So last night I ate canned clamed chowder and watched 'Ghost Hunters'. The show was much better than the chowder. I do believe that this has been the best show this season. It took place in a lighthouse tower in St Augustine, Florida. I'm sure some of you have been there. The main things they caught was a woman's voice, and then once you see a shadow move and in the last clip you see a head peek over the railing halfway up the lighthouse. That last image gave me the willies.
Now, I am going to discount any sound that they hear. The acoustics in a lighthouse like that must be insane. You have the staircase spiraling up, in essence a big metal coil, and it's contained within a concrete tube. Who knows that that thing is picking up? It might be their own echo's vibrating up and down that coil of stairs and resulting in a higher pitch frequency. Or there might be a sea bird on the roof of the lighthouse, and when it caws out it is amplified through that big concrete tube and floats down to the people on the bottom. There are a number of unknown factors.
The shadow is a different question. While they were filming them spotting it, I really got caught up in the show, particularly because I was watching it alone in the dark. In the whole reality-show sense I got caught up in the real emotions of the people portrayed. Thus it spooked me a bit. However, you did not actually see the shadow at that point. Later on in the show they reviewed what they had captured. The film shows the camera pointing up the center of the lighthouse, and on one of the stairs a few levels above, you see a shadow quietly detach itself and then zip away. I am not sure what could have caused that. I will have to mull that over for a day or two.
In the final clip, you see someone look over the edge very quickly. That was the most eerie clip. Now is it possible someone could have been up there? The cast members ran to the top of the lighthouse, and not only was anyone not there, they also set off the motion detector that turned on the light. If someone was up there, the probably would have set it off. Now, the cast could not get outside to the little balcony because it was padlocked. Theoretically someone could have gone out the door and locked it behind them somehow. I am not saying that is what I think happened, however, Ocams Razor, it seems the simplest explanation.
Regardless, I liked that episode.
Speaking of ghosts, this weekend I am taking a little Mini-vacation up to Charleston, SC. I have never been there, so that is good enough reason for me to go. It's supposed to be like savannah. Plus I am going on a couple of ghost tours. One of them is through an old dungeon at night.
I am going to take a moment to tell you about the most fantastic weekend-road trip companion: The Cardboard Box. The cardboard box is the most efficient element of a weekend road trip. The cardboard box works only under certain conditions. Mainly:
a) You are traveling by car
b) You are staying in some cruddy motel where your car is parked outside the door.
I hate packing. I hate the feeling of paranoia that I might 'forget' something and thus mildly inconvenience myself. I also put it off until the last minute. Here the cardboard box comes into play. I open one up and toss in my clothes and my toiletries and any books or snacks or antacids or other forms of entertainment. Then you toss it in the trunk of the car. On arrival you carry it into the motel room. Easy and worry free because everything is in one place.
It's also completely trashy and classless why is why you cannot do this on an airplane or a nice hotel with a lobby. At that point carrying your cardboard box around simply makes you look homeless. However, for the short-term car trip it's the easiest way to go. And when you get back home you simply pull the stuff out of the box and put it away. Any trash that might be left over goes out in the garbage with the box. It's simplicity in it's finest form. You can even write your name on the side. Mine shall say 'ED'S BOX'.
For no reason here is a picture of a door going nowhere on a house out near the dump. I snapped it because these doors to nowhere always amuse me.. It's also funny because there is a big lock on it.
2026 Update
Cranking the infernal dial to May 4, 2006: Ed is eating chowder and hunting lighthouses with a cardboard box.
Twenty years on, and the biggest spook in that lighthouse is that the entire episode now lives inside a phone, like everything else. Back then a shadow on tape was a mystery; now any tourist can film the same blurry nonsense in 4K and upload it before the stairs stop creaking. Ghost Hunters was must-see television because you had to wait a week and gather around the set; today the ghosts are competing with an algorithm for your attention. And Ed's beloved cardboard box—that filthy, classless, brilliant suitcase—has been replaced by wheeled luggage and overhead-bin anxiety. No one checks into a cruddy motel with their clothes in a box and writes ED'S BOX on it; they order a rideshare to a rented apartment and argue about Wi-Fi. Even the door to nowhere is a problem: everything is documented, mapped, and reviewed, so there are no forgotten doors, only 'aesthetic content.' The world got faster, sharper, more comfortable, and infinitely less fun. I'd trade a thousand streaming subscriptions for one phantom head peeking over a railing and a box of antacids in the trunk.
“2006 Ed, you were spooked by a shadow flitting across a staircase, but your answer to the unknown was a cardboard box and a padlocked door to nowhere—were you genuinely hoping for a haunting in Charleston, or just an excuse to write 'ED'S BOX' on something?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, I reckon it's a little of both, like most things in my life. Sure, I wouldn't mind seeing a ghost—I mean, I watched that lighthouse episode and got the willies, and now I'm heading to Charleston with a flashlight and a dumb grin, so part of me is hoping for something to peek over a railing at me. But let's be honest, the real thrill is the box. There's something pure about writing 'ED'S BOX' on a hunk of cardboard and hauling it into a cruddy motel like a king with a paper crown. It's the most honest luggage a man can own. And that door to nowhere with the big lock? That's just my whole life in one picture. So if a ghost shows up, great. If not, I've still got my box and a story.
