Written by Priscilla Howe

Some of the best stories you’ve ever heard were probably passed down from storyteller to storyteller – across cities, states, even countries! Need proof? Here we have two storytellers telling the same ghost story but with slight differences. One teller is from the United States (Kansas), the other from Montreal, Quebec. See which one you like best!

Priscilla Howe travels the US and abroad (Brazil, Germany, Bulgaria, Mexico and Belgium, to date) with a bagful of puppets and a headfull of stories. Her favorite audience is the one in front of her at any given moment. A full-time storyteller since 1993 and a former librarian, Priscilla lives in Lawrence, Kansas. She’s also searching for the best restaurant pie on earth.

John David Hickey has been telling fables, folktales, and legends for over 15 years. He delights in telling stories from all over the world, but has a particular fondness for quirky, underdog stories. David has an animated, energetic telling style that appeals to both children and adults. He has performed in schools, libraries, pubs, cafes, and various festivals across Canada. He lives in Montreal, Quebec and tells tales in English and in French.

You can also hear John’s stories at Shortening The Road.
 

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Written by Bill Darby

He had seen her twice before she called out to him. He walked up to her porch and took a seat by this lively country lass.

“What’s your name?” she asked as he stretched out his legs.

“Frank, Frank Gorin. I moved here just a few weeks ago.”

“I’m Carol Haislip. I seen you a walking down through the road there.”

Frank almost laughed at her slurred words and grammar. She was charming to look at… to be with. He took her to be in her twenties; but she didn’t seem to be very mature. Oddly, he liked that about her.

“I need to take walks,” he said. “It helps me get the layout of the town. I moved from a bigger city. Had to change jobs, ways, a life.”

He was beginning to like this town. His new job was tolerable. The slower pace was getting hold. Somewhere in the distance he heard some kids playing – a sound that he had almost forgotten. He wondered if this Alabama town was typical of other southern communites.

“You like walkin’?”

“Sure. There’s not much else to do here.”

“You like runnin’?” he eyes brightened as she sat up a bit.

“Pretty much,” he said almost laughing again. “I was on the track team in high school. Boy, that seems like such a long time ago.”

“I love to run,” she said sitting back. “I run most every day. I was always the fastest one in my school. I bet you couldn’t keep up with me.”

Again, he was almost startled. She sounded like an eight year old.

“Oh, I imagine I could,” he argued nudging her slightly.

“I’ll take you around the block, right now.”

“Here? Wouldn’t we look kind of silly?”

She giggled. “Folks around here just expect to see me runnin’. It won’t matter a bit. They know me.

“Maybe some other time,” he said.

He felt her relax next to him. He felt strange; but he was enjoying this. The dusk had begun to creep in; and there was a slight August wind whispering through the street.

“There’s this lake, Peterson’s lake that’s a beautiful place. We could go there,” she said softly.

“That sounds fine,” he agreed. “What do you say, you show me the lake this weekend.”

“OK,” she said.

So he had a date. When he knocked on her door that fine Saturday morning, she appeared in a long skirt, obviously worn a long time. It was sad how these people lived, he thought. But, also, there was an alluring charm about it as well. He drove her to a beautiful lake beside several green hills.

After they ate, they were sitting in the shade of a big oak. The talk was scattered and unimportant. This was a new experience for him.

“Hey,” she said suddenly, “Why don’t we race?”

“We just ate,” he protested.

“So,” She stood up, looking around like an excited school girl. “I race ya to that tree over there.”

He laughed, starting to get up. “What is it about you and racing?”

She was off. He took off after her; but to his amazement, was unable to gain on her. Her legs ran with precision as she flung the long dress wildly. He turned on the speed, determined to catch her; but he gave out. A stab of pain in his side reminded him that he hadn’t run for a long time. She stopped and looked back.

“What’s the matter?” she called out.

“Give me a second,” he said bending forward.

She strode back up to him with a smirk on her face. “I got you on that one.”

“It’s been a long time,” he heaved. “Longer than I thought.”

“Oh, that’s OK,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk. There’s some really neat trails up on those hills.”

He straightened up. Those hills looked tall; and he wasn’t in a hurry to climb them. Still, he couldn’t let her show him up so. Without a word, she took his hand, and off they went at a lively pace.

They arrived at a small stream that fed into the lake. They stepped across, seeing a winding trail that led upwards into green thicket. She started up with agile steps. He followed more cautiously.

“You must come out . . here a lot,” he said.

“All the time,” she said. “I like it here.”

The climbing became more difficult; and again, he found himself being outpaced by this sturdy country girl. “Try to keep up,” she said.

A few minutes later, he was alone on the trail, his progress reduced to to a slow plodding. She was nowhere in sight. He looked upward trying to see.

“Come on,” she called out some distance away. He continued on; but his side was hurting him again. After a few more minutes, he had reached the hilltop. He struggled over to a fallen log and sat down, getting back his breath.

“What’s the matter?” came a voice beside him. She was there. He jumped over to the right.

“I didn’t see you,” he heaved. “Where did you come from?”

“Right here. Come on, there’s a neat little cave down at the bottom of this hill.”

“Can’t we rest a minute. That climb almost killed me.”

“Ohhh, ” she mocked. She sat down. “What’s wrong old man. You can’t keep up with me.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “like I said, ‘s been a long time. . ”

He was cut off in mid sentence. He saw something. Slowly he got up and walked over to a large maple. The rounded object looked, at a glance, so much like . . He moved it with his foot. It was an old yellowed skull – a human skull.

“Look at this,” he almost said to himself. Carol came up beside him.

“Carol. Somebody died up here.”

“These hills are haunted with ‘em,” she said with her eyes sparkling. “At night you can hear them whispering and crying to each other. Awful sound.”

A chill went down his spine. “But, we need to report this,” he said looking for something to say.

“You can tell old Rodgers about it,” she said. “He couldn’t even climb these hills if he had to.”

“Well, I’ll look him up and let him know about it. This was probably a missing person or something. I wonder how he could have died.”

“He couldn’t keep up,” she said perkily.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Come on,” she said tugging at his arm. He followed her. She was headed down the hill – in the other direction.

“Oh, not that way,” he said. She was running ahead. “Wait.”

He regretted this date. He had gotten a lot more than he had bargained for. He went down a slope which suddenly turned steep. The trail was hard to see. He was holding limbs and small trees to keep his balance. He swore, falling a few times.

After several more minutes of this, he found himself at another stream bigger than the one before. He would have to wade through it to get to the other side. But there was no sign of a trail now.

“I see you,” came a distant voice.

He looked for her without success. Noticing the sun, he saw it lowering through the western trees. How could that be? How long had he been here with this wild lass?

“Carol,” he called out.

“Up here.”

Groaning, he stepped through the water and began to climb the hill. This one was not as steep; but he was fatigued, and every step hurt. He didn’t want to think about the trip back. He would take a few steps, then rest against a tree. He temples were throbbing.

At last, he reached the top. He was in a canopy of green, sweat pouring off of him. He heard some footsteps beside him and looked.

“Don’t tell me you’re sittin’ again,” she said.

“Carol. It’s getting late. We’ve got a few miles of hills to cover before we get back to the lake.”

“All right,” she conceded. “But I can get back there in no time at all.”

“Yes,” he agreed, but I can’t.

“Old man,” she muttered.

His humor had quite disappeared. He only wanted to get back home and take a cool shower. He stood, because his left leg was getting cramped. That is when he saw the rib cage.

Walking over to it, he knelt down. It had to be human. And here was an arm bone, and some other smaller pieces.

“Holy cow! Here’s where somebody else died. What is this place? Do people just come up here and drop dead?”

“Listen,” she giggled. “They’ll start telling you secrets if you listen real close.”

Something was working in his mind – something really dark and sinister. There was some very uncomfortable questions forming. He had heard really strange tales about lynchings and murders in the country. But all of that was over now, right? That sort of thing did not happen any more.

“We’d better go,” he said.

“OK lazy bones, I’m off.”

“No ! Carol, wait.”

But she had run down the hill. Incredibly she wove through the trees without so much as a bump. He took off as well, making about fifty feet before he fell. His side was killing him now. He could not run.

It seemed that dusk was coming. He knew the way back, he thought. Sure. Down this hill to the stream. And wouldn’t the stream lead right to the lake? But he couldn’t leave her on the hill. He had to find her again. In time, he made it to the stream. He looked around.

“Up here slow bones,” he heard her say from above. Another hill.

He climbed. He rested. The sun was now low and red, peeking at him through the forest tangle. His side hurt. His legs were numb. Years of neglect were showing. But finally, he had topped the first hill. It would have been beautiful to view if he wasn’t in such pain. Again, she was beside him as if she had appeared.

“Come on,” she said.

“I can’t. In a minute. Carol, I found another body on that other hill. We’re going to have to report this. People don’t just come up here to die. Something’s wrong here.”

“You couldn’t keep up with me,” she said slightly pouting.

“All right!” he shot back. “I couldn’t keep up with you. What is the big thing about keeping up?!!”

“Nobody can,” she said. “You’re just like all the rest.”

He tried to stand back up; but he collapsed again. “What do you mean ‘all the rest ‘ What are you talking about?”

“I’m going,” she said disappointedly.

“Wait,” he moaned with closed eyes. “I don’t know the way back. There’s . . . there’s no trail. Just give me a minute. Ohh.”

But she disappeared down the hill, out of sight, still gaily bouncing. She paused a moment to look back at him. He saw a look of teasing glee in her eyes as she turned away to resume her escape. Again he tried to rise; but he could not. His legs seemed to be paralyzed.

He was alone. The sun was setting. He was terribly thirsty; and he knew, somehow, that he would be spending the night there. And slowly, his mind echoed her last words to him – ‘You’re just like all the rest’. Slowly, painfully, he now realized just what she meant.

- THE END -

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A creek in the woods, wandering lost,
ripples beneath the low hanging moss
and carries falling leaves for a ride,
they swirl in the eddies and raft on the tides
and rush to and fro to the swampy lows,
then slow, to unfold in a pool of shadow.

And only be chance do the leaves arrive
at the hidden pond where Joeabb resides.

Here, the sunlight is filtered by shade
of trees in the water. Their trunks colonnade
at the edge of the pond like sentries at guard;
banishing all who would venture this far
to spy on creatures asleep on the logs,
that swim in the cattails or slog thru the bog
or perhaps the reclusive Joeabb the Frog,
the once famous tenor, ghost of the fog.

Leagues to the south, as the blackbirds fly,
at a green lily pond in times gone by,
a young Joeabb, just tadpole to frog,
soon discovered his gift from the fog;
a beautiful voice, hauntingly tender
with range and power – basso to tenor.
Those who heard him were staggered with awe
and news spread quickly of Joeabb the Frog.

Come evening, the pond was symphony hall,
crickets would fiddle, hoot owls would call,
heron and egrets swooshed in the shallows
and frogs by the scores puffed their bellows.
Birds of all feathers flocked the trees,
lightning bugs lighted the mist magically,
a lodge of beavers thumped hollow logs
but all would go still, for Joeabb the Frog.

It seems he would sing to the night, unaware
that a throng of listeners had gathered there
and often his eyes would drift to his maid,
a spotted she-frog, he called Lilyjade;
crooning sweet tones for her alone
as if his songs were a lover’s poem.
And after the throng of the gathered had gone,
they’d snuggle together to wish on the dawn.

Joeabb rejected the trappings of fame;
refused the gifts, ignored the acclaim.
Offers of travel and sing on the lake,
though tempting, he thought, tempted the fates.
Until he was nudged by his own Lilyjade;
with a goodbye kiss, he was whisked away
and night after night he sang for her sake,
while millions listened around the great lake.

The fog rolled in, his tenor voice soared
and those so impressed by this frog troubadour
thundered a cheer that rippled the lake
at the end of the concerts of Joeabb the Great.
Each morn, he vow to the great beyond
that soon he’d return to the green lily pond
where surely his mate ponders the dawn
and lingers with fading stars to wish on.

At the final performance, a fierce wind blew
and everyone, looking for cover, withdrew.
Joeabb impulsively headed for home
and wrestled the gales of the night alone.
He arrived along with the calm of day
and met by the creatures who weathered the fray,
he saw his pond completely transformed
and heard cruel stories wrought by the storm.

Heads bowed when he called Lilyjade,
for she was swept by the hurricane’s rage.
Joeabb searched thru the woods for leagues
and refused to accept what the others believed.
He swam the swamps and the waterways,
journeyed farther and wider each day,
and after months of the same, on and on,
he never returned to the green lily pond.

Some say he’s lost, others he died;
fell in a cavern, buried alive.
Some say he found a moonbeam of blue
and climbed to the sky for a better view.
But in truth he repaired to this swampy glade,
so cloistered by backwater bramble and shade
and began a song so incredibly strong
that time itself refused to move on.

When the mist comes from the trees beyond
he croons to a moon and a love that is gone
and endeavors to conjure his Lilyjade
from the ghostly haze that glides the glade;
certain that when his voice becomes pure,
she’ll respond from beyond the misty moor.
But the fog only drifts thru his sad serenade,
years into decades and age upon age.

Now, a thousand years have gone by;
his voice so pure, just a note makes you cry.
And so, the angels who bring forth the dawn
were moved to tears by his woeful song.
With a touch they placed this hidden pond
between the here and the great beyond
and nestled the souls of two little frogs
who live forever in love in the fog.

On warm summer evenings while lying your bed
or rocking the porch with stars overhead,
you may hear a voice so incredibly pure
you’ll clutch at your heart in rapture, assured,
if you close your eyes and breathe the night air
you’ll drift with the mist that lifts you to where
a blithe little spirit sings in the fog
and you’ll hum along with Joeabb the Frog.

You can help keep the stories coming by making a donation to The Moonlit Road.com. Large or small, any amount helps!

Written by Craig Dominey

The picture hung in my parents’ home for years before I finally asked about it: a pencil sketch of a gentle old man looking like some unkempt, nomadic Santa Claus, cradling a baby goat in his strong, leathery hands. Behind him, a team of older goats pulled a ramshackle, trash-strewn wagon, a placard on its roof screaming “GOD IS NOT DEAD.”

As a kid, I dismissed the drawing as yet another curiosity that my parents would buy in the folk art galleries and antique stores that surrounded our North Georgia mountain home. But when I began writing columns for the local paper and became hungry for story material, I asked my mother one day about that strange old man on the wall. She flipped the picture around with a smile, revealing a manilla folder full of newspaper articles taped to the back, waiting for the day that I would ask.

That was how I first became acquainted with the fascinating life of Mr. Ches McCartney, a.k.a. the “Goat Man.”

For over five decades, the Goat Man roamed the highways and byways of the South, fueled by little more than simple wanderlust. Most of this time was spent in a goat-powered, scrap wood wagon covered with cooking utensils, dented signs, old furniture, rusty lanterns and whatever else he could find on the roadsides. “The Goat Man’s coming!” became a common refrain on radio stations and newspapers across the region. Traffic would back up for miles as curiosity seekers stopped to gawk at him. Some schools would even let out early so that the children could see this modern day pioneer.

After his “retirement” from traveling in 1987, rumors circulated in the press that the Goat Man and his team had been killed on a rain-slickened highway by an out-of-control truck. But back in 1998, I discovered he was indeed alive and well at the Eastview Nursing Home in Macon, Georgia. After arranging for a visit with the staff, I drove down to see him.

As I was led into the crowded television room, I spotted a short and frail old man sitting alone on a bench. He was indistinguishable in his clean plaid shirt and pressed khaki slacks, a new baseball cap covering what was left of his brittle white hair. He constantly rubbed the stubble on his face, as if he were feeling for the fuller beard of his youth. His hearing was nearly gone, and he mumbled almost unintelligibly when he spoke. But the minute he smiled at me, the gentle, road-tested wanderer from my parents’ picture suddenly appeared before my eyes.

He immediately spotted a Goat Man biography under my arm and motioned for it. Without my asking, he took out a pen and signed his name twice on the cover page. Although pictures and framed magazine articles on the Goat Man hung throughout the nursing home, the other residents seemed oblivious to the fact that a celebrity was in their midst. “Ain’t no lies in that book,” he said, excitedly tapping his long fingernails on the cover. “I don’t tell nothin’ but the truth. ”

The nursing staff around us smiled. No one is sure how many of the Goat Man’s stories are fact or fiction. He claimed to be around 105 years old, although nursing home records at the time estimated his age to be somewhere in the mid-to-late 90s. He said that his goats were on display at Disney World, although no one had ever seen them. He also claimed to have spent the night in the White House as President Carter’s guest, although I found no official record of such a visit.

But most accounts of Ches McCartney’s life agree that he began his traveling days in 1915 when, as a teenager, he ran off to New York City from his home in Iowa. According to one of his self-published booklets, he sold newspapers on a street corner before embarking on a whirlwind romance with a 24-year-old Spanish knife thrower. Struggling to make ends meet, the couple put on a traveling circus act in local taverns where, upon arrival, Ches would take down the dart board, get up on the wall and allow his new bride to throw twenty-five keenly sharpened knives in his direction.

The performing duo eventually split up, and Ches returned to Iowa. Thinking he had quenched his wanderlust, he remarried, had a son, Albert Gene, and settled into a life of farming. Ches was first introduced to the benefits of “goat power” when he used them to plow his fields after he lost his horses during the Depression.

The McCartneys eventually lost their entire farm in the Depression, and Ches went to work cutting timber for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). It was during this time that a tragic event occurred that would forever alter his life. While working deep in the forest, a tree fell across him, shattering his left side and pinning him to the ground for hours. According to Ches, when a search party finally arrived, they presumed he was dead and took him to the local funeral home. He later awoke on the embalming table, much to the shock of the mortician.

Ches eventually recovered, but his left arm was forever mangled. Unable to work, Ches nevertheless refused go on the public dole, wanting to be his own boss. “I decided to do what I could,” he would later write, “and so my life with the goats began.” Inspired by one of his favorite books, Robinson Crusoe, he had his wife sew goat skin outfits for him and his son, while he designed two goat skin-covered wagons. The family then set off for parts unknown.

His wife eventually grew tired of the road and left him. Albert Gene stayed in Iowa to attend school, rejoining Ches on his vacations. But Ches traveled on, gaining notoriety across the country as the “Goat Man.” His goat skin outfit eventually gave way to several layers of greasy, sooty clothes, which he would peel off depending on the weather. He never shaved or bathed, and it was said that his smell would roll into town long before he did. “[The goats] don’t care how I smell or how I look,” he later wrote. “They trust me and have faith in me, and this is more than I can say about a lot of people.”

At its height, the Goat Man’s junk-filled “goatvoy” consisted of two wagons pulled by a team of over thirty goats. The larger billies were hitched to the front of the wagon with homemade leather leads. Nannies were tied to the back with a couple of strong billies that served as the “brakes” on steep hills. The Goat Man also collected stray and neglected goats that he found during his travels, including a three-legged goat that rode in a special box on the front wagon. He referred to the goats as his “babies,” and called each of them by name as he walked beside them.

He slept with the goats in the back wagon, which he dubbed the “maternity ward” since it was where the females gave birth. At night, visitors to his campsite would frequently find him curled up with his goats in the back wagon, reading Robinson Crusoe or The Bible under the warm glow of a kerosene lantern. “On cold winter nights, my goats are the finest electric blanket I can find,” he would say.

Upon arriving at his chosen campsite, usually on the outskirts of some town, the Goat Man’s first responsibility was to feed and water his goats. He would then build a campfire out of whatever sticks and trash he could find lying around and cook his dinner. The final touch was to throw a couple of junk tires on the fire that he kept stocked in his wagon. He claimed that the thick, acrid smoke chased the mosquitos away and added a distinct flavor to his food. But the burning tires more than likely served a more ingenious purpose: to attract visitors.

Thinking there had been a car wreck, those curiosity seekers who were already held up in traffic behind his slow-moving caravan would rush over to the campsite at the sight of the smoke. There, they would find the Goat Man drinking flesh goat milk from his herd, which he claimed had kept him healthy for years. He would then offer up a plethora of novelties for sale: booklets on his travels, picture postcards, proprietary medicines, sewing materials. Whether folks bought something or not, he always thanked everyone for coming out.

All of the money he raised either went to the maintenance of his goats or to a series of churches he planned to build throughout the South. The Goat Man claimed to have been ordained by the Pentecostal Church, and refused to travel on Sundays so that he could preach in a booming voice to the crowds gathered around his wagon. One of his tiny churches, the Free Thinking Christian Mission in Jeffersonville, Georgia, stood for several years until vandals burned it down. When I asked him about this, he sadly shook his head. “Takes all kind of people to make a world,” he said. “And I think we got ‘em, all right.”

For those hardy visitors who could stand the stench and the constantly bleating goats, the Goat Man would eagerly recount stories of his travels and offer opinions on his three favorite subjects: God, politics and women. He claimed that modern day preachers were only interested in the Almighty Dollar, and warned of upcoming race wars and economic depressions. He also tried to generate interest in a run for the Presidency on a third party ticket. By the late 1960s, he claimed to have been married three times, fathered children by each of his wives, and to have received over 25 additional marriage proposals. “The Good Lord gave me three wives, which proved to be three too many,” he would often say. “The Good Book says that there’ll be seven women for every man. Somebody can sure have my other four.”

One subject that continued to haunt the Goat Man in later years was Vietnam. He claimed to have another son missing in action, and my mere mention of the subject brought about an unexpectedly angry response. “The money people just kept sendin’ the boys over there, killin’ ‘em all,” he said. “People know how to kill, but they don’t know nothin’ about savin’.” At one time, he even considered camping out with his goats on the White House lawn until he received an answer on his boy’s whereabouts.

Over the years, the Goat Man became a problem for law enforcement. Due to heavy traffic jams behind his wagon, he was frequently rerouted at various state lines. Humane societies charged him with cruelty to animals, although he was never convicted. In the 1940s, he was even suspected by some Twiggs County, Georgia residents of being a Nazi spy. After a short investigation, the local police decided that his mountain man appearance was not a disguise. “[The whiskers and long hair] have something to do with professed religion,” they concluded.

Unfortunately, the Goat Man’s herd proved irresistible to vandals. One of the worst violations occurred on a snowy Christmas morning in 1964 when the Goat Man awoke to find Old Billy, his oldest goat and so-called “companion of companions,” wounded by a hunting arrow. Kind passers-by helped bring the goat to a veterinarian, but he died of complications four months later. The Goat Man later eulogized him in one of his autobiographies with the heartbreaking poem, “In Memory of Old Billy.” The vandals were never found.

Despite this setback, the Goat Man traveled on, eventually covering, by his count, some 100,000 miles and 49 of the 50 states. The only state he missed was Hawaii, due to logistical problems and his concern that, as he told an Alabama newspaper, the “goats might eat the grass skirts sight off the hula girls!”.

As superhighways were constructed across the country in the late 1960s, it became more dangerous for the Goat Man to continue his odyssey. But it would take two more tragic events to knock his caravan off the road for good. While traveling through Chattanooga, Tennessee late one night in 1968, the Goat Man was violently mugged. He later awoke in a hospital with a gash in his head that required twenty-seven stitches to close. His goats were not so lucky; eight were found dead, their throats slashed.

Horrified by his ordeal, the Goat Man and his herd were driven to Conyers, Georgia to recover. While there, two of the remaining goats were stolen. One was believed to have been tied to a railroad track, while the other was never found. This proved to be too much for the Goat Man, who finally called it quits in 1969.

His livelihood gone, the man who prided himself on being his own boss finally moved into a one room wooden shack in Jeffersonville and lived off Social Security. One evening, he forgot to extinguish his makeshift stove after dinner, and fire swept through his shack while he slept. Luckily, he escaped with only his hair and beard singed, but his shack burned to the ground. Sympathetic Jeffersonville residents bought him and his eldest son Gene an abandoned school bus to live in.

Domestic life eventually became too dull for the Goat Man, and he soon became a common sight limping along Highway 80 between Jeffersonville and Macon, decorating himself with various objects he scavenged from the roadsides. He would also hitch a ride into Macon every week to socialize at the senior citizen’s center. Frustrated with his shrinking Social Security checks, he vowed to renew his cross-country odyssey, this time with the help of airplanes and buses.

In October 1985, the Goat Man followed through on his threat. He was reported missing to the Twiggs County Sheriff’s Department, and did not resurface until three months later, when a doctor from Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles called to report that the Goat Man was hospitalized there after being mugged. The Goat Man claimed to have traveled to Hollywood with the intention of romancing actress Morgan Fairchild. Instead, he was robbed at gunpoint of his watch and two government bonds. After his release, friends purchased a plane ticket back to Georgia for the dazed Goat Man.

The California trip effectively ended the Goat Man’s wandering days – that is, to everybody but the Goat Man himself. He considered his stay in the Eastview Nursing Home to be only a temporary thing. “I’m on the go all the time, bud,” he repeatedly told me. He then scratched his stubble with a smile, saying how anxious he was to grow his flowing beard back.

As my visit ended, I asked the Goat Man if he would allow me to take a picture of him to put in the frame of my parents’ drawing. He smiled and guided me out onto the sunny deck, allowing me to take all I wanted. Our task completed, he stayed back in the dining room as I told him goodbye.

“God be with you,” said the Goat Man. He then turned and stared silently out the window at the open blue sky.

ADDENDUM: Not long after my visit, tragedy struck Ches again as his son Gene was shot to death on their Twiggs County property near the old school bus, a murder which remains unsolved. Gene is buried in a donated plot in Jeffersonville, Georgia. A few months later, Ches passed away at his nursing home at age 103.

You can help keep the stories coming by making a donation to The Moonlit Road.com. Large or small, any amount helps!

Photo/Artwork Credits:

Home Page:

“Face Of A Legend.”  Pencil drawing by Larry K. Martin.  Copyright by Larry K. Martin. Printed with permission of the artist. This subject and others are available as prints from larrykmartin.com.

Story Page:

1. “America’s Goatman – Mr. Ches McCartney.” Pencil drawing by Larry K. Martin.  Copyright by Larry K. Martin. Printed with permission of the artist. This subject and others are available as prints from larrykmartin.com.
2. Postcard of the Goat Man handed out at his stops, photographer unknown.
3. Home movie of the Goat Man provided by Robert Bonner.
4. Picture of Goat Man in 1998 by Craig Dominey.

Other Goat Man Links:

Facebook group for The Goat Man
Great slide show of Goat Man photos
Wikipeda entry on The Goat Man
The Goat Man, America’s Legend
America’s Goat Man
New Georgia Encyclopedia entry on The Goat Man

Additional Resources:

Darryl Patton,  America’s “Goat Man” (Mr. Ches McCartney) (Gadsden, Ala.: Little River Press, 1994).

Taken from the CD “A Tour of Southern Ghosts”
Copyright 2000 Art Station
Used by permission

Sound Design by Henry Howard

Photography by Craig and Connie Dominey

-Craig

Directed by Craig Dominey

Told by John Gentile

Sound Design by Henry Howard

Photography by Craig and Connie Dominey

Many beloved Southern folktales like “The Barefoot Woman” could have faded into obscurity were it not for an ambitious U.S. government program of the 1930s called the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP). The FWP was a part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal — a sweeping set of reforms created to help America recover from the Great Depression.

The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was one of the programs under the New Deal that helped give government jobs to thousands of unemployed Americans during this time. The FWP was part of this program and, at its height, hired over 6,000 unemployed writers, both novices and experienced, at a modest salary of $20 per week. Many famous writers were employed by this program, including Saul Bellow, John Cheever and Zora Neale Hurston.

The FWP writers were originally hired to produce a series of state guidebooks, which would later become classics of Americana. The Folklore Unit of the FWP was specifically instructed to collect “life histories” from a wide variety of Americans from all walks of like. The everyday stories of stone cutters, department store clerks, painters, textile workers, farmers and many others were recorded for future publication. The government hoped that this project would provide the nation with a symbol of multi-cultural strength.

 In 1938, the Folklore Unit was placed under the direction of Benjamin Botkin. Concerned with the rise of fascism in Europe, Botkin felt that the folklore project was very important in that it could help foster tolerance between Americans of different backgrounds. He instructed his writers to conduct one-on-one interviews with their subjects, and to do everything they could to make their subjects feel important and, consequently, speak freely.

Although many of these writers were amateurs when it came to collecting folklore, they soon learned their skills on the job. Without the benefit of latter-day tape recorders, the writers reconstructed the life histories they collected from notes and memory. Botkin encouraged them to listen for characteristic speech patterns and vernacular language. From 1938-1942, the writers documented traditional statements, expressions, songs, essays and stories from across the country.

The American South was seen as particularly fertile ground for folklore. The South was still a largely rural and agricultural region back then, and had not had its “old ways” buried under large cities and so-called “artificial civilization.” Botkin found that the South’s black population, mountaineers and poor whites were the main sources of folklore, and was impressed with the amount of good storytelling and singing he heard during his travels. He particularly credited the friendliness and camaraderie between natives and visitors for the wealth of storytelling material.

The FWP was not without it’s critics, however. Academic folklorists considered the FWP folklore collection to be undependable, since it was collected by amateurs. Detractors of the Roosevelt administration considered the WPA program as a whole to be wasteful, slow and excessive (they joked that WPA stood for “We Piddle Around”). Some congressional leaders even believed that the folklore collections were Communist propaganda.

When World War II broke out, the FWP came to an abrupt halt, and most of the folklore collection was left unpublished. The vast piles of records lay virtually unnoticed in the Library of Congress until recently. The Internet, in particular, has made many of these life history manuscripts more accessible to the public.

For more information on the Federal Writers’ Project and the New Deal, check out these sites:

American Life Histories
Part of the Library of Congress’s American Memory series, this excellent site features life history manuscripts from the FWP, as well as historical information on the program itself.

New Deal Network
A project of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute (FERI), this site is a research and teaching resource devoted to the public works and arts projects of the New Deal.

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Directed by Craig Dominey

Told by Evelyn McCray

Music by Barbara Panter

Sound Design by Henry Howard

Photography by Jon Kownacki