- In my never ending search for a reason behind the mysterious
goings-on here at Cloud Creek Ranch, I've been taking a long, hard look
at the land itself.
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- Especially at The Mound.
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- That's the little rise in the clearing in front of our
main house that's the highest spot on The Mountain. It looks very much
like the mounds marking windswept areas of earth over ancient ruins that
I've seen at sites in Arizona and Utah.
-
- My neighbors tell me this area always has been a great
spot for amateur archeologists to explore, and you know what that means.
-
- Yep, I've begun looking in earnest for signs of a lost
past.
-
- And I've found them, too.
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- My first discoveries were stone arrowheads. Then I found
a large axe head and a stone carving of a turtle that's an excellent likeness
of the snapping turtle that brings so much excitement into our dogs' lives
whenever they go down to the pond.
-
- But what cinched the conclusion that The Mound is more
than a hump in the earth was when Doug the Dog Breeder came over and his
GPS unit gave me The Mound's precise latitude and longitude.
-
- I ran that by some researchers who correlated the location
with what's already known about ancient civilizations all over the world
and The Mountain fit right into the distribution pattern. According to
cutting edge scholarship, whatever's below The Mound is exactly where the
spiritual center of a long lost city should be.
-
- Although it sounds impossible, everything I know about
Cloud Creek Ranch says the spiritual center theory is true. The way I hear
it, strange things often happen at such locations, and a pattern of inexplicable
sounds and sights was established here long before Gwen the Beautiful and
I arrived:
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- # Voices from nowhere
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- # Wispy critters tantalizingly appearing just at the
edge of view
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- # Unexplained singing and drumming.
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- That's what ran off the previous owners, who created
this clearing and built the house.
-
- Shortly after I got this information, I was contacted
by the Paradise Historical Society. Miz Jayne, the secretary of the PHS,
asked me to speak to the group, and I was delighted to do so because it
gave me the chance to share what I'd learned. A couple of weeks ago, I
presented myself at PHS headquarters, received a warm greeting from the
wizened Miz Jayne and told the dozen or so members in attendance what I've
written here.
-
- I figured that at worst they'd laugh at my speech as
more crazy fiction from Larry B. And at best they'd be astounded and delighted
and give me some clues about what to do next.
-
- But in a universe where the unexpected rules, the reception
my words received was one I'd never anticipated.
-
- Utter silence.
-
- No one spoke. No one asked a question. No one responded
in any way.
-
- "Dude, you are so bombing here," one part of
my mind said to the other.
-
- To which the other could only reply, "Not only don't
they believe you, they don't care."
-
- As a public speaker, I was a dead man. Time to creep
out gently, into the good night
-
- As soon as the meeting was over, I bolted for the door.
Felt like I was barely escaping with my life. In my disappointment with
myself, I started thinking about ways to find out for certain whether the
Sacred Center theory was right and decided to call Dwayne the Earthmover
about the availability of his backhoe.
-
- But before I made it out to the parking lot Miz Jayne
stopped me. "Hope you'll join us for refreshments," she said.
"Don't those cakes smell good?"
-
- I mumbled something about having to go. Miz Jayne looked
at me closely. "How old did your experts say the civilization on your
mountain was?" she said.
-
- "Um 8,000 years," I replied.
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- "They might be a little off," said Miz Jayne.
"We've got some of our own artifacts in the back room. Archeologists
told us they date back 10,000 years."
-
- "Why didn't you say something about this while I
was speaking?" I said.
-
- "We didn't want to hurt your feelings. You were
so proud of your discovery."
-
- "Then why're you telling me now?"
-
- "I may be a hillbilly, but I know that look on your
face," Miz Jayne said. "Can't let you go out and do something
as dumb as excavating your whole front yard."
-
- And at that moment, the cakes smelled very good indeed.
-
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- Copyright C 2007 by Larry Brody. All rights reserved.
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- Author Larry Brody's weekly column, LIVE! FROM PARADISE!
appears on his website, www.larrybrody.com. He has written thousands of
hours of network television, and is the author of "Television Writing
from the Inside Out" and "Turning Points in Television."
Brody is Creative Director of The Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts, the
world's first in-residence media colony. More about his activities can
be seen on www.tvwriter.com and www.cloudcreek.org. He welcomes your comments
and feedback at <mailto:LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org>LarryBrody@cloudcreek.org.
Brody, his wife and their dogs, cats, horses and chickens live in Marion
County, Arkansas. The other residents of the mythical town of Paradise
reside in his imagination.
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