In August of 1994, I moved into a house on 4th Street in Marquette, MI. It was a two story house, and a friend and I were renting the bottom half. The top story was not rented at the time, but was blocked off from our half. I was 21 and in college at the time. My roommate would not be moving in for a week, so I was looking forward to having the house to myself. I set up the living room with the 90’s guy essentials, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and cable TV. In my bedroom, I didn’t have a bed… yet… that would arrive in a week, so I slept on a flip out chair that doubled as a mattress. 4th Street was a fairly busy street, a lot of traffic went by my bedroom windows, so I slept little the first few nights. I usually played video games until midnight, then went to sleep. The third night, I woke up when I heard what sounded like a pig grunting. I sat up and saw what looked like a pug dog, with a frown on its face, as if it had just smelled it’s own fart, with glowing red eyes.

I sat for a few minutes, looking directly into it’s eyes. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, yet this dog was still there. I thought that maybe, somehow a dog got into the house. The frown on the dog’s face turned into a slight growl. Maybe I was the one who farted. I thought.

The pug started to walk slowly backwards, away from me, looking at me the entire time. It disappeared into the wood paneled wall. I never saw it again. I wasn’t drunk or high, a bit tired from adjusting to sleeping in a new place, but that was it. My roommate arrived a few days later and moved out a month later after some disagreements we had. Two new roommates moved in and never had any experience like I did.

I don’t know what I saw that night, it easily could have been a trick of light and my tired imagination playing tricks on me. Or it could have been some pissed off mutt from the great beyond, unhappy with a farting situation that took place in that room. I often wonder, if that was the case, that a bodily function annoyed that mutt to the point that he had to make his presence known, how come he never came back when their was enough sex happening in that room to keep a porn site up and running?

Thanks for reading. CB

The summer of 1998 was a period of transition for me. A year earlier I had graduated from Northern Michigan University, moved back home with my parents, and went to work at my old restaurant job that I had in high school. I was looking for employment in broadcasting and also I had just started performing on professional wrestling shows. Home at this time was Northeast Wisconsin on Lake Michigan. I was 25 years old, living day to day, without a real concern about the future. A typical shift at work was from 9am until 4pm Monday thru Thursday. The weekends required either split shift or an open until close (11am-10pm). Now, this was also flexible since I made out the schedule, if I wanted a certain day off, I took it. That was the nice thing about my old job, it allowed me to chase my pro wrestling dreams at the time. Sometimes I would skip out of work if business was slow, that might make me sound lazy, but in that business, you try to save a buck in any way shape or form. My best friend also worked there, he had just come home from college for the summer and he was making living arrangements for himself.

“Hey Bones, (My nickname since I was a teenager) I’m going to live on my Uncle’s farm in Kellnersville this summer. You wanna split rent with me? He’ll charge like a hundred bucks and all we have to do is pick stones out of the field like once a month.”

I wasn’t real fond of the idea of living in the boonies, but I was young, liked to party and chase girls, and living out there would provide more opportunity for that than living with my parents. I accepted his offer.

“Yeah Chad, sounds good.”

The next day, we went to the farm to start moving in. It was a two story farmhouse, with the second story mostly a storage space. The main floor had an entrance with a rusty screen door that clanged and banged when it opened. That led to the living room, past a massive old black kettle pipe stove that we used for heat. A kitchen was connected off to the right of that. Then to the right of the kitchen was a hallway, about 20 feet long that led to a large room that we would use as a bedroom. The bedroom was really just a large open room, maybe 50 feet by 30 feet. We each set up a bed and dresser for ourselves, never going in that room to do anything but sleep, or have the occasional female visitor. Whenever the two of us were home and didn’t have company or a party, we hung out in the living room and drank and played videogames. There were very few times the both of us were sober while in that house, that was the life back then, working hard, playing hard. Every weekend we had people from work come out for parties, many of them stayed over because we were so isolated. Even during the week, friends would come out, party, and stay the night. Everyone seemed to enjoy the isolation of the farm. There was no danger of getting caught, many of our friends were still 20 or 19 at the time, for underage drinking, and if anyone wanted to smoke weed, that was the place to do it. Nothing was within five miles of that house.

The house sat in a gully past the top of a hill. The only road that led to the house was a dirt road, maybe 1500 yards long. Connected to that was a country highway, and you could not see the house from the highway. That highway led to the nearest gas station about five miles away. ( Sorry if my description isn’t very good, I just want to explain how isolated we were). When there was no moon at night, or it stormed, that area was pitch black. It was a little spooky, even though I’d like to think I’m a pretty tough guy, I would feel uneasy if I was alone out there. Not because the area was haunted, or due to anything paranormal, just because you were so extremely… alone.

The month of May passed. Then June. Then the 4th of July Holiday. Even with the metabolism of young men, my friend and I needed a couple days break from partying. On a Tuesday night at work, we announced that we were going to stop having people over for the week. We needed to dry out. Chad and I closed down the restaurant that night and went to Family Video. We rented movies and bought candy bars. (Back then if I didn’t drink, I needed to have chocolate). Then we went home and watched movies until around 1am.

“Fuck it man, I’m going to bed.” I said.

“Me too, I’m going to take a shit first, leave the light on in the room.” Chad replied.

I walked down the hallway into the bedroom. I never heard Chad come into the room, I was so tired I had fallen asleep right away. I was woken up by a searing white light that was beaming into the only window in the room. It was a ground floor window that was two feet by two feet wide. This light was flooding the room, which didn’t seem possible given how small the window was. I thought I heard someone screaming and then I felt like laying back down. I closed my eyes to go back to sleep and I felt my bed start to be pushed, like you would be pushed on a gurney in a hospital. Then I woke up again. The sun was up. It was 5:30am. I walked to the kitchen, poured a glass of milk and lit a cigarette. Then I went into the living room to watch the local news. Around 7am, Chad got up. He came into the living room, sat down and lit a cigarette.

“Fuckin’ had the weirdest dream.” He started to say before I cut him off.

“If you say you saw a light and heard a scream and your bed got pushed, we are not friends anymore.” I joked.

Chad turned white instantly. I actually watched the color drain from his face. He’s tall, 6’4 and lanky. He seemed to turn to jello and slumped into the chair he was sitting on.

“The fuck did you say?” He asked.

“I said…”

“Fuck OFF! Don’t fuck with me.” He screamed as he shot out of the chair and walked outside.

I waited a few minutes then walked outside too. He was looking in the bedroom window with a blank expression.

“You’re fucking with me, Bones.”

“No. I swear. I thought I was joking but I had the same dream.”

“Bones, I heard you screaming, then I closed my eyes and my bed was being pushed.”

“No Chad, I heard you scream then I closed my eyes and my bed was being pushed.”

There was a long pause as we stood outside, staring into the window.

“You know what, Bones?”

“What’s that?”

“I need a drink.”

Feel free to leave a comment. The story is 100% true. Any feedback on my paranormal stories is encouraged. Thanks for reading my blog. – CCB

Road trips in professional wrestling are a necessity. If you’re lucky, you find yourself some quality people to share a vehicle with. Not only does it help cut down on expenses, it also makes three or four hours in a car pass fast. When you drive alone, the radio is your friend. I’d rather have someone to bullshit with. It’s also how you learn about wrestling, talking over what works, what doesn’t and what to try to improve on. The road is an essential tool in expanding your knowledge, yet sometimes you see something you can’t explain.

October is a fine month for traveling the road in Wisconsin. Temperatures are cool enough for wearing a hoodie with the chill taking away the humidity of summer. Snow has not fallen, if it’s early in the month, making driving conditions ideal. Over the years, I’ve seen my share of oddities on the road. Cars flipped over, naked people on the side of the highway, a house engulfed in flames, but one night I had to question my eyes and sanity.

My friend Kevin and I traveled together often. We had similar views on how wrestling should be performed and also we are both sports fans. There was never a shortage of good conversation between the two of us. Joining us in his van one night was Eric and Jason. We were traveling from Jefferson to Green Bay in October 2001. Late at night, Kevin was driving with myself in the passenger seat. Eric and Jason sat in the back. The trip was filled with a lot of laughs and witty banter, when off in the distance I spotted something in the sky. A white something, I couldn’t tell what shape, seemed to be coming directly at us. It grew as it neared, perhaps half a football field in size, then took on the shape of a triangle. It shimmered a white light that almost seemed translucent, heading for the top of the van. A head on collision seemed unavoidable until it surged upwards over the top of the van, shot behind us, and vanished into the sky. In seconds there was no trace of the object. It had disappeared.

“What the fuck was THAT?” I said, a bit shaken.

“Holy shit! Wha.. Eric, did you see that???” Kevin asked, sounding more shaken than I was.

In the oddest, most calm manner, Eric would reply.

“Yeah dude, totally saw that. Weird.”

Jason had missed it and offered nothing to the conversation.

Silence took over the interior of the van for a time. I couldn’t think of anything to say. Kevin was still stunned, Eric was calm as ever and Jason I think went back to his nap.

“Well what the fuck man? Am I fuckin’ losing my shit?” I asked, questioning my own sanity.

“No dude.” Eric started. “We saw it. Yeah, that was crazy.”

“Fuckin’ UFOs and shit man.” Kevin added.

Relieved that I wasn’t in fact losing my mind, I waited for the conversation to switch to something less stressful, like what celebrity would you sleep with. That was always brainless enough to take the edge off of witnessing what we did. Truth is, I don’t remember what we talked about after that. The time morphed together into a blur of hazy memories. We made our way home. I woke up every day after that, the memory of that night fading a bit more with time passing, wondering if I saw what I did.

Was it a UFO? A simple reflection of light that we had misjudged? To this day I’m not sure. Eric had to fill in my memory of that night, which is the reason I’m writing this blog, so I don’t forget a night that should stay unforgettable.

Game of Thrones didn’t fail, your expectations did. It’s natural to have your hopes up for the finale of television series. It’s unnatural to think that you could have done a better job. It’s even worse to start or sign a petition to have the creators redo the ending. Like the Rolling Stones said, “You can’t always get what you want.” Here’s the deal, the ending of GoT was fine. It wasn’t epic, it wasn’t mind-blowing, it was OK. Nothing wrong with that. That’s what happens in life, things turn out average. Average is good. Do you eat fast food on a regular basis? Trust me, you are getting average a lot. Average is a passing grade. Average is good if you’re a male. (You know what I mean). 70% gets you a diploma and a job and I’ll bet that is the output you put into a normal work day. The problem is when people love something so much that they expect nothing but the best all the time. If you cheer for a sports team, you still are alive when they don’t win the championship every year. It doesn’t kill you when they lose. The ending of GoT won’t kill you either. If you are angry for more than a day, you have priority issues. I love television shows too, I certainly don’t lose sleep over them. Actually, it’s fun years later to look back and have a good laugh at how an ending failed or was lame. Have a good laugh about it with your friends. For better or worse, be glad you were entertained, your life could be a lot worse than being upset that a dragon melted a chair, got emo, then flew away.

I saw all I needed to see of Super Showdown thanks to YouTube. More specifically, the Goldberg-Undertaker match. First of all, those guys are troopers, that match had little to no chance of working once Goldberg rung his bell. They did what they could and I applaud that. I could see where they wanted to go with the match, they only problem was, they had no way to get there. Hindsight is always 20/20 and what could have been done to cover the accident was to have Taker keep pummeling Goldberg until the ref had no choice but to stop the match. A quick fix, called on the fly, might have salvaged what was left of Goldberg to work with. That also would have given Goldberg a reason to call for a rematch. WWE could give it a proper build and put the match on a Mania or SummerSlam. Anything would have been better than what happened. Both guys looked bad, Taker looked pissed off, the crowd looked uneasy. They knew what they were watching wasn’t pretty and not what they hoped to see. The unfortunate reality of going to a sporting event, or entertainment event, is that you don’t always get what you want. Sometimes you see Willie Mays stumble around the outfield because he is five years past his prime. Is that worth the price of admission? It’s up to you to decide. My favorite singer is Ozzy, but I’m not going to pay money now to see him mumble the words to Fairies Wear Boots into a microphone. I also wasn’t allowed to see him in the 80’s because heavy metal was the devil’s music, so it’s been cassette tapes and CDs for my Ozzy fix. I’m fine with that. I’m not going to bash the guy for still doing concerts, I’m just not going to give my money to him. I cancelled my subscription to WWE Network after this years Mania. Right now, I’m not real interested in the product they offer. From what I watched of Super Showdown, I won’t be interested in paying for their service again anytime soon.

That’s my two cents. Thanks for reading.