The Anthracite Coal Region
The Archaeology of its Haunting Presence
by
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Coal Region Winter Tales: Part 1:
"There is a single snow which a child stores in his memory....The first snow that reveals secrets......" Loren Eiseley, "The Snowstorm"
My single snow memory was the search for the "White Lady". The tale was first described in my book, Ghost Excavator. This early "investigation" was the key that opened the door to the coal region past for me. The revelation was quite unexpected, and was an encounter (at night) where:
"the snows that are
older than history,
the woods where the weird shadows
slant......" (are found).
Robert W.Service
It was in the native woods that the search for the white lady ended so long ago, without revealing her secret. But the lesson I learned from that failure is still fresh and current in my memory, because it brought the symmetry of the coal region landscape into focus: snow, woods, and ghosts, amid the blackened culm banks, and abandoned mine shafts. Sometimes the answer may be a simple black and white response. Winter tales began in the black and darkness of the mines, and the woods at night. The ghosts, when they surface, are largely undetectable in the wintry snows here.
That is why we seldom see them. Yet, they are all around us. We must search for a different sensory means of engagement, one that is beyond the visual. The answer can be found buried, beneath the accumulations of snow, in those quiet wintry woods.
To better understand this, we will have to remember the woods of this region's virgin past. At that time, detecting presence was auditory not visual. The Native American hunting bands did not see the spirits of Towanmensing. They heard them. The key to the ghosts of the past is sound. We hear their voices. We hear the sounds that no longer have visible meaning. These ghosts continue to echo throughout the landscape, with variations of ethnic sounds and symbolism. Do you hear them still?......
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About the Book
This book is an archaeological excavation of anomalous phenomena that still lingers to haunt various locations in the anthracite coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The unearthing of this haunting presence is both a metaphorical excavation (the bringing "into the light" of various dramas, events, and experiences of an individual and collective nature), and a physical engagement (the emergence of ghostly presence through investigative field performances).
This anthracite coal region drama is viewed through the use of a "deep map" of short, but compendious, "ghost" narratives. This "deep map" consists of autobiographical events, symmetrical archaeological practices, memories of local places, ethnic folklore, haunting traces and manifestations, natural history, the use of a scientific field methodology, and a sincere, and profound, sensitivity to the land.
These "ghost" narratives are a subtle, multi-layered and "deep mining" of a small regional landscape that has long been neglected, and been perceived as "insignificant" social history. This book is meant to change that perception through a sensual unearthing of its haunting uncertainties.
About the Author
John Sabol has been participating in (and directing) scientific field investigations since 1969. He has conducted archaeological, anthropological, and paranormal research in England, Germany, Mexico, and throughout the United States. He is a former professor of inter-cultural studies, with 11 years of teaching experience at various universities in Mexico City, and in Guadalajara. His first book, Ghost Excavator, is a personal account of various paranormal experiences while growing-up in the anthracite coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania in the 1960's. He is the author of three other books, Ghost Culture, Gettysburg Unearthed, and Battlefield Hauntscape. He has a M.A. in Cultural Anthropology (with a minor in Archaeology), and a B.A. in Sociology. He currently resides in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, centrally located in the southern fields of the anthracite coal region, with his daughter, Melissa. For more information about his books and paranormal investigations, please refer to his web sites: www.ghostexcavator.com and http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeoqapc/ghostexcavator.