to stop, but also who's going to, who's I'm also, I've also, I had to go to a Walmart yesterday, which is 30 minutes or 25, 30 minutes away. And I got on this open stretch of road. And after about four minutes of not seeing anybody, I, Oh, I just started gunning it.

Like I went like 86 miles per hour down. Yeah. You start to worry, right? Never saw another person or anything. Granted, on the way back it snowed, so I didn't get to do that, but on the way out I was just jamming. It was awesome. Yeah, that's one of the things that around here that you do notice, even here, like I said, an hour plus maybe, around us, every little town, that, even if they're desolate- which some are- or if they've got, you know, a do it tool store open or something like that, It it's the weirdest feeling when you drive through the towns and you're like people actually actually used to walk these streets and live here and be functioning members of society.

Now it's like there's nothing. Yeah. And there are so many Michigan towns that look exactly the same. And you pass by tons of them, even go in just as far an hour or so around us. But you want to do the same thing. You just kind of want to gun it through them. Because what the heck is? Why is this no longer existing?

is the question. I'm sure it has something to do with, you know, everybody stopped making money and they left, but you never know. Well, and one of the reasons the towns all look the same is they were all built very quickly in the same time period because of a boom in industry. I will say here in Carp Lake, I went to the local bar and grill to get some food the other day or the other evening and it was packed with people having a great time playing pool and having a really fun time and I honestly I was thrilled.

I was like whoa, okay, this is dope, like I mean some humans. And I knew it was going to be that way, because when I pulled in I was like the parking lot almost has no spots. I love that. That's so cool, that that I have written stories like that where you're like the town around you is nothing but you go to the, the local uh, you know joint like that it's just hop it.

Um, did you take time to look around at the locals and just kind of see what each person kind of you kind of create your own story about what each person's doing there? Um, everybody there, I felt, was very transparently okay, drinking a whole lot of beer and eating a whole lot of shockingly delicious chicken wings. Oh, my goodness, the food there was very good and I love.

I love when a place adjusts your expectations in some way. Like you're, you think it's going to be one way, but I went in there and first of all, it was like a movie, like the record player stop, like when I walked and everybody stopped and looked at me. Yeah, but instead of being crummy, they were. One guy in the back was just like dude.

I love it, yeah, because that's awesome. I'm a very odd looking guy. I dress strange and everything like that. Well, you know what I mean? I'm an unusual looking person. I, I'm serious, I'm being totally facetious. I know I've seen you many times. You look like you're always wearing pajamas. I am always wearing pajamas, which I love, nothing but respect for that man.

But so this was like a very like, uh, half working class, half biker joint. Yeah, it makes sense, yeah, and and the. But my favorite thing was we're up in Carp Lake. We're kind of like, if you want to know where I am, it takes six to seven days for amazon to send a package to you. Oh my gosh, I checked because I needed something.

That's why I ended up going to a walmart 25 minutes away is because I was like, okay, amazon's not going to get here in the next couple of days, right? So that's that's where I'm at and when I, when I went in there, I I loved that I, my food was ready. So the lady just sets the food down and then slides my receipt to me and I look at it and she just walks away and I'm like what am I?

I have my card out, like she could see my hand, and I look at the receipt: there's a qr code on it to pay via your phone. You're in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, I guess that tells you something about how quickly technology is sort of absorbed. I love that. I love that that even in a little out of the way bar, the technology has made life so much easier for the bar patrons, for the bar owner, for the waiting staff.

It was, it was awesome. And then, yeah, I went to a general store the other day. Oh, I love general stores, this place was really neat. And, uh, I bought some banana walnut bread that was homemade by the store owner. Oh, that's awesome. And, uh, they had a- you know, they had a square reader. You know it's just um, oh, and the internet in my cabin is really fast, by the way, it must be because you haven't broken up or anything at all, and I, I was kind of expecting that to happen.

Uh, I was going to say, um, going back to that whole walking into a local bar, restaurant thing, I have always wanted to be in a situation like that where it turns into that scene from an american werewolf in london and they start telling you about the local, like well, in that case it was werewolves, but hey, it could be Wendigo or Manitou, whatever I.

I would love to sit there and listen to a bunch of just grisly old men and women saying: oh, don't tell them that story. It'll scare the crap out of me. Don't go out to the moors. I want that to happen. If I worked at a bar like that. Yeah. I would do that to people for fun. Oh, I would be the best.

So I worked. You're going to love this. I worked at a Spencer's Gifts when I was in my early 20s. God bless you, sir. And it was actually a really fun job. It just doesn't pay great. But I was at Spencer's Gifts working part time and this kid came in and was looking at the Ouija boards. And he walks up to me and he said, or I walk up to him and he says, so does this really work?

And he's like 14 or something. And I looked him dead in the eye and just started talking like the guy in Witchboard. I was like, what you're holding is a portal to the spirit world, a world full of lost souls. That's awesome. Suffered. Now, boy, you and a friend will sit down and put your fingers on that planchette. But don't you ever use that board alone, boy.

You use that board alone, you'll become a portal to the undead. And they'll take you. They'll use you as a vessel to commit unspeakable acts. And the kid's eyes were like so wide. Tell me he bought it after that. No, hell no. He put that sucker down and maybe that's why I don't work at Spencer's anymore. I never made a good sale.

Honestly, though, have you ever used one? Have I ever used a Ouija board? No, because that was a party game that required friends. So I never did it as a kid. Oh, you know you made this sad. No, I have used it three times that I can remember. And I kid you not, hand to God, every time something happened. Um, one of them, if you don't mind me elaborating, sure, uh, one of them was in a creepy cabin because it's got to be down here on a lake.

That uh, the cabin, actually in the land around it, used to be owned by al capo, not kidding either about that. Um, they, we did it in this cabin. That uh was ramshackle at the time, but we, we and three other- me and three other people- sat around the thing and and did the, did the, what you're supposed to do, and we, we conjured- I guess is the word for it- a little girl spirit.

That uh appeared on the staircase in this creepy, ramshackle house and I'm telling you, I, I was okay, I had a little, okay, it was only a split second. But the dude on my left that looked up and saw that I've never seen a human being turn actually white, did that and then ran out the door towards the lake that the cabin was on, but we didn't have any stairs going up because they were broken and rotted.

The dude jumped from the, the landing, ran into the lake. Uh, that was, that was one, that was probably the best one, but the other two were just like things being knocked around and I think a dresser fell over or something, uh, but I've honestly firsthand done it and it's I would never do it again. That's I think that's where I'm leaving that fair, no, that's yeah, well, and, and that kind of party game when you're a kid is so fun anyway.

I mean like, and so many party games were, were quote-unquote, supernaturally based, like stiff as a feather light is a board. Oh, yes, yes and um. We did an entire episode of monthly spooky in october about all of the party games that were recommended when halloween was brand new, because halloween is not that old, the actual literal halloween it was. It was invented basically 1900s, right, right.

So we read this like party book and almost every game was: do this, do this, do this, and then you'll know what kind of person you're going to marry or your future partner is, or the games were literally just icebreakers to get men and women to talk to each other. Because you know, things were a bit more stiff back then and a lot less stiff too, you know, did that have like a bloody mary kind of thing too?

Or the people in the party would go individually, go to different, or the. It didn't have a literal bloody mary in it, but it had stuff like that, yeah, stuff like that okay, and I mean, sorry, those are great. I, I, I remember, do you know, going to parties when I, when I was younger, those kind of things, and I say younger but it was obviously that was like, you know, almost an adult, but I, I find it, I find especially the ouija board is just endlessly fascinating.

There are, it's, two sides of the of the coin. You either believe that you can get what you're supposed to get out of it or you don't. There is no in between. You know, you either have used it and you know, or you you used it and oh, they're moving it, everybody's moving it, nothing happened. So there's, there is no in between, and I love that, and to me that was just a fun thing to try and and I, I will say again, I will never touch another one for as long as I know.

I mean, that's fair. So as we, as we wrap up, because I have a lot of Wendy going to do, I want to ask you in your, in your opinion, where is the creepiest part of Michigan? What is the scariest place in Michigan to go? Oh, that's actually, to me, that's a good answer because, or a good question, because I have a good answer for it.

And again, it's near me and it's cemetery. Uh, I I went to high school in pawpaw. I don't know if you know what pawpaw is, but it's a very small uh, it's bigger now than it used to be, but it's a small town. Uh, west of us, west of me and, uh, towards the end of my street, um, the main road that I grew up on, there's a cemetery on a hill and it's still there and standing in front of it and looking up as how they placed the, the gravestones going up this hill into this wooded area.

It's just terrifying to look at and I've been in it because we had to do a uh in high school. We had to do uh, we had to pick a gravestone, basically find the person and do as much information as we could, and back then that was really hard, yeah, you know, and unless you went to the library or knew a the registrar of the town, you weren't going to get much information out of it.

But just wandering through that cemetery, you know, after dark and staying there long enough to find something interesting and, you know, scaring each other and stuff. I think to me, that was probably the scariest. I mean, there's a lot of places I've been in Kalamazoo here where they are haunted and I've felt that kind of presence. and it's scary, but it's not like I need to get out of here kind of scary.

That place, that cemetery on the hill. I forgot the exact name, but sorry, but it's there. That place was always like you shouldn't be anywhere near here, let alone in it. So to me, I think that's probably the closest one. All right. Well, I am happy that I can't find it. Yeah, you don't want to find it. That's fine. You're good. Thank you, Stew, so much for sitting down and chatting about this.

Anything you'd like to tell people about? Uh, I know you have a lot of creative endeavors going on. Give them a little plug. Uh, well, I have two books, uh. One is called the monster book of creatures. It's a children's book, uh, illustrations and poems. Uh, that came out last year. And then I have a new book, published as of october uh called uh, unfinished tales of the amulet.

Uh, it is like flash fiction stories. They can both be found on Amazon. And that's about it right now. But yeah. Well, thank you again, Stew, so much for hanging out with us. And no problem. This has been the inaugural Spooky on the Road in Michigan.