S1 Ep46: The Cowboy in the Canteen

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Check the carton for the farm name, pop it into vitalfarms.com slash farm, and boom, you're looking at the pasture. So next time you're in the store, look for the black carton in the egg aisle and visit vitalfarms.com to learn more. Vital Farms. Good eggs. No shortcuts. The views and opinions expressed by hosts and listeners on the Astonishing Dead Letter office are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Astonishing Legends Productions, the Astonishing Legends Network, or any affiliated entities or guests. When something unexplainable happens to you, it can make you feel isolated or alone. But trust us, you're not. For over a decade, you've been sending your strange stories to Astonishing Legends. And now it's time for our fellow legenders to hear them too. Join us weekly in Blanket Fortiana as we dig through your intriguing messages to the Astonishing Dead Letter office. Tonight's episode, The Cowboy in the Canteen. Now, this is a great dead letter, my friend. It reminds me of that story. It was one of the most chilling and fascinating stories that's ever appeared on Jim Harreld's campfire. We always talk about it. Actually, so many people talk about it because it was so detailed and it was so cinematic in a way, but chilling. And it's about that couple, I think it was after a concert, wandering into a bar. And it was a roadhouse classic. And the woman in the story needed to use the restroom. And I thought they'd take a break. It was a long drive back late at night. And then they realize that they are slowly becoming part of a painting on the interior of the bar that's hanging on the wall behind it. Classic Rod Serling. Yeah. It really is good. It's straight out of The Twilight Zone for sure. It is one of the best campfires ever. To your point, though, tonight's letter from listener Brooke is similar but different, as you're about to hear. It's about someone from a different time and place finding a way to interact with what, at that time anyway, was the present day. Exactly. It's a stranger who literally appeared out of nowhere with a request that he wanted brought up for discussion at the next meeting taking place at this particular VFW post in Michigan. And for the uninitiated, that's an organization for veterans of foreign wars, which my grandfather was part of, which we'll tell you about a little bit more on the other side of this story. So, Mr. Philbrook, I believe it is your turn to read the story, sir. Yes, it is. And by the way, it just occurred to me we're doing two Michigan stories in a row. That's a complete fluke. But so welcome back, Michigan. It's a very old and richly storied place. Yes. Lots of friends from there. All right. Here we go. This is Brooke's dead letter. Hey, guys. For starters, I wanted to say I love the show and thank you for being with me through many a work day. After listening to the last batch of listener stories, I thought I would write to tell you about my experiences working at a VFW canteen for several years. To set the scene, the VFW I worked at is located directly off of the freeway with a couple of surrounding businesses, but no sidewalk or anything like that. We're about a three-minute drive from civilization, but between the heavily wooded neighborhood that backs up to our back lot and the freeway directly out the front door, it can feel pretty isolated. The canteen has several large windows that face out onto the parking lot and freeway. You can see pretty much the entire lot and road from behind the bar. We had our fair share of ghostly activity. Things going missing and reappearing, phantom footsteps and doors slamming, and on one occasion, every single item in the kitchen flying off of the shelves and out of the cabinets onto the floor instantaneously. We always chalked it up to Vincent. Vincent was the man who the post was named after. If you're not aware, VFW posts are always named after the first member to pass away after the founding of the post, so it always made sense to us that it was him. As you entered the canteen, we had a memorial for POWs, and funnily enough, it seemed that Vincent would only make himself known if the light that illuminated the memorial didn't get turned on for whatever reason that day. There were many times that I would walk in for my closing shift, and the vibe of the bar would just not feel right. Nine times out of ten, as soon as I would turn the memorial lights on, the ill vibes would fade, and there would be nothing further heard from Vincent for the rest of the night. I could go on for days with stories of things we attributed to Vincent, but the story I really wanted to tell you is about one of the strangest customers I ever served. It had been a slow night. I don't remember the exact month, but it was early winter, and with us being in Michigan, it was pretty cold out. I was working the closing shift, and it was starting to get late. I was behind the bar, chatting with my two remaining patrons, helping them decide where they should go for dinner that night, when a man walked in. I was quite startled by his arrival, as, as I had stated earlier, I had a full view of the parking lot, and we were not really located in an area that you could easily walk to. It was after dark, so at the very least, I should have seen his headlights as he pulled in, but I had no idea he was there until he walked in the canteen doors. He was dressed in a definitely vintage, but not necessarily unusual fashion. Cowboy boots, old blue jeans, a dark colored button-up, and a worn dark brown leather vest. He was also wearing a cowboy hat, with a large, reddish-brown feather sticking out of it. He bellied up to the bar, and I asked him what he would like to drink. After a moment to ponder, he just said, beer. I asked if he had a preference of what kind, to which he just repeated, beer. I poured him a pint, and gave him his total, which he paid entirely, in dollar coins. I gave him his change, then went to cash out the tab for the couple that was getting ready to leave. We said our goodbyes, and very quickly, it was just me and Mr. Cowboy Hat, alone in the bar. We made a little bit of awkward small talk that didn't really lead anywhere, until, from what I can tell, he had sussed out that he felt he could trust me. His tone very quickly changed from super casual to very serious. He told me there was something important he needed my help with, and pulled a handwritten letter out of the pocket of his vest. He told me that he was currently working to get shell shock, as he called it, recognized as a qualification for a Purple Heart. We spoke for about 20 minutes about shell shock, and the lasting effects it has on veterans, and why he was so passionate about it. He wanted me to take the letter to the next house meeting, and essentially rally the post behind the cause. He told me not to give the letter to the commander, because he wouldn't care enough to speak on it, and he wanted to be sure the message was heard. I assured him I would do what I could to get the message out there, and place the letter on the coolers behind me. About this time, the phone rang. I excused myself to answer it, and it was the wife from the couple who had left the bar about 30 minutes before. She was calling to check on me, because she was worried about me being alone with the stranger, because he gave off such strange vibes. I assured her I was fine, though honestly I was elated she called, because that meant that he was, for sure, real. And not just some strange floor cleaner-induced hallucination. I hung up the phone, and returned to my conversation with the western-themed stranger. As I came back behind the bar, he asked me if I liked the feather in his hat. I told him that I did. What else do you say to that question? And he proceeded to tell me a story about a general that he served under, who during a game of cards, told him he should keep a feather in his hat, because he liked how it looked on him. He then asked me if I was familiar with the general, to which I told him, unfortunately, I had not heard his name before. He urged me to look him up when I had the chance, and I promised him I would, as I scribbled the name down onto a scrap piece of paper. As I finished writing down the name, he once again reminded me not to give the commander the letter, threw back the final swig of his beer, and tossed me a couple dollar coins for a tip. I watched this man intently as he walked out of the canteen, still confused as to where he had parked. After a couple of seconds of not seeing headlights, I ran over to the windows and pretended to clean while I surveyed the lot. No car, no man, no one driving, and no one walking. I returned to the bar and decided to Google the name he had given me. To this day, I wish I had kept that piece of paper, because for the life of me, I cannot remember what his name was. But the one thing I do remember is that yes, he was in fact a general. But he was a general that served during the Civil War. I was a bit taken aback, but chalked it up to him being a crazy old man, and continued with my clothes like normal. Before I left, I made sure to leave the letter on the back cooler for my canteen manager or auxiliary president to look at in the morning. I am not a VFW member. I only worked there, so even if I wanted to, I would not have been allowed in a meeting to fight for his cause. But I wanted to pass along the message at the very least, because I told him I would. When I returned the next day, to my surprise, the AM bartender had called off, and the commander was filling in. As I counted down my till, I told him the story of the crazy time-traveling cowboy, and asked if he had had a chance to read the letter. To which he responded, what letter? When I insisted that I had left a letter on the coolers the night before, he looked at me like I was crazy, and told me there was absolutely nothing there when he opened that morning. I looked under the sinks, in the coolers, and just about anywhere I could think. Maybe it went behind the bar, but it was nowhere to be found. Somehow, in a completely locked bar, the letter had disappeared overnight. I guess when the cowboy told me he didn't want the commander to have it, he was serious. To this day, I have no idea what I encountered that night. A crazy old man? A time traveler? A ghost? I don't think I will ever know for sure, though part of me hopes that I do run into him again someday, so I can apologize for not being able to help spread his message. Our journey into the shadows continue after this brief break. Download the app at your app store or hhc247.org. Back to exploring the unexplained. Wow, I really like that story. For all the obvious reasons, if you know me well. But first and foremost, the fact that whatever this was, and just from her description, I tend to believe that it was something a little extraordinary, not normal, just because of, again, yeah, the parking lot, no cars. This guy would have had to walk a long ways in a very strange place to get there, which is possible, but it's not that likely. And just the whole message, the letter. So taken all together, it seems like just an unusual experience, not mundane, let's say. Let's leave it there. And also, as I was saying, the interaction between something then that is possibly out of the ordinary, otherworldly, in a very general sense, there's an interaction there. There's a letter that's held. There's materials. It's not just a sighting. And there are coins. There's beer that was drank. And so getting back to that Jim Harreld story about the roadhouse, I really should commit that title to memory. But he just called the roadhouse. I know, I know. But I definitely remember a lot of the elements of the story. And I definitely remember hearing it for the first time because it was late at night when I was working at one of my old jobs. And I was at the office late at night. It was like 2 to 3 in the morning by myself in a conference room, like just setting up road cases. And that one, I remember playing. It's like, what was that? And I just repeated it like two or three times. Yeah. And of course, it got a real chilled vibe. And then that office, as new as it was, turned out to be haunted. Oh, yeah. That's right. Which I later remembered, yeah. So we had another guy, the building manager called Charlie. It's funny how you also assign names because you want to make it personal. It seems like a very personal interaction. So you assign a name to the ghost. And whether that's accurate or not, it makes it real. You know, to that point for us, a lot of times, too, I felt like we've covered stories or heard about stories over the years where when people found out the name of a potential suspect for the ghost, it matched what they just thought they had made up. That's right. Quite often that happens. And then you wonder, is that plot idea planted in your head, whispered to you in a way that you don't hear? Yeah. But getting back to the story, well, first, the roadhouse. Just to sum that up quickly, it's a woman and her male friend had, I think, seen a concert, some live music. And they were driving back and it was late. Yeah. And it was a remote road and she had to use the restroom and there was nothing open. This is the only place open, but the lights were on. There was cars in the parking lot. Yeah. And they said, well, it's like an okay place, doesn't look too dangerous. And she went in and used the restroom. She uses two canes to walk with. It was coming through, I think, swinging doors. So it had a locked door, but, you know, when those doors are open, it's just swinging doors. And they liked the place. So they sat down, had a couple of beers, tried to talk to several of the patrons who smiled at them. They were friendly, but they did not talk back. Right. Right. But there was interaction. They drank beer there. One of them did use the restroom. But the hook of the story, or the button, is that they noticed a large mural on the wall. And they said, well, that's kind of cool. Somebody obviously painted that and it's got all the regulars there. They noticed all the people in the bar. Like, hey, there's one of the bartenders with a mesh muscle shirt. And there's, I think maybe there was another female bartender. And then there's the three people sitting by themselves at the table in the corner who smiled at us, but said nothing, even though they said hello to them a few times. And so it's like, everyone's here. And then they noticed there's people coming into the bar through the swinging doors. And she noticed one of them had two canes. And it's like, oh my God. In the painting. I think that's us. Yeah. Right. Yes. And scene. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the chilling moment. So there's some interaction there. But the point of bringing that story in is that, and that's a time slip, perhaps. I don't know. You would call it a ghostly kind of a thing. And of course, I think as they left or thought, we should leave now. Right. Her companion said, yes, let's leave now. And they got in their car. And I think as they were pulling out, they turned back and all the lights were off. Or they came back later and it was boarded up. It hadn't been open. And it was a building, but it had been closed for decades or something like that. That's a different story. I think this place was actually, they did come back later. And it was a long ways from where they lived. So, you know, it was some time had passed, but they came back and it was a functioning open bar. And they, of course, I think they described the people working there and saying, no, we don't really have anybody that works there. But, you know, and then the person they talked to, like, well, I've only been working here a few years. Maybe that was somebody from before that had worked here previously. But it was all just very chilling. So the point about this story and the connection is that, yeah, there's some interaction. And another favorite Jim Harrell campfire story is somebody stopping off at a 50s-style diner. One of those kitschy kind of 50s places. And it was a couple on a road trip. And they stopped in. And it's like, man, this place looks really accurate. Like, everybody's really into this. They look so 50s. It reminded me of Ed DeBevix, remember, in L.A.? You know, but they were playing, you know, those are struggling actors playing characters. But they would dress up and they would adopt a character. The pom-pom poodle skirt gal is a waitress. And, like, you know, the 50s greaser guy with the hair. And so they all had characters that they were playing. But this diner just seemed like they were polite, I think, but not very friendly. Right, right. Like, they just didn't talk. They took their order. And here's the thing. They ate the food there. Like, where did that ghost food come from? Is that just from another dimension? Interdimensional chicken fried steak and gravy? I don't know. Well, if you can get pancakes out of a guy coming out of a UFO, I don't see why not. That's right. Mr. Simonton, who had the, which now I've heard the theory it might be some form of mana, as in, like, an intergalactic foodstuff. Didn't taste very good. Needed salt, I think. Or they were salty. I can't remember. It was not delicious. But, yeah, this story here also, Scott, do you remember when we were in Atchison? The place that shall not be mentioned. But this was the Elks Lodge there in Atchison, Kansas. Of course I remember that. We did a co-appearance there with our friends from Generation Y. That's right. Because they weren't too far away from there. And so all of us sat, did a panel there, and took questions from the audience. We were in town for Amelia Earhart gathering that Chris Williamson put together from Chasing Earhart. And, yeah, that building was really cool. The Elks Lodge was, and it definitely had a vibe, that place. Oh, yes, it did. Yeah, it did. We were told it was haunted. At least the, this also reminds me of the story, the downstairs part where there is a bar. Yeah. And that is Elks Lodge, Atchison, Lodge 647. The street address is 609. And I don't know, I can't remember what street it's actually on. But the banner outside, this would be from 2018, says, 117 years of Atchison Lodge of the Elks. So, but the downstairs, we didn't see any ghosts. I took a bunch of photos, hoping to catch something. Yeah. And as far as I can tell, nothing showed up, but it just seemed like a regular lodge. By the way, it's at 609 Kansas Avenue. Oh, there you go. Okay. And then the upstairs is a really cool, more lively used bar where you can get discounted drinks. Yeah. A lot of folks stop off there before going home for dinner. Yes. Yes. So, yeah, just a very cool place. But yeah, these stories, you know, there's a lot of interaction and it's like every restaurant. I'm convinced that most every old place that's a bar or lodge or something has some kind of activity in it. It just may not be very prevalent. And then some places have a lot of activity and it's a resident type of spirit. Or it may be some type of portal or thin place where this wandering cowboy just thought he'd show up. Now, you have some talking points here that you made notes from. A little bit of research. I mean, first of all, for people that don't know, and I want to hear from you about this in a second too, but the VFW or Veteran of Foreign Wars is a organization in the U.S. and I'm just perusing Wikipedia here. This is for veterans who fought in wars, campaigns, and expeditions on foreign land, waters, or airspace as military service members. Established September 29th, 1899 in Columbus, Ohio. That's the state that's the origin of all things strange. Just ask Seth Breedlove and just ask like every other story we cover somehow connects back to Ohio. But it's headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. It was federally chartered in 1936, so 37 years after it was founded. It says here it resulted from the amalgamation of several societies formed immediately following the Spanish-American War. In 1899, little groups of veterans returning from campaigning in Cuba and the Philippine Islands founded local societies upon a spirit of comradeship known only to those who faced the dangers of that war side by side. These groups all got together and then it became this larger organization. And there are lots and lots and lots of these. Now, Brooke, who sent this story in, did not specify where exactly this lodge was. And I did look for a long time because that's the kind of thing I love to do. And I was like, oh, I'll look this up. There's going to be a lodge named Vincent. But I think the name might be an informal sort of internal name for the post because they generally have numbers. And what I did find out was in Michigan, there's like 180 or 200 of them. So I couldn't figure out which one this was at because, of course, I wanted to look at a picture of the building and where it was located. So, Brooke, if you hear this and you want to send us more information, let us know and we will get that out to our listeners. But so your grandfather was in the VFW. Is that what you said? Yeah, he was in World War II. So that was an organization that he loved attending. And in his local northern Idaho chapter there, the post, they were pretty active and they do a lot of community service. But I just remember him being very active and he wasn't a drinker, so he wasn't there for the bar, but they did a lot of other social. Well, they don't all have bars. I did find that out today. Some do and some don't. Yeah. I think, and I can't remember if this is the same VFW lodge, but there was a fire at this lodge, I think, or some, or could have been the American Legion Hall. But what was saved out of there was an old .45-70 Springfield trapdoor rifle, which he ended up saving, I think, or somehow obtaining it. And he passed it down to me. So I have a little souvenir from one of those places. It may be the VFW lodge. I'm not sure. But no, it's just a great organization. And they provide a lot of support because there is nothing else quite like the experience of those in the military who have served in combat conditions and under those kind of wars. And not to take anything away from anyone else's service, but getting shot at, being shot, experiencing that type of intense warfare does something to you. It certainly did to my grandfather. And so that's a very tight bond that he shared with others who had experienced that. So I understand the intense emotion there. And our character here in the story, Cowboy Hat Guy, was very adamant. And that's another aspect of a lot of ghost stories. They have some unfinished business that they need help from the living to accomplish. Yeah. And here, it's like, again, there's a physical letter. Like, where did this ghost letter come from? And so you're going to get into the nitty gritty here because you made some really interesting notes about what is going on here. Well, is it spirit? Is it ghostly? Or is it another dimension? Is it a time travel thing? Who are these people? The general, when I first heard that, it's like, oh, he was a Civil War general. Well, that's interesting. Yeah. And you had raised the question, the commander of the post did to this Cowboy Hat Guy, did that represent a past commander that he was? He's like, this guy's not going to take it up. Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't, maybe doesn't really consider shell shock to be a real condition. It's just psychological. You'll get over it. Right. Right. As was the attitude back then. That's right. They didn't even, of course, understand PTSD. But as far as my grandfather was concerned, I noticed that sometimes he would get a little sweaty and shaky. Part of that was malaria he got in the Philippines because it never goes away. But he would just be a little bit nervous sometimes. And he didn't like things that rattled and he didn't like some unexpected loud noises. And so, you know, it's not until you're older, you realize like, oh, that's, yeah, it's a little bit of PTSD. He'd seen some really bad stuff. Right, right. And so, they just dealt with it back then. And as people may have seen from the really terrific film Patton with George C. Scott, I just saw that recently again where he slaps the soldier with his gloves. Not with his fist, but basically for crying and losing it in front of other guys that are in the infirmary who've had really major physical damage. And he thought like, you know, don't do that in front of these brave men. Right. You're bringing morale down. So, that caused a huge stink. He lost a command because of it. But to this cowboy hat guy, this is something serious that he needed. Whatever that ocean is between the living and the dead, the deceased spirit, another dimension, whatever it was, it was so important to them that they manifested enough or punched a hole through to deliver this letter. And that it wasn't going to the right guy. Right. So, it was withheld. And so, his quest goes on. Well, yeah, it does. And here's the interesting thing about that because he talks about this one particular general, but the term shell shock historically didn't appear until World War I. So, there's some debate as to like, well, what – is he looking across time? I mean, you know, if you believe any of this at all, maybe she made the whole thing up. You know, I don't know. Maybe we don't say that enough with the dead letters. That's what people like to hear from us on Astonishing Legends. Well, what's the mundane explanation? But let's just lean into this story for now because that's – you know, that makes the term anachronistic to the Civil War. But obviously, the idea of it isn't. They probably didn't even have a word for it in the Civil War, but they knew that, you know, people were upset, you know, like by what had happened to them. And so, on the Wikipedia page here where it talks about the origins of the term shell shock, which, yes, now is generally considered to be a component of or type of PTSD, but you don't use that term anymore. But it says here the term shell shock was coined during the Battle of Loos, L-O-O-S, to reflect an assumed link between the symptoms and the effects of explosions from artillery shells. Now, the Battle of Loos, that took place from September 25th to October 8th, 1915 in France on the Western Front during World War I. It was the biggest British attack of 1915 and the first time that the British used gas as a weapon. So, that term was first published in 1915 in an article in The Lancet by Charles Myers. Now, some 60% to 80% of shell shock cases displayed acute neurasthenia, while 10% displayed what would now be termed symptoms of conversion disorder, including mutism and fugue. And neurasthenia, I guess, is a term that was first used as early as 1929 for a mechanical weakness of the nerves. That is a word that I never heard or thought about until I saw the Grand Budapest Hotel, and it's part of the dialogue in that, which probably means it was taken from whatever book that Wes Anderson based that on. When I just remember, he says somebody had an acute case of neurasthenia, you know, which I didn't – and when that came up, I was like, oh, this reminds me of that. But anyway, if you look at the shell shock Wikipedia page or you Google it at all, you can see all kinds of horrific videos of soldiers twitching and just being in terror. It's horrible. My question was with the cowboy who knew a general from the Civil War, is he on a mission across time, like not just for whatever he may have personally experienced, but for all soldiers to get the Purple Heart to be part of this? Now, and here's the interesting thing about this, you know, because specifically he was talking about the Purple Heart. The Department of Defense took this up, I think, in 2009 and decided that PTSD, not shell shock, but PTSD would not merit a Purple Heart. And, of course, there's a lot of people on both sides of this, both veterans and non-veterans who talk about, well, there's the difference of whether or not it was a wound created by the enemy, which you could argue that PTSD was. Once it was discovered, you could argue that things were done to cause it, but I don't know enough about that. I certainly did not fight, and I'm not pretending to know about that, so I'll let our veterans have their judgment on that. I'm not saying that I'm qualified to speculate about it. But it's interesting that the Department of Defense does not allow that. So whoever our cowboy friend was, and whenever this happened, because Brooke didn't say what year this happened, this is still an ongoing debate within the Department of Defense, which I thought was interesting. Yes, so that's a very serious condition, whether it's recognized or not. This is something far and away much more horrific and traumatic, and you just, you want to be recognized for it. Like, I went through this, it touched me, it scarred me, and it's not so much about an award, it's just that you just want the recognition of that this happened. Yeah. And so it was very important to Cowboy Guy, so whether it's recognized or not, it's just fascinating that that's the message, that was the mission that transcends time and space and planes of existence and everything to get to somebody that could help. And it wasn't delivered during the day, the letter just didn't mysteriously show up on the desk of the adjutant or co-commander, the second in charge. It went to somebody, again, he thought he could trust late at night when no one else was in the bar. But he was seen, he was seen by that couple. Yeah, he was a real kind of person, so then you do wonder, like I said, if it was that important to the guy, would he not come back some other night? Like, hey, you know, I sent you that letter, what happened with that? Were you able to get it to somebody else? Well, maybe it takes a lot of energy or maybe that's a one-shot deal to manifest that way, to be solid and to consume and enjoy beer without having to pour out on the floor like when Slimer eats all that food in Ghostbusters. That's the common ghost, yes, or in Scrooged, Bill Murray's old boss drinking and it's going through the bullet holes. That's the gag, but yeah, in this case, this is just very real and very physical, so the more that that occurs, the more you do wonder, well, is this actually spirit or is it just more physical and just odd? I think the guy was passing through, maybe he walked there, maybe he passed away soon after and never got around to following up on it. Yeah, because Brooke did not seem to think that he was Vincent, necessarily, what they were calling Vincent. Yeah, I have no connection to this story, but I don't feel like it that way either. Yeah, like she thought that this was a separate thing. Right. And again, like you said, maybe overall, it's a thin place. My question, too, going back to, you know, the point that you brought up about me bringing up before about the commander was like, when he said, don't give this to the commander, you know, take it up in the next general meeting and rally the VFW post behind it. And, you know, so we can get the word out. He doesn't trust the commander. And then, so my question there was, did this cowboy have a problem with a commander that he had in the past during his war experience? Or did he specifically not like whatever person was in charge of this particular VFW post in Brooke's present day? Right. I get the feeling, though, he knew the commander. Like, whatever this person was, whether real or not, he had met this commander. And then he chatted him up about it and said, well, how do you feel about shell shock? And so he just knew that this guy would brush it off. Right. Not to say it would be dismissive, but just like, no, this is going to the back burner. I need somebody to really get behind this and pay attention to this. And it didn't happen. So the other thing, though, is, again, the physicality of it. It's like there's a letter. Aside from the coins, as Brooke said, like, I understand how she handled this. I may have taken the letter home with me just because the thing was so odd. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. You take it home and it disappears. Then you feel really bad. Well, I have a point to make about that. Okay. There's a lot more to this. It's not just that the letter got lost, but also the fact that she can't remember the name of the general. Now, I get that, by the way, because, you know, all we do is look up stuff like that. And I can't remember 90% of it without going back and looking at notes. So respect on that. Totally get it. But by the same token, a lot of times in these paranormal encounters, those details fly away or they become unimportant to you for some reason. It's almost like you're in a dream. It's like when you first wake up, if you don't write that dream down, right then, 10 minutes later, it's gone. Yep. Yep. And I think that that is just one of those things that happens in paranormal encounters. Now, I don't know whether the implication there is that the paranormal encounter is all in your head or a dreamlike state, or, you know, that's the giant debate that we've obviously been having for a dozen years now. But whatever the case, it could be that it's like, God, I wish I could remember that general's name. Also, where did the letter go? Well, did the letter ever exist? Also, here's the, you guys want the mundane thing? Yeah, it could have just fallen behind the cooler. Yeah. Like, it's a bar. You know, people are cleaning up and setting up and taking it down and whatever every day. There's all kinds of places that a piece of paper could have gone. And then 10, 15 years later, you find it and it's a soggy mess and it just gets thrown away, you know? And it's like, oh, wait, that's the paranormal letter I lost 15 years ago. It's gone. Mundane. Talk about that. Somebody could just tossed it. Maybe it just evaporated. It was, it was DA ported. So it went back to the guy like, okay, you know, it took me a lot of energy to write this. It's like the show Ghosts where the British version, it's very hard for the guy to type, but he can press buttons like in a, in a poltergeist fashion. Right, right, right. But it takes, it takes a lot of energy and he's like straining to punch the keys on the, on the, on the laptop, but he can do it. It's just like, but make the message short and concise and to the point. Yeah. And so it's like, whatever energy this took, it's like, okay, if you're not going to send this to this guy, I'm just going to take this back and I'll wait for some other bartender to, or something more appropriate maybe to hand this to. It's just fascinating. So you're talking about the letter at home and what's your idea? I thought you were going to say something about taking possession of something that may be from another place. I mean, I, unfortunately I can't point to specific cases, but I feel like we've talked or covered things where it's like, yeah, it's there and then it's not there. And that's all there is to it. You had it, you saw it, and now it's not part of this anymore. Right, right. Which, you know, gets back to the big, the eternal question. It's like, how much of this is happening in the real world? But again, the, the cool thing about Brooke's story is that there were witnesses and not only that, it sounds like a couple that she knew well enough that they called back up there and were like, are you okay? Yes. So it wasn't just general public eyewitnesses. It was a couple that knew who she was enough to call and check on her a half hour later. Yeah. And so they saw that person too. And that's the really interesting part to me. And the other thing is like, she said, I waited a few seconds and went over and pretended to clean. I love that. I was pretending to clean and looking out the window. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And nobody's out there. So it's like, where did this guy go? There's a freeway in the front and woods in the back and closed businesses next door. Yep. Yep. Like, did he just duck behind the building and walk into the woods? Like, or did he get on a horse? You know, I don't know. A ghost horse. He didn't see him that. Phantom horse. Yeah. He wasn't that period. No, I know. Well, that's the other thing is like, I mean, there is a crossover between cowboy attire and the civil war for sure. Oh, sure. Yeah. But again, then the term shell shock, that's anachronistic for the civil war. Although there was cannon artillery, of course, and a lot of people died by that means. And again, that was that and the fact that you had pretty decent by that time, at least, you know, muzzle loaders and people who could shoot a Kentucky rifle very well. Tremendous casualties and just such carnage and the horror of it all. It's a little different, I think. You know, there's this old adage or a factoid that more artillery was fired during the Battle of the Ardennes Forest in World War I than any other battle. But apparently that's not true. There was a lot of artillery going on. But the Battle of Verdun in World War I, there was apparently more artillery fired. But just the horror of that. Verdun is the battle that they connect to. I mean, obviously, that's a future time period, but that they connect to in Edge of Tomorrow, the Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt movie. Yes. No, so like I said, it's no less horrific, but just the sheer amount of artillery fire in World War I, that it had a maybe a greater impact on more of the troops who had served and fought. But again, there's a lot of elements to this. We're trying to nitpick this about things being anachronistic. It all is. Yeah, yeah. I'm not nitpicking it. No, no, no. Not to say that at all. I'm just saying like we're drilling down and trying to find a lead with logic as we always do, because that's all we got, you know, and you're trying to find connections here is that you're trying to make sense of all this. And there's a lot of elements here that, again, they're very familiar to me at least because my grandfather was also an old cowboy and he would frequently, you know, wear cowboy Western gear and boots and a hat and hang out at the VFW. So I can picture this pretty clearly in my mind of what's happening. But the other aspect of this is money, which seems to be important. And just in spirit world of how, because I guess as humans, we place such import on currency and the value of that. And you'll see people leaving coins and pennies on top of gravestones or placing money. Yeah, that's for crossing the river Styx. Yeah, exactly. It's ancient because it's just represents value, I think, and something in exchange and in return that is given and taken. I love items though, like our good friend Seth Borgen, remember from a Halloween story about the $5 I think that he gave to the indigent man he had come across as just kind of like a favor, like, uh, well, here's $5. And then if you remember, $5 weirdly showed up tucked under my screen door at my apartment. That's right. That's right. And I still have it somewhere. And again, I don't know if there's any significance other than that was just a very odd thing to find. Usually people are in LA are stealing $5 from your doorstep. And not leaving it. Yeah, not leaving it. It's just a weird thing to do. And then it's like completely unrelated. It's somebody, um, well, a lot of people used to come by my apartment door thinking I was somebody else or just people do dumb. Again, people do dumb stuff. My apartment building has eight units and mine faced the street and people would come up to my strangers knocking on the door. Like, is Jennifer here? It's like, who is like, does Jennifer live here? Is she here? It's like, dude, this is an apartment building. There's eight. Do you think this is not just a giant house and this is the front door? Right, right, right. It's just the weirdest thing that people would do. So yeah, maybe somebody just left it there like, oh, I owe Jennifer $5. Here's $5. Anyway, getting back to the coins, sir. Yeah, so the coins. Is something physical and money and the importance of money being exchanged? So what's really interesting is these coins that he paid with, if they came from the Civil War era, they could very well have been ceded liberty dollars. And the ceded liberty dollar was made by the U.S. Mint from 1840 to 1873. It was 78% silver. So if you were to have one of these now, I guess, depending on the condition that these one or two that might have been left by the ghost cowboy, there's some on eBay for anywhere from $600 all the way up to $11,000 or $12,000. Wow. So I don't know if you guys just threw those in the till and took them to the bank the next day or if they stood out to you at all. Or did you notice that they were actually, no, right for the time period? Because there are dollar coins. Yeah. But so just that, that would be one question. I'd be like, whoa, did you just make $25,000 maybe for a couple of beers? Again, it's interesting, but it is such a mundane thing. You don't think about it at the time. And other than now, I mean, again, we don't know when this story occurred, but I would say maybe 20 years ago. Remember the Susan B. Anthony dollar and the new dollar, those are more prevalent. They try to get that going. And now people hate coins so much, you're trying to get rid of the penny. So there's a feeling about it, but there is something about coins. I just thought about, is it episode five of the new revamping of Unsolved Mysteries, I think titled Paranormal Rangers, one of my favorite episodes of all time of any Unsolved Mysteries or any Paranormal show with the two native tribal police officers who were investigating and they had such great stories. But they talk about one of the cases they investigated were a, somebody on the res that one of the native folks was a guy who was claiming that coins were raining down from a ceiling out of nowhere. So again, like the coins, I don't know if he raked in a fortune with that, probably not, but where did those come from and where do they go? Are they out of circulation? The dime that was from Mel's hole that was from a non-existent minting after FDR had passed or before he was president, something. It was just, that's anachronistic, if that's true. This one, I tend to trust more as a story because it is one of our listeners, one of our dear listeners. And just the, again, it's not too overblown, it's just very strange. But all in all, I hope whatever that exchange was that eventually that message gets through and a cowboy guy can have some peace. Well, Brooke, this is a pretty detailed encounter. Most folks don't get a chance to spend as much time with someone that may have been dead and gone like this fellow. So thank you for sending that in. It would be amazing to figure out who that general was. But even with that information, it would likely be impossible to connect this ghost to a specific person if a ghost is what he was. Folks, if you've had an experience with an out-of-place individual like this or any other story befitting Blanket Fortiana, send it to deadletterofficeatastonishinglegends.com. We'll see you next week. The Astonishing Dead Letter Office is hosted by Scott Philbrook and Forrest Burgess and is executive produced by Tess Feifel. The show is edited and mixed by Sarah Voorhees-Wendell at VW Sound. The theme is based on the Astonishing Legends theme by Judson Crane at Founder Music, arranged by Alan Carissia, who composes all the other music in the show. Tommy Beaver Design created the logo. The announcer is John Bowler. That's me. Stories are lightly edited for length, content, and readability, but otherwise presented as they're sent to us. We're always looking for more Dead Letters, so if you have a story of your own you'd like to share, email it to deadletterofficeatastonishinglegends.com. Please include how you would like to be credited. First name only? First name last initial? Anonymous? A pseudonym? Let us know. Due to the number of emails coming in, we often cannot respond, but we do read them all. No part of this show may be reproduced anywhere without permission. Copyright Astonishing Legends Productions. Hey, I'm Jesse Palmer, host of The Bachelor with some exciting news. After more than 20 years of drama, The Bachelor Mansion is getting... Is getting... My bad. 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