Posey Magazine September/October 2012

September/October2012

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CRYSTAL

September/October 2012

A magazine for and about

Posey County, Indiana Copyright 2012

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“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”

—Maya Angelou “Only those who risk going too far will ever know how far they can go.”

— T.S. Eliot “We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch.”

— e.e. cummings

Cover story

©Photograph by J. Bruce Baumann

Crystal Folz — Of gore and galore

“Each of us represents a star in heaven.

Sometimes we shine with the rest. Sometimes we twinkle alone. And sometimes when we least expect it, we make someone’s dreams come true.”

—Author Unknown “Have the life you want by being fully present to the life you have.”

— Mark Nepo

After a diverse career path, Crystal Folz has found a home at Gore Galore.

“Life is the first gift, love is the second, She spends her days among zombies, goblins and other creatures that go bump in the and understanding the third.” night. In the cover article writer Linda Neal Reising introduces readers to this inter— Marge Piercy esting company and one of its dedicated workers.

Special thanks to the following for their help

Alison Baumann, Becky Higgins, Ray Kessler, Joseph Poccia, Jane Saltzman,

HEROES L

ike many folks around my age, a cowboy was the first character I recognized as a hero. There were a host of cowboys to choose from: Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers. Some had girlfriends, some had sidekicks and goodness knows, they all had horses. But most importantly, each had a higher purpose. They stood up for the little guy, they never threw the first punch and they only shot to wound, never to kill. And back when my bicycle was my trusty steed, being a cowboy seemed like the best I could aspire to.

Then I looked around one day and realized that being a cowboy wasn’t such a good choice for me. There was no place for horses on my city street and besides, I was a girl. And Dale Evans just didn’t work as a role model for me.

About that time I noticed the difference between my Aunt Em and all the other women in my neighborhood.

They were almost all stay-at-home moms. They cooked and cleaned, sewed

and scrubbed, nursed and nurtured.

Where was the fun in that? Aunt Em, on the other hand, left her home each morning dressed in a suit, climbed into her very own car and disappeared into the working world.

I began occasionally spending the night with her when I was 6 or so. She had a habit of reading from two books just before going to bed. She explained that she read five verses in the Bible and five words from the dictionary every night. It wasn’t long before she bought me my first dictionary and I began my own love affair with the language. After all, she was my hero.

To be a hero is to expand people’s sense of what is possible. A hero in the struggle against adversity displays quiet courage and does it with a smile.

I watched some of the televised coverage of the Olympics recently and saw the heroic efforts of Oscar Pistorius, the South African sprinter who runs on artificial limbs. And I listened as

broadcasters spoke of his spirit and of his uncommon heroism. And I thought that while I agree he’s a hero, it’s not so uncommon.

My father lost a leg to cancer but went to his death still smiling and still finding ways to make my life easier if he could. And he was my hero. My dear friend, Lynne Mlady, has dealt with debilitating vision problems for years but refuses to be defined by what she can’t do, but rather by what she can.

She reads and reflects and writes and does it all with good humor. And she is my hero. There is my dear friend, Linda Negro, who unfailingly puts others first in her impossibly busy life and yet never complains. There is my dear friend, J. Bruce Baumann, who opened doors for me that I thought were forever closed, and there is his wife Alison who was a pure portrait of grace in the face of adversity.

They and others make up for me quite a posse of heroes, every one.

—Charlene Tolbert Contributing Editor Posey Magazine She can be contacted at poseymagazine@aol.com

Poetry Fallow The fields have gone fallow again.

Harvest is over.

Nothing is left but stalks, scraps, faint furrows.

Mornings, fog lies low in tattered ribbons.

Inside the ditches, milkweed pods delicately hold their cups, threatening to spill.

The persimmons’ amber globes, shattered planets, burst along the gravel path.

Matching blue herons rise from Black River, their great wings brushing the reeds as they push upward, their necks arched, feet swaying, etched against the gray sky like a painting on an Egyptian urn.

— Linda Neal Reising

© Photograph by J. Bruce Baumann

CRYSTAL FOLZ The amazing lady behind the mask

By Linda Neal Reising

T

here is a place in Posey County where gray-skinned zombies stagger to life, where gigantic, snarling skeletons with glowing eyes reach out their bony fingers and hideous beasts of every ilk are born. Gore Galore specializes in actoroperated props that are sold to haunted houses in America and internationally, including King’s Island, Six Flags (all six parks), Holiday World and Cedar Point. Helping create all of these creatures is Crystal Folz, herself an original of her own creation.

A native of Dixon, KY., and the granddaughter of a moonshiner, Crystal taught herself to play the piano at four. Soon after starting school at Dixon Elementary,

You, too, can make your own corpse! Gore Galore sells corpse kits that contain a gallon of latex, cotton batting, and hair. The skeletons are not included.

Photographed by J. Bruce Baumann

she and four other students were taken by a “short yellow bus” to Poole, KY., to be in a gifted program. The rest of the school was dedicated to the education of mentallychallenged children. “We all played together on the playground. It taught me to be a very tolerant person,” she says. In this school, Crystal was able to be herself. “If I wanted to wear my pajamas to school, my teacher didn’t care.

We were expected to show up and work and think and expand ourselves.”

When her parents divorced, Crystal moved to Evansville with her mother.

She found herself in traditional public schools, first at Plaza Park and then at Bosse High School. It was not an easy transition. After graduating,

The bug, Kafka, watches Folz’s every movement as she prepares Bolts and Chains for his new haunted home away from Posey County.

Crystal did not want to further her education.

“I wanted to roam and be free.” Her mother had different ideas. After meeting with the school counselor, Crystal’s mother decided her daughter should enroll in the civil engineering program at the University of Evansville, where she was one of two females.

After a short time, Crystal quit school. “I love numbers,” she says, “but did not like engineering.”

Crystal found a number of different ways to make a living. “I worked at Chuck E. Cheese’s as a cashier. From there, I was a supervisor in a factory for handicapped people. I was a stripper, short-lived, because once I turned twenty-one, I had to talk to the people, and I didn’t want to do that,” she says with a laugh.

A few years ago, Crystal decided she wanted to participate in the roller derby. For four years, she skated under the name of Velveteen Rabid. After suffering a foot injury, she needed to find a low-impact exercise to strengthen the muscles in her feet. That’s when she turned to belly dancing. “I dance with Sharaka Raqusa, a dance troupe. We do some of the pretty belly dancing, but we do Mardi Bras every year, and this year we were the brides of Frankenstein.”

Creating the bride of Frankenstein costumes wasn’t a difficult task for Crystal because she now spends eight to 10 hours a day working for Gore Galore. This new career path began in 2009 when she worked

The sophistication of the new work is clearly seen in the mask above, compared to the early work that is stored as a reminder on a shelf above the shop. (Opposite page)

Folz is a character comfortable among the many Gore Galore characters she helps create.

on the year-end financial report for Kevin Alvey, the owner of Gore Galore. In 2010, Kevin had to travel to Idaho to build a haunted house inside an amusement park. “He called me up and asked if I would come do the books for him. I have to say the first month and a half were horrendous. I sent checks out without stamping them with his signature.�

Despite the rocky beginning, Alvey asked her to come to work full-time. She agreed only if her sons, Sylvester and Simon, could be at the factory during the summer and

after school. Alvey agreed. “So they go to work with me out in the monster shop. Simon helps paint severed heads. They have both bloodied guts where you dip it in five-gallon buckets of paint and wring them out. They love to help.”

Today, Crystal runs the business of Gore Galore. She does the scheduling, invoicing and payroll. She is also responsible for sewing all the costumes and doing latex repairs on the big heads. “After they cast a big head, it’s going to have jagged skins on it where the molds were put together, so I go in and clean all that up and do latex patches on it,” she explains.

Over the years, Gore Galore has completed props for various TV shows and movies, including “Law and Order” and “CSI.” Many times people buy props, and the crew at Gore Galore will not know how they’re going to be used until they appear on film. For example, the cable TV show “The Deadliest Warriors” created a segment in which vampires battled zombies. Crystal, watching the episode, recognized their work.

“There were my zombies! So that was really cool,” Crystal admits. However the best gig that Crystal has been a part of was helping create a giant monster for the Alice Cooper tour. “Someone from San Francisco sculpted the head, and we made all of the metal armature, costuming, and the giant hands,” she explains. “That’s probably one of the coolest because that goes back to my childhood.”

In recent years, with the reality television craze sweeping both cable and network TV, Gore Galore has been approached about having a show centered on the business. “In every season we get them (offers). Sometimes we don’t like what they want to do with it. Sometimes they don’t think it works for them.” The company recently had another crew approach them.

“They came out and filmed for a day, and then they are going to start trying to shop it around, so we don’t know yet about that.”

So what’s next for Crystal? Has she finally found her calling? Perhaps the answer can be found in the tattoo on her upper arm.

Crystal Folz is as comfortable working in the mask creation shop as she is in the front office. Holding a goblin by the ear, she uses a Dremel tool to grind away the excess latex.

The words, Just a day away, are from an old Jackson Browne song entitled “Your Bright Baby Blues.” Crystal explains, “In it, he says, ‘No matter where I am, I can’t help feeling I’m just a day away from where I want to be,’ so it’s like you know there’s always something else. Never settle yourself. You should always think there is something else.”

A Posey County resident since 1980, Linda Neal Reising lives in the historic “Cale House,” where she writes fiction and poetry, as well as fends off rowdy raccoons and voracious Virginia creeper. She can be contacted at: poseymagazine@aol.com.

Feathers/By Sharon Sorenson

W

Rose-breasted grosbeck in spring colors.

ith migration in full swing, birds are on the move. Some move only from the upper to the lower slopes of some mountain chain, like the Appalachians or rugged Rockies. Some travel from Canada’s boreal forest to the TriState or perhaps on to the Gulf Coast. Some, however, travel extraordinary distances, like the arctic tern that annually circumnavigates the globe, from the Arctic to Antarctica and back.

Birds traveling though Posey County each spring and fall, however, typically winter in Mexico or Central or South America.

Hummingbirds head for Costa Rica; house wrens stop in southern Mexico or linger along the Gulf Coast; rose-breasted grosbeaks reach Ecuador. But some warblers travel the length of two continents, breeding in northern Canada and wintering in southern Argentina, passing through Posey County along the way.

So who’s coming to dinner in your

All photographs © by Sharon Sorenson

yard? Already, in September, we’re hearing scattered reports of rose-breasted grosbeaks, red-breasted nuthatches, an assortment of thrushes, and a patchwork of warblers. By early October, the list will grow to include white-throated sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, juncos, maybe a few purple finches and pine siskins.

Two favorite spring feeder visitors may return to visit Posey County fall feeders, arriving incognito. Although they nest here,

The summer tanager blends in with its surroundings in the fall. indigo buntings shy away from most feeders, but now, having molted their luminescent all-over namesake indigo-blue plumage into winter drab brown, they can sit feeding among sparrows and blend in with the crowd. And first-winter male rose-breasted grosbeaks take on an overall golden tan that could convince some folks they’ve a new yard bird. Who could guess they will return next spring in a black and white tuxedo with that stunning rose-colored bib?

Some winged friends, however, visit moving water rather than filled feeders, no matter the filling. Bug-eating avian species, like warblers, tanagers and thrushes, find nothing attractive about seeds and suet.

Instead, especially in this drought-stricken year, they seek water. A drink refreshes, but clean feathers from a good bath help power flight.

Some summer residents who came here to nest began the long trek back south

weeks ago. Purple martins left in July; common nighthawks winged out in late August; most chimney swifts and barn swallows have flown south. Without them, the sun sets on quietly empty skies; already I miss their song.

Warblers, often tree-top birds, challenge us to identify them. The sometimes nondescript look-alike fall warblers, many of them juveniles and the others adults in fresh fall plumage, lack the vibrant breeding colors

The indigo bunting loses its iridescent blue feathers in the fall. It’s still a beautiful bird. we thrill to in spring. Now they’re prepared to travel, to remain inconspicuous to predators, and to stuff their tummies with bugs during the day in order to fly several hundred miles each night.

Migrants embark on a perilous journey, one fraught with dangers, natural and man-made. For tens of thousands of years, birds have faced storms, hurricanes, floods, and droughts that threaten, even take their lives. Now humans have severely complicated the journey. We’ve built thousands of tall buildings, their night-lit windows confusing birds’ star-light navigation. We’ve destroyed ancestral habitat, sites hardwired in birds’

brains as stopovers for rest and refueling, leaving them precious little with which to continue the journey. And we’ve built cell-phone towers with guy wires and wind turbines with 200-mph rotating blades, causing many birds to meet their demise.

So, facing an extraordinarily dangerous journey, these tiny creatures advance toward their wintering grounds.

I’ll miss their song and flashes of color. But within another six weeks, our avian winter visitors will come to take their places, moving here from farther north. It’s the ongoing cycle in birds’ lives.

Sharon and Charles Sorenson settled in St. Philip in 1966 and continue to improve their certified backyard wildlife habitat that to date has hosted 161 bird species and 53 butterfly species. Send your bird questions and comments to them or contact them for publicvenue programs, conferences, or seminars at forthebirdscolumn@yahoo.com.

Posey Portrait

Dennis Herrmann, bee keeper, Posey County, Indiana

Š Photograph by J. Bruce Baumann

Posey Portrait will feature a random photograph of a friend or neighbor — in a place we call home

Costly repairs have closed the bridge that connects New Harmony, Indiana with Illinois.

“The hardest thing in life to learn is which bridge to cross and which to burn.” – David Russell

New Harmony on the Wabash

THE BRIDGE TO NOWHERE

By Charlene Tolbert

B

©Photographed by J. Bruce Baumann

ridges can support tremendous weight, span huge distances and all the while withstand the greatest forces of nature. But it’s mankind that poses their greatest threat.

The New Harmony Bridge may be a symbol of both the best and worst characteristics of our society -- our refusal to give up hope in the face of adversity and our tendency to build and forget, to create and then let decay.

The toll bridge was built without federal funds in 1930 by the Big Wabash Bridge Company of Carmi, Ill., which had been chartered by Congress. Nearly 10,000 people attended its dedication in 1930. In 1941 Congress created the three-member White County Bridge Commission as a joint Illinois-Indiana agency to buy the bridge for $895,000 and to operate and maintain the structure. However, in 1998, Congress repealed the mechanism to allow for appointments to the commission, leaving its future in doubt.

The nearly half-mile bridge linked Illinois Route 14 in White County, Illinois to Indiana 66 in Posey County, Indiana, which becomes Church Street in New Harmony. It’s 20 feet wide with a 36-ton load limit.

In 2007 the bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, partly for its age and partly because of its association with the town of New Harmony.

In September, 2007, the bridge was temporarily closed after a crack was found in a support pier on the west side. The bridge was reopened in April 2008 at a cost of $300,000 in repairs and remained open until May 29 of this year when the commission closed it after repeated inspections found it to be unsafe. Commission chairman David Rice has said engineers estimated it would cost $8.4 million to repair.

Before its closing, about 900 vehicles per day used the bridge, paying $30,000 in monthly tolls. The bridge had about $22,000

in monthly expenses including property taxes.

Farmers, farm service companies, oil producers and Illinois residents commuting to jobs in Indiana now must take either the Interstate 64 bridge south of Grayville, Ill., or Illinois 141 to Indiana 62 west of Mount Vernon, Ind. All of those individuals had no other choice but to find an alternative route, but businesses catering to tourists tell another tale.

The Red Geranium and the New Harmony Inn among many other businesses have felt the effect of the closing.

Some immediate problems and questions remain. In today’s difficult economy, where do the toll booth operators who were laid off go to find employment?

What becomes of the natural gas line that supplies New Harmony which runs across the bridge along with a fiber-optic communications line?

Legislators from both Illinois and Indiana have promised action to save the structure. Ill. State Rep. David Reis has introduced a bill calling for the creation of a New Harmony Bridge compact and a bi-state commission to rehabilitate and maintain the bridge.

Indiana State Rep. Wendy McNamara, R-Mount Vernon, has said, “We will continue to look closely at options for the community.

The New Harmony Bridge provides vital economic value to the community and I will continue to propose and seek solutions for the people of Southern Indiana.�

And in fact a number of solutions have been proposed and found lacking for a host of reasons. A solution may yet surface that satisfies all parties concerned.

But for now, the span remains a sad reminder of what once was a source of pride and a valuable link between two states with much in common.

Charlene Tolbert is a nearly lifelong Hoosier who continues to be captivated by the people and places of Southern Indiana. She can be contacted at poseymagazine@aol.com.

Closing the bridge in New Harmony has had a tremendous economic impact on the town.

WATCHING THE CORN GROW ­— NOT

P

assing this shed last spring I made note of the red truck that always seemed to be loafing there. I wondered what stories that old truck could tell.

As summer followed spring, an optimistic corn crop poked its long stalks skyward, and by early June predictions were that Posey County was headed for a record crop.

The weather had cooperated. It had been dry enough to plant early, followed by just the right amount of rain.

But as temperatures climbed to record highs and the rains stopped feeding the parched land, it became clear records would not be broken in 2012.

With only half the rain Posey County normally receives, the average yield of 200-220 bushels per acre would fall far short.

By the middle of August the stalks turned brown, producing only an average of 40 bushels per acre. A drop of 80 percent.

The old red truck was still there, looking like a monument in an overgrown cemetery. Records would have to wait, along with the old red truck.

— J. Bruce Baumann

POSEY POSTCARD

“Unexpected intrusions of beauty.

This is what life is.”

— Saul Bellow

Š Photograph by J. Bruce Baumann

Posey Then & Now Circa 1918

Courtesy of Posey County Historical Society

The Alles Brothers Furniture building at Second and Main streets in Mount Vernon began life as the first Masonic temple in town. The building was sold in 1880 to M. Harlen for $5,260 and was remodeled into the Mount Vernon Opera House with balconies, plush seats and galleries. Everything from vaudeville shows to basketball games were played there. In 1914 Alles Brothers Furniture took over the building for showrooms and a sales facility. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, but sadly it burned down.

Posey Then & Now Circa 2012

Š Photographed by J. Bruce Baumann

Eventually the Peerless Too Tavern was established at that location. However the Posey County Alcohol Board denied its liquor license renewal in 2011 and the building remains unoccupied.

Out of the frame/J. Bruce Baumann

Out of the frame focuses on moments found without a story or context. We all pass something that catches our eye and tweaks our curiosity during the course of everyday living. Sometimes it makes us smile or even chuckle.

You might say it tickles the mind.

Other times it makes us think about life in a serious way. Regardless of how we react, in that instant the image touches a part of our brain or heart and becomes part of who we are. For the moment it takes us out of the frame.

Out In The Back Of Beyond/Editor’s Notebook F

or almost 25 years I’ve been blessed with the company of a poet, a writer, a lawyer, a mother, a gourmet cook, a gardener, a partner, a friend, a confidant, an advisor, an editor, a lover, and a wife.

When I needed anything she was always there. Standing by my side. Making things right for me. Keeping me out of trouble.

Well, mostly.

Her sense of humor was quick and sometimes pierced through the ego of an unsuspecting soul.

If I ever wondered how intelligent she was, that was laid to rest with a word, a fact or a definition. She was always right, and it gave me confidence to know she was.

She wrote some of the most beautiful poetry I’ve ever heard or read. And she was recognized by those publications that judge such things. When she went to a poetry reading to present her work, there were no sheets of papers to read, it was a performance of the words she had written. Every word flowed flawlessly from her lips, making them come alive to the listener.

Her son Joseph Poccia and stepdaughter Jennifer Ann Malone were the recipients of having a mother who taught them to be confident, smart and independent. She loved them with all her heart. They loved her equally.

For the past 33 years she endured the unkindness of breast cancer. Finally it metastasized 13 years ago and hunkered down in her bones. A brilliant oncologist, Dr. Mark Browning, pulled rabbit after rabbit out his hat to keep it there.

On August 2 it was discovered that it had metastasized from her bones to the fluid that surrounds the brain. The most unkind place it could have moved. It took with it her dignity and her life in less than a month.

The lights in this world are not as bright as they were before she died. All who knew her will miss her too but I will miss her the most. The hole in my heart leaves a void that will never be filled.

She died peacefully on the morning of September 1, 2012, by my side where she had been for almost 25 years.

— J. Bruce Baumann

Alison Baumann 8/13/48 — 9/1/12

“What is love after all but trusting in the unknown.” —Marty Rubin

New Harmony, Indiana

© Photograph by J. Bruce Baumann

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