Mr. Virgo loved the ghost hunting shows. We would sit and watch them every week…week in, week out. I kinda liked Ghost Hunters because I liked the stars. But I could not stand Ghost Adventures because Zach made me crazy. We took the Ghost tour at the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, WV. My late uncle actually was the administrator there back in the ’60s. Mr. Virgo really enjoyed that tour. He wanted to tour the prison at Moundsville, but we never got a chance to come back here before he died.
When I was heading south home from Wheeling, I drove right through Moundsville. The Penitentiary sits in an old, tired neighborhood and presents an imposing edifice with its dark, weathered stones and bar-covered windows. It is directly across the street from a huge Native American burial mound. I decided to pull in and check it out. It was a cool afternoon with low-scudding grey rainclouds blowing over as the tour began at 3:00…the last of the day and, as it turned out, the last of the year.
As you enter and buy your ticket, you see the usual gift shop fodder…snacks, sodas, t-shirts. To the left is “Old Sparky”, the electric chair that executed nine men in the lifetime of the pen. Eighty-five men were hung. The prison closed in 1995. The tour guide had worked at the prison as a guard for twenty-some years and she had so many stories to tell. She showed me a scar on her arm from her elbow to her wrist where an inmate cut her when she slipped his meal through the passageway in the door. It was gruesome and the whole place gave me the creeps.
The guard-turned-tour-guide is Maggie. She’s in her early seventies. She was retired for nine years but was called back by another prison not too far away who said they needed her. She spoke of her husband and I got the feeling he had died. When I asked her how long he’d been gone, she looked me square in the eye and said “A year ago tomorrow.” Here is a woman who faced physical attacks by murderers and went back for more…yet her voice cracked when she explained that even though he had been desperately ill, it was still just awful losing him. She’d been with him since she was sixteen. I marveled yet again how God creates my journey and sends me people to talk to at just the right moment. I hugged her and asked her to join us here at The Ranch. I hope she does. Keep a kind thought for Maggie today as she goes through the first angelversary of her Rick….a talented photographer.
After the tour, I noticed some brochures in the lobby. I saw one about the huge “Palace of Gold”…a Hare Krishna compound I have read about for years. It was only fourteen miles away and I figured I could use some peace after touring such a dark and dismal place as an abandoned state penitentiary. I was disappointed that the Palace itself was closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but I was told I could go into the temple if I wanted. I walked into a large foyer and was met by a sign directing me to a room where I could leave my shoes. I pulled the huge door open and was awed by the room I entered. There were vignettes around the room where different deities sat in various settings. Their costumes were bright and colorful. Two men were chanting. One was inside a fenced in area burning incense, ringing bells, and blowing a conch shell. The other was chanting “Hare Krishna” and wandering around the room greeting people. He brought me a sweet smelling flower and invited me to an adjacent room for cookies, fruit, and milk from their own dairy. They revere their cattle and the residents let them live out their years being lovingly tended to. I went in after exploring the temple and was warmly greeted and handed a small plate with a few bits of banana and cantaloup and a small, round, unbaked “cookie”. It was yellow, sweet, a little grainy, and contained raisins. This was topped off with a thin bread much like a tortilla and a cup of rich, warm milk softly scented with cardamom. I sat in quiet reverie…slowly tasting the different flavors and savoring the textures and aromas of this simple meal, lovingly shared with me by a total stranger whose English I could barely understand. But love is the universal language and we both bowed to each other afterwards…quiet smiles…hands clasped in front of us in “Namaste” position. “The Divine in me honors the Divine in you.”
There may be division in our country right now. But…in a quiet space in the backwoods of West Virginia…two strangers from two different worlds, with different faiths and different cultures and different languages…shared a moment of peace and I was humbled in that sacred space between us. We were merely humans, sharing food and joy. How beautiful is that? ❤️
“And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.”
Hebrews 13:16 NIV