I was creeped out all day. Watching the History Channel. All that stuff about the Amityville Horror. That story has always scared the crap out of me anyway. Steve has mentioned our neighborhood is old — it dates to antebellum times, but I’m not sure which part of our house, if any of it, was around then. It’s been added on to many times, and clumsily so, I might add. Floors are oddly sloped. You could set a marble on most parts of the floor in my house and it would roll.

There has been this really weird vibe all around the house today. I keep telling myself that it’s just Halloween. It probably is. But the air outside is oppressive. I keep looking down the street expecting to see something each time I go outside. Our street sort of peters out into some overgrown woods I’m pretty sure that you could take a short cut through those woods and wind up at the small cemetery on Sloan Street. One of the houses I was interested in was right next door to that cemetery. We live within walking distance of two very old cemeteries. Steve has also talked before about the haunted J. Christopher’s restaurant within walking distance. That was profiled in the paper the other day in an article about haunted Atlanta.

So all of this conspired today to make me very jumpy.

I offered my students extra credit if they watched Witch Hunt on the History Channel tonight. I couldn’t watch it myself — I was meeting my ex to pick up Sarah. It comes on again at midnight, but I’m not sure I’ll make it. The next airing is noon on Saturday. I really do want to see it. We just finished The Crucible in my college prep. class, and we just finished The Scarlet Letter in my honors class. I thought it appropriate the students watch this program. I’m so sleepy. I may have to count on trying to see it next weekend. Bleh.

Do you remember when you were a kid, and for the first time, you heard about something really awful happening to someone close to your age? There are two stories I remember from childhood. Maybe because they were never solved.

The first was the disappearance of Beth Miller. She lived in the pretty Colorado mountain town of Idaho Springs. She vanished one day while jogging. In 1994, she was legally declared dead. She’s been missing more than 20 years, now. I remember when we would drive through the mountains, I would look up, searching the caves from my vantage point in the car, and I would try to see if she was in one of them — a cold hand, carelessly flung over a ridge, revealing her resting place; a shock of white-blond hair riffled by a breeze. Because, you see, I was sure she was dead. About 10 years ago, a Florida woman claimed to be Beth Miller, but it was a hoax. A few months ago, investigators announced their intention to test mitochondrial DNA from a hair sample taken from decomposed remains and determine if they belong to Miller.

The other case that I think of every now and then — the one that terrified me most as a child — was the murder of the Bennett family. That happened in my hometown, Aurora, Colorado. It is believed the family were bludgeoned to death with a hammer. The mother, Debra, and older daughter, Melissa, were raped as well. The lone survivor was three-year-old Vanessa, who still lives in Colorado and (thankfully) has no memory of the attack. It was an awful crime. It was hard to feel safe after that. It happened so close to home. It’s kind of morbid, but I have rarely picked up a hammer without thinking about this crime. It is still unsolved, though with the advent of DNA analysis, they may one day be able to match the killer with samples taken from the crime scene.

These two crimes created ghosts in my childhood — an awareness that the world can be very dangerous, and bad guys are not always caught. But the ray of hope is that science has found a way. I wonder how many ghosts like these DNA will finally put to rest.

In the Atlanta area, we are fortunate enough to have two versions of PBS: GPTV, which broadcasts all over Georgia, and PBA, which is exclusive to Atlanta. We disovered it by accident one day after Arthur was over. Sarah and I love to watch Arthur together. Sarah was flipping channels, and boom — Arthur is on again! The logo in the bottom of the screen indicated it was a PBS channel. We watched the second Arthur.

It was in this way that we accidentally discovered Manor House was on last night. I have been wanting to see it for some time. I am a big fan of the historical “House” series since catching Frontier House. This summer I enjoyed Colonial House, but not nearly as much as Frontier House.

The interesting thing about Manor House is that it seeks to accurately portray life in a time not so far removed from ours — 1906. However, this was a time still dominated by class. We look at 21st century mentalities at war with the reality that as participants in this series, they must quickly learn their proper places. It is absolutely fascinating. And, like the other “House” series, it completely underscores the absolute wimpiness of modern people. We rely so much on labor-saving devices, for instance. Cooking and cleaning take all day, even only 100 years ago. Even only 60 years ago, as evidenced in 1940s House, which I caught part of last night as well. And the idea that everyone stays in his or her proper place is so alien to us today. It is really interesting to watch the interplay between the participants.

Diana Gabaldon, whom I’ve had the pleasure to meet, said once that when she decided to write a time-travel novel, she knew her heroine could not come from the 1990s (the time when she began writing her Outlander series), because the people of that time were too soft. She’d never be able to make it in eighteenth century Scotland. Her heroine would come from WWII Britain. Watching these series has shown me how right she was. If I have learned nothing else from these series, I have learned a respect for the toil that for our ancestors was just life. In addition to that, each series has been a most fascinating history lesson.

If you haven’t yet caught these shows, check out the links I provided and find out when your PBS station is airing them. They are the finest examples of “reality TV” out there, in my opinion.

I have very little to report. Most of us have been feeling sick. Dylan brought home some kind of tummy bug and gave it to Maggie and me. Sarah seems okay so far. I can’t tell about Steve. Dylan’s been a right pain today. Crying almost all day. Very cranky. I don’t feel well, which limits my patience.

We had Curriculum Night (or Open House, Parent’s Night — a rose by any other name) on Thursday. It went very well, I thought. I was told by some parents that their children were enjoying my class. That’s good to hear.

We had a September 11 memorial for our morning program on the 10th. I believe strongly in remembering. I wonder, though, how people who live with terrorism as a daily part of their lives — Israelis, for example — feel about the way we commemorate September 11. My friend is right about one thing: our lives have not changed much. We have to spend longer in the airport going through additional screening. But we are not any more cautious or vigilant than we ever were. We lived through one horrible day of unspeakable terror, and it taught us little. I am not saying we deserved what happened. I will never say that. I don’t believe it for a minute. I don’t think anyone deserves to be the victim of terrorism. Am I wrong, or do I just not see the sympathy for those in our world who live with terrorism on a daily basis? Am I just missing it? We don’t know what it is like to take our lives in our hands when we step on a bus. We don’t know what it is like to watch a bomb go off across the street. We don’t know what it is like to have our schools close because they were bombed.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m not making sense. I don’t feel well, and I’m tired. I do know that come November, I’m going to take my little voter registration card down the street, hold my nose, and vote for the candidate I hate least.