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[callsignchicha]

Some unofficial chicha art featuring someone also other then mav for once lmao

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[kyidyl]

Kyidyl Does Archaeology - Part 5

(as per usual, all these posts are collected under the KyidylCL tag)

Pottery and shErds

So, what are we talking about today? Well, I think the next thing is gonna be pottery.  This is where we’re gonna talk about time, space, and dating a site.  Because most people think that the only way to date an archaeological site is via C14.  That’s not true, and actually we don’t always do it.  C14 dating can have some problems, including that the wood used in the fire is likely older than the time in which it was cut down and burned.  It also only goes back 50,000 years, so anything older than that won’t have any carbon isotopes (it’ll have all decayed), and we have to use other things that are more expensive.  And c14 testing itself is expensive - we sent in 2 samples and it was around $500/sample so we spent about $1000 on testing.  Instead, there are other ways to date a site and one of the most accurate is pottery.  

See, like all other kinds of material culture (AKA, stuff people leave behind.  Non-material culture is like...song and story and stuff like that.), pottery follows stylistic trends and trends in how it was made.  And it does this both regionally and chronologically.  Which is great, because if we find bits of one type of pottery we know is made in one place in a settlement in another place, then we know the two people traded with each other.  But I have to explain something else so that determining a date from pottery makes sense.  

Every area of the country has what’s called a “type site” for a given period of time.  In undergrad I was lucky enough to actually get to work on the type site for the Safety Harbour period, which is Weedon Island....ironically enough there’s a Weedon Island period and Weedon Island isn’t the type site for that period so uuuhhh...yeah it’s weird lol.  Anyway, a type site is a site that is considered stereotypical for a given time and place in history.  Usually they’re large and well-preserved, and they’re often the first sites found in that time period/area (but not always, which is how the above weirdness happened.). And so what happens is we dig ‘em and analyze the finds and do testing on those finds.  So now we know “hey, this kind of pottery comes from here and it is X years old”. Now you know when you find it in other places where and when it comes from.  This is all a very generalized explanation, but I think any more is like extraneous detail you don’t need.  Just know that things like type sites help us determine where and when stuff like pottery was made.  Lots of literature usually exists for type sites, but I actually can’t remember the type site for this area for this time period.  

We also use a term called “diagnostic”, which is used much as it is in medicine.  If we find a certain thing that was only made during a specific time period or in a certain place, then it’s diagnostic.  IE, a certain kind of pottery is diagnostic of the late, middle, or early Woodland.  The pottery we have at our site is diagnostic of the late Woodland.  Some of the lithics we thought might be a bit earlier, but honestly I think that was just misidentification by the site director bc we were in the field at the time.  Lastly, identifying pottery has a few components.  Color and decoration I think are easy to understand (they didn’t have glazes, but you can make different colored pottery by varying the composition of the clay and the temperature at which it is fired.). Paste and temper are the other two.  IDK how modern pottery is made, but old ass pottery is made with paste - the main body of the clay, the matrix that contains the temper - and temper. Temper is stuff they’d crush up and mix in to help it not break during firing and heating during normal use.  So we combine these factors to ID the pottery and thus the age of the site and trading habits of the people in question.  One last thing you need to understand about pottery - ancient people used pottery the way that we use disposable things.  They didn’t think it was like an important thing that had to keep safe.  They’d use it until it broke and then toss it in the garbage pit and make a new one.  So it’s really common and we find it all over the place, but TBH in the future pottery *won’t* be diagnostic anymore because our ceramics come in such a wide variety that we couldn’t possibly hope to narrow down time or place.  

Alright, so who wants pictures? You, of course.  Who *doesn’t* want pictures? Here’s some of the pottery we found: 

This is the larger shard that I found in the features I’ve talked about in previous installments.  You can see where I accidentally broke it. >.> Anyway it’s kind of unique bc of the light color outside and the black inside.  It’s like...idk, 4 or so inches long.  

This is a rim piece that I happened to find two matching sherds of.  I always check the rim pieces because the patterns on them usually make them easier to fit together.  Honestly I’ve got hundreds of pot sherds from this site and I don’t have the sanity to try and make pots from them.  

This is the outside and inside respectively of the largest piece we have.  TBH taking this thing out of its box and handling it makes me nervous because of how large it is - about the size of my hand, but I did include my earbuds for scale.  The black is charring from both firing and subsequent use, and it came out of the pit feature I’ve been talking about.  And do you wanna know the cool thing about the inner surface of pottery? Because they didn’t use glazes, the surface was porous and retains the unique chemical traces of what was made in them.  However, the vast majority of the time those kinds of tests aren’t done because archaeology as a whole is extremely underfunded and trace chemical analysis of pot residue is an expensive test requiring expensive equipment and expensive scientists.  Funnily enough I probably could do some of this testing bc I used to be premed and so I’ve taken a lot of chemistry and know how to read a mass spec thing, but I don’t have access to the chemicals or tools to do these kinds of tests.  Plus, they’re often destructive...which....I mean...there’s so much pottery that it doesn’t really matter if one piece gets destroyed but like you do still have to be careful *which* piece you destroy.  

Anyway, you also can see the striations on the outside piece, and that’s decoration on the pot.  It probably also helped with gripping it.  This is a piece of Shepardware, which is diagnostic of the late Woodland period in the Shenandoah valley. Here’s some more cool pottery: 

This is a random assortment of the kind of stuff we regularly pull out of the ground when it comes to pottery.  The most common kind we have is the orange on one side black on the other (3 upper rt pieces), whiteish (upper left 2), orange on both sides (lower left 3) and totally black (lower right 3).  All of ‘em are some variety of shepard or pageware.  You can see the texture on a lot of them, too.  We have a good mix of textured and untextured, and that’s why the composition of the pottery is more diagnostic than the decoration.  Frankly, people can and will put whatever design they think looks cool.  But they made that particular design by wrapping twine around the end of a flat stick and pressing it into the surface of the wet clay.  I also chose those two upper right pieces because they have really visible temper.  Here’s a side shot of one of them: 

You can see how big the bits are compared to my fingers (yeah, there’s dirt under my nails....I haven’t taken some tweezers to them yet after working on the car.). And...wait, I WAS going to try to describe this to you but then I was like “no, they deserve better” and I broke out my DSLR and my macro lens and took some pics.  Here are some macros of the temper: 

The white balance is a little off on the top one...the bottom one is more true to color (they aren’t the same piece of pottery, but they are a similar color).  So you can see that it’s crushed up limestone.  Pardon the depth of field on those...I had to open the aperture pretty wide to get one that wasn’t blurry bc I don’t exactly have bright lights in my room.  

Anyway....so that’s the pottery we’ve gotten at the site and what we can learn from it.  It’s going to take some time before we can start determining patterns and whatnot in regards to style, but we do have some evidence of trading here because some of the pottery we have is from the piedmont culture....

...wait, let me explain what that means.  When archaeologists need to describe a group of people who existed in a given place in a given time based on similarities in material culture regardless of ethnic and social grouping we call it a culture.  This is different than the standard meaning of the world culture, or even the way a cultural anthropologist would use the word.  So when I say the piedmont culture, I mean people that lived in the general area of the Piedmont plateau during the late woodland.  They were of varying tribes, languages, etc.  And we do this to describe the extant boundaries of cultural influence of particular trends in physical objects and not the social groupings of the humans in question.  So, for example, lots of people are familiar with the Clovis culture.  When archaeologists use this term we mean “these are the boundaries of the places we are finding physical objects in the group we’ve named Clovis” not “everyone in this area was a Clovis person”. Like no, obviously, they weren’t.  There were tons of social groups, tribes, etc. that were all distinct and different.  It’s a way of mapping cultural influence via physical objects to see how far they spread and who was using them.  

So, we have some piedmont stuff despite not being in the piedmont area, so we know that they were trading with those natives.  If you’re interested in more detail here, this is the VDHR resource I use for IDing pottery.  It looks like it came to visit you from the late 1990s, but the info is good and it’s easy to use. 

Anyway, that’s it for tonight.  Tomorrow is gonna be rocks and weird stuff, depending on how much I end up saying about rocks.  Probably not much bc we know how I feel about rocks.   ;) 

[geekprincess26]

Prince Charming and the Pencil

Written for Day 10 of Jon x Sansa Fanfiction’s 15 Days of Valentine’s challenge.  Companion fic to “Blue Pencils and Bravery,” which I wrote for Day 8.  I’m sorry for posting it a day late - real life has a funny way of sticking its tongue out at me and preventing me from posting my fics when I want to post them sometimes.

Harry Hardyng was late.

 Sansa swept into the upstairs bathroom she shared with Arya for the fifth time in the past ten minutes to check herself in the mirror.  She had readied herself for Casterly Rock Preparatory High School’s senior class’s Valentine’s Day ball in record time, having spent until nearly five o’clock decorating the school’s community hall with the other students on the ball’s planning committee.  Her makeup was done flawlessly; the blush-colored gown she had so painstakingly sewn for herself fit her like a glove; wonder of wonders, her fresh blush-and-gold manicure had not been scratched as she and the other students had rushed to put the final touches on the community room; her gold jewelry glittered beautifully; and she had finished preparing for the ball a full five minutes before Harry was supposed to pick her up.  Harry was never late, and did not like it when she ran behind.

 Sansa’s phone buzzed, and she lost no time swiping the screen open.  

 Brandon and I r on the way.  

Sansa hung her head in disappointment.  She had certainly hoped it had been Harry, texting her to tell her he was here, but it was only Jeyne Poole, reporting in to the text group Margaery Tyrell had set up for the planning committee members.  They and their dates had agreed to meet at the school half an hour before the ball officially began in order to take photos and iron out last-minute details. Sansa was not particularly looking forward to that half-hour.  She was tired from spending the entire day decorating and still smarting from a spat she’d had earlier that afternoon with Jeyne, who had taken it upon herself to point out how little Sansa understood about decorating for major school events. After all, Jeyne had snidely reminded her, this was the first event that school year at which Sansa had served on the planning committee, whereas she, Margaery, and Beth Cassel were all on their fourth.  “But naturally, you were busy hanging with the weird computer geeks doing stuff for community theater,” she’d continued, and it had been all Sansa could do not to dump a bag of confetti over Jeyne’s head.  Instead, she’d retorted that Jeyne clearly understood little about volunteering at the community theater or about computer geeks.  She had first started doing artwork for the local community theater a year prior at the request of only one computer geek, Jon Snow, and Jon was not weird, simply a bit shy.  But after she saw how much work it took with both computers and other pieces of machinery she didn’t understand just to put on a morning rehearsal, let alone a full evening production, Sansa had also realized just how talented Jon and his buddies on the production crew were.  She had also seen how much help the theater’s owners needed and had gladly agreed to help in the art department, even though it had meant she couldn’t put as much time into planning school activities as she had anticipated.  

 Sansa sighed as another message popped up on her phone screen.  Great.  Sansa, what about you and Harry?

 That message was from Margaery, to whom out of her three best friends Sansa was still the closest. Even Margaery, however, had not hung around Sansa as much during their senior year as she had during their previous years at Casterly Rock.  Sansa supposed it was partly because they both had boyfriends now and partly because Sansa had spent so much of the past several months working hard on the portfolio she had included with each of her college applications.  Sansa had always known that if she wanted to get into a good art therapy program, she would need an excellent portfolio, and Sansa Stark never did anything halfway.  Still, Sansa felt bad about not having time to serve on the other three planning committees with her friends, and it had hurt during the prior weeks as they had all prepared for the ball together to see that they had a better rapport with each other than any of them did with her.

 Sansa sighed again. Once Harry showed up and got her to the school, she would no doubt find that everybody’s tempers had improved with food and showers, and they could all relax (a bit) and enjoy the fruits of their labor.  And she and Harry would dance and put the fight from earlier this week behind them, the fight in which Harry Hardyng, a straight-A-earning trumpet player who had been accepted to four different Ivy League schools, had accused Sansa Stark of being a snob.  The accusation was ridiculous, of course, but that had not stopped Sansa from crying for an hour afterward.  She had tried her best to be a supportive girlfriend.  Despite her work on her art portfolio, she had spent as much time with Harry as she could; and, far from turning up her nose at Harry’s hobbies, she had attended every one of his cross-country meets and band concerts since they had begun dating.  And neither quitting band the prior year nor changing her planned college major from music therapy to art therapy had had anything to do with Sansa’s thinking she was too good for music.  Harry would no doubt understand that after taking a few days to cool off; he always did after one of their disagreements, even if he was never much of a one for apologies.

 So when Sansa’s phone vibrated and produced a text message from Harry saying Sorry, Sansa, she almost dropped it.  He must just be leaving his house, she thought; Harry never texted while driving.

 No problem, she texted him back.  We’ll still get there in time for pics.

 Three dots blinked on the left side of her phone screen for several moments.  Sansa inspected herself in the mirror one last time, then dashed down the stairs.  Her phone buzzed just as one glittering heel met the floor at the bottom of the staircase.

 No, I meant sorry I’m not going w you, the screen informed her. Sansa sat down so suddenly that she began to slide down the remaining stairs on her backside.  She clutched the railing to stop herself with her right hand while frantically swiping at the phone screen with her left.

 Are you OK?  Did you get sick?  she typed frantically.

 No, just not going, replied the blue text bubble that popped up on the left side of the screen almost immediately.  Sansa stared at the three gray dots that appeared under it a moment later, uncomprehending.

 Better get it over with now.  Would be fake if we went 2gether, said the next bubble.  You can go by yourself if u want.  2 different for each other.  You don’t want what I want.  Done.

 The bubbles stopped coming. Sansa kept staring at the screen, willing there to be more, willing the words to go away, willing Harry to take them back.  But there was not, and they did not, and Harry did not.

 Tears welled in Sansa’s eyes.  She used the railing to push herself upright as fast as she could, so the head rush would help her blink them away.  She did not want Harry Hardyng to have made her cry twice in one week, especially when he did it the second time by dumping her right before the Valentine’s Day ball.

 Sansa pinched the bridge of her nose.  If she could just think clearly enough to type for a moment, she might be able to distract herself long enough to keep the tears at bay, at least for the moment. So she swiped the screen of her phone and punched the cursor furiously.

 And what don’t I want? she typed.  She let out a sigh of relief when she saw the gray dots reappear on the left-hand side of her screen.  As long as she could engage Harry in conversation, she could focus now, even if it would only upset her all the more later on.

 Music, like real fine art stuff, not kids stuff @ com theater. Like music at all.  We don’t have same friends.  You like ur sister’s and J Snow and his friends better lately.

 Sansa pinched the bridge of her nose again.  If she knew Harry at all, he had been planning this since they’d had their fight earlier that week, during the time she’d thought he’d been cooling off. That hurt almost as much as the fact that Harry clearly thought she wasn’t good enough for him.  And he had had the nerve to call her a snob.

 I like doing art 4 “kids stuff @ com theater.” she typed back in a rush, suddenly more furious for the moment than she was hurt.  It’s respectable –volunteer & good 4 my portfolio @ good schools.  And I only missed 1 concert u wanted to take me to 2 hang out w my own sister & friends & u didn’t have a problem with me switching 2 art therapy which is also respectable.  There.  Her grammar was more atrocious than usual, but at least Harry knew he wasn’t the only one who could pride himself on doing “respectable” activities.

 Concert meant a lot 2 me, Harry replied.  U wanted 2 hang out w bunch of computer nerds more than me. & switching majors isn’t stable, what next, fashion design & sewing?

 The heat that had heretofore been confined to Sansa’s face began migrating down her chest and arms. If I did it would still be respectable, she replied.  Sorry if liking 2 make my own clothes isn’t good enough 4 u.  If I’m not good enough 4u you could have said face to face earlier nt left me stranded.  That’s not respectable either.  Goodbye.

 Sansa threw her phone into her purse, buried her face in her hands, and began to shake.  She should have known better than to try to distract herself from crying, she thought as the tears began running down her arms.

 The sound of the back door shutting six feet away startled Sansa bolt upright.  Just as her eyes recognized the familiar form of Jon Snow in front of her, the connecting door to the recreation room swung open, and Arya strode into the room.  Both of them stared with concern at Sansa’s tear-streaked face.

 “What’s the matter?  Jerkface late?” asked Arya, who always called Harry “Jerkface” and other less polite names after Sansa had a fight with him.

 “He’s not coming,” Sansa spat out.  “Happy?”

 “Whoa.”  Jon took a few tentative steps toward Sansa at the exact same time Arya screeched, “What?  Why in the hell not?  He’s still ‘punishing’ you for disagreeing with him, what, last week already?”

 “Arya.”  Jon shot a warning look at the younger girl before turning to Sansa.  “Sansa, what happened?”

 “He broke up with me,” sniffed Sansa.  She began crying again and pawed madly through her purse for a tissue.  

 “Right before the ball? What a cowardly, jerk-faced piece of shit – ” Arya began.

 “Arya.”  This time Jon’s voice came from almost directly above her.  Sansa looked up, startled, to see him holding out one of the handkerchiefs she’d made for him back in their middle school years.  Sansa’s face reddened again.  She’d made him half a dozen handkerchiefs back when she’d still been his secret admirer and made a point of giving him things she knew he’d like.  One of Jon’s odd habits was carrying around a handkerchief – mainly, Sansa supposed, to rub the sweat from his face that was automatically generated by his doing metallurgy in the applied arts lab or running to connect a thousand cords under the harsh lights of the school and community theaters.  She still thought it a strange habit, but now, as she added her tears to the mix on a square of black with music notes embroidered around the edges, Sansa found herself wholeheartedly approving of it.

 “Thank you,” she managed to mumble, too embarrassed to look at either Jon or her sister.  No doubt her makeup was running in ugly streaks all over her face.  

 Sansa’s phone buzzed again. Oh, no.  It had to be Margaery, furious that Sansa and presumably Harry were late, and –

 “Oh, flying heck!” she exclaimed, remembering what else she and Harry were expected to do at the ball. She tried to stand up but tripped over the hem of her dress, and she would have fallen back onto the stairs but for Jon catching her and helping her all the way up.

 “Thanks,” Sansa muttered as Jon stepped back.  Arya rolled her eyes.

 “‘Flying heck?’ Sansa, really.  Rickon’s not exactly around – probably off playing foosball with Dad – ”

 Sansa, who had long since grown accustomed to using slang expressions at home so as to avoid incurring her mother’s ire for using stronger language around her younger brother, waved her sister off.

 “Stuff it, Arya, you’re not the one who’s supposed to dance with her stupid date to open the ball and got dumped by him, and now I can’t – ”  Her phone buzzed again, and she picked up her purse from the ground and began rummaging through it again.

 “Oh.  Right.  Sorry.” Arya turned to Jon.  “Hey, wait, aren’t you supposed to be there too? Running all the music and everything?”

 Jon scratched the back of his head.  “Right, I just came back to get my USB drive with some of my files I need on it.  I left it here with Bran by accident.”  He was interrupted by a sob from Sansa, who could find her phone nowhere in her purse.  Jon bent to retrieve it from one of the stairs and held it out to her.

 “Thanks,” Sansa choked out, rubbing her eyes furiously.  “Sorry, I – oh, you probably want this back, and – ”  She held out the handkerchief to Jon, who waved it away.

 “It’s OK,” he said. “I do have some other ones at home.”

 Sansa managed a weak smile. She had indeed made Jon several other handkerchiefs before they had entered ninth grade and been assigned to different homerooms, by which time Jon had discovered his passion for metallurgy and begun helping out at the community theater, and the other students had stopped making quite so much fun of him, and Sansa had figured he did not need his secret admirer quite so much any more.

 “Bran!”  Arya’s belted exclamation brought Sansa sharply back to the present.  She flushed when she realized she was still holding Jon’s handkerchief out to him.

 “Sansa,” he was saying, “you OK?”

 Sansa nodded at the same time Jon hung his head.  “No, sorry, that was stupid,” he said.  She shook her head, but before she could think of what to say, Jon’s own head snapped back up.  His face had gone pink, but he looked her straight in the eye.

 “I – I – you can say no,” he said, “but I can take you to the ball if – if you want, and you can find a guy to dance with, or – or – I could dance with you for the first one – I mean, I’m not good at it and I’d have to help with the sound later, but you’d – you wouldn’t be left alone that way, and I could take you home after the first dance, or any time later, if you wanted to go, or if you wanted to go out to McDonald’s or wherever for a snack between dances if you just want a break. Sam knows how to do that stuff as well as I do, so I can leave and come back, no problem.  I can even change into my suit, if – if you want me to dance.”

 Sansa merely stared at Jon. She knew he was no Harry when it came to dancing, but she had no Harry or anybody else to dance with, and right now having somebody, whatever his skill level, was infinitely better than having no one to dance with at all – or even having Harry to dance with, at this point.  She and Jon would still get a lot of strange looks and whispers from her friends and everyone else, but then Jon was used to both the whispers and the looks, and Sansa was sure to get them anyway after everyone found out Harry had dumped her. At least she would get neither from Jon.

 “If you don’t want to, that’s fine, Sansa.”  Jon’s voice had lowered, and Sansa thought she could detect a hint of disappointment. She shook her head.

 “No, it’s – ” she began, but was interrupted when Arya, Bran, and Catelyn Stark all entered the room at once.

 “Sansa, honey, Harry’s not here yet?  What happened, sweetheart?”  Catelyn wrapped an arm around her daughter’s shoulders while Bran handed Jon’s USB drive to him.

 Sansa smiled wanly at her mother.  “Harry’s not coming, Mom.  He – he broke up with me, but Jon’s going to take me to the ball and – and do the first dance with me.”

 A devilish grin spread across Arya’s face.  Catelyn, whose back was turned to her, wiped a tear off of her elder daughter’s cheek and drew her in for a hug.

 “Oh, I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” she murmured.  “Are you sure you’re up for going?  You don’t have to go, you know, if you’d rather not, even if you don’t want to talk about it right now.”

 Sansa blew her nose into the handkerchief and gave both her mother and Jon a wobbly smile.  “No, Mom, it’s OK,” she said.  “Jon says he’ll take me home after the first dance if I want to go.” She gave Jon a wobbly smile, and he returned a steady one that reached and filled his dark brown eyes.

 Catelyn gave her daughter a searching look, then nodded and turned to Jon.  “Thank you very much, Jon,” she said.  “I’m sure you know that Sansa is expected to be home before midnight.”

 Jon flushed again and nodded.  “You’re welcome, Mrs. Stark,” he replied.  “We’ll be back before then.”

 Fifteen minutes later Sansa and Jon, she with her makeup reapplied and he sporting the dusty suit and tie he had hastily changed into while waiting for her to tidy up, arrived at school for the pre-ball photo session. Sansa spent the entire ride typing her apologies along with a brief explanation to the text group, but Jeyne Poole still shot her a dirty look when she arrived.  Fortunately, just before Sansa began posing with the others for photos, she caught Jon frantically trying to brush some of the dust bunnies off of his suit with, of all things, the blue pencil he had previously had tucked behind his ear.  The smile she produced for the cameras then was real.  So was the smile she gave Jon when he offered her his arm to escort her onto the dance floor.

 “I really, really appreciate it, Jon,” she said.  “I hope I didn’t make you late for Sam and the others; you can tell them it’s my fault their best sound person wasn’t there on time.”

 “You made Sam late?” said Jon, his expression perfectly deadpan.  Sansa giggled in spite of herself.

 “No,” she replied. “The best sound person there tucks blue pencils behind his ear.”

 Jon reddened and immediately reached behind his ear to pull out the pencil resting there, but Sansa shook her head.

 “I didn’t mean you should take it out,” she said.  “It’s enough that you’re offering to dance with me.  I don’t want to make you do it without the pencil, after all.”  She smiled warmly at him, and Jon smiled back, although his face was still red.

 “You’re not making me dance with you; I offered to do it,” he pointed out.  “Besides, I’m the one who should apologize in advance for stepping on your feet by accident.”

 Sansa opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by Margaery Tyrell, who swept over with Joffrey next to where Sansa and Jon were standing.

 “One minute, Sansa,” she said.  Sansa did not miss the eyebrow the other girl raised pointedly at the pencil perched behind Jon’s ear.

 Joffrey, however, upstaged his girlfriend with a snort.  “Made hanging with the computer weirdos full-time, huh, Stark?” he said.  Sansa straightened herself up to her full height.

 “Yes, Baratheon, I have,” she replied.  “I find it a step up from my previous company.  I rather admire computer weirdos, in fact.”

 Both Margaery’s shocked look and Joffrey’s reply were cut off by the arrival of Mr. Arryn, who was Casterly Rock’s music director and also the teacher in charge of the ball. A few moments later, he and his wife swept onto the dance floor, and the planning committee members followed with their dates.

 True to his word, Jon spent much of the first dance stumbling and then apologizing to Sansa, but she kept waving away his apologies and redirected him to the correct steps. Teaching him proved a welcome diversion for them both from the strange looks they were getting from the other students, especially Jeyne and Joffrey – so welcome, in fact, that they continued for two more dances before Jon once again apologized, this time for having to take off backstage to help his friends with the sound.

 Sansa shook her head. “No, don’t be sorry,” she said. “And – and thank you, Jon.  I really, really appreciate it a lot.”

 Jon smiled.  “I really appreciate you trying to help me not look like total computer weirdo out there,” he said.  Sansa rolled her eyes.

 “You’re not a weirdo,” she replied.  “You never were.”  She took a deep breath.  “A weirdo wouldn’t have offered to bring me here when I – I didn’t have anyone else to take me, and – and a weirdo definitely wouldn’t have tackled Theon Greyjoy when he was picking on Bran and me on the playground.”  She felt her face flush red.  “Especially since you took the blame for me shoving Theon over it.”

 Jon stared at her, clearly bemused.  “Oh,” he finally said.  “That was a long time ago.  I’m not still mad at you for it or anything.  Besides, Theon deserved it.”

 Sansa nodded.  “I know,” she said.  “I’m still sorry, though.”

 Jon shook his head. “It’s – it’s all right, Sansa. Don’t worry about it,” he said, and after a moment he held out his right hand.  “No hard feelings?  Friends, or – or at least fellow weirdos?”  He gave her the lopsided grin she’d first seen when she had given him the box of pencils and the note apologizing for the detention Mr. Cassel had given him back in sixth grade for defending her and Bran in front of Theon. Sansa gave him her hand at once and smiled back.

 “Friends and fellow weirdos,” she said.  “Deal.”

[jennmoslek36]

  MAY 2018

  ONLY MOMENTS AFTER squeezing out of the church we were back in the car, climbing the steep hill toward the 3 large, red brick buildings. As we came to a stop in front them I took a look around. Gone were the easy, worn grassy pathways that had made it easy to walk right up to each entrance just 2 months earlier. In their place was thick, invasive Kudzu. Anyone from the South is familiar with Kudzu. Green & leafy, it spreads like wild fire, smothering EVERYTHING in its path. NOTHING was safe from its wrath. The brick walls of the dorms & the little cottage, that I now believed to be the dining facility for the North Campus, weren’t any exception.

    OUT OF THE three, the middle building seemed like the best one to start with. I stood at the edge dreading the thought of having to take even one step into that green abyss!

        I RAN MY really awesome, extendable hot dog roaster through some of it just to see if anything jumped out & even though nothing attacked me, I still wasn’t convinced that imminent death wasn’t waiting underneath, so I did something even dumber…”Hey Google, Do Snakes Live In Kudzu?” I wasn’t ready for the answer I got!

    WELL ”F” YOU Google…You Shame Me! I stood there scowling, trying to work up the balls to just go. I even attempted to figure out how many times I would actually have to put either foot on the ground. If I just ran super fast I…E passed by me & was nearly to the front patio area by the time I even realized she was gone! I mean she almost danced through the crap…Show off! Well, here goes nothing! I booked it, not stopping for anything OR anyone & it went pretty good…Until the front of both feet connected with something solid, almost sending me sprawling flat on my face into the thick vines! Thank God I was able to catch my balance before I had a chance to hit the ground! WTF??? I stepped up on the invisible killer & looked down. A freaking tree trunk…REALLY? Where were you on that one my little Dancing Queen?? I was at least able to avoid having to step back into the death trap by jumping from my new platform to the concrete slab at the entrance.

    SO WE MADE it inside…ALIVE…FINALLY! I was already wishing we had more time but I knew the clock was ticking. The main area of the dorm building was exactly as I remembered it, dark, decayed & littered with the metal bunk beds & other furniture everywhere. The floor was wet & some of the beds were now flipped over on there sides. We didn’t have the early spring, late afternoon light giving the room the glow that it had back in that 1st weekend in March; The weather wasn’t going to grant us that. We would have to rely on our flashlights to light the way. At least they were decent flashlights!

        THE STAIRS TO NOWHERE

WE DID OUR usual routine without either of us having to even tell the other. I went one direction while E went another, every once in awhile one of us would call out “Hey, look at this!” OR “Did you see that?” but we mostly wandered around silently, with the sound of the water dripping onto the concrete floor, echoing through the room eerily. At one point I noticed E climbing a steep staircase on the opposite side of the room. WTH was that? I know it’s not saying much but I hadn’t noticed it the last time. I wandered over & looked up as she climbed to the top. And then I saw the whole picture. The steps were wedged between the outer brick wall of the dorm & an inner wall separating it from the room. As you looked up that inner wall, you could see 2 rectangular openings with rusted gratings in each. There was also a heavy metal door with a lock & another similar rusty grated “window” toward the top. E turned around & yelled from the top “There’s another room up here but you can’t get to it!” She came back down & headed out of the room, disappearing down the back hallway. Instead of following I made my way to the other side of the room & found a matching stairway. I had made it about half way up when she came back & her voice echoed through the room as she said “Do NOT try to go into that room!” I rolled my eyes at the fact that she knows me that well. I swear that she heard me because as I listened to her exiting the room again I heard her say “DON’T!” “It never crossed my mind” I mumbled. Well it didn’t…OK, it did but ONLY for a minute!

    WHAT I DID do was climb the steps to the top & pushed open the door, that was already ajar. Then kneeling on the stone steps, I leaned in as far as I could & snapped a few pics. Funny, I never really looked at them until I started writing this post. I also gave the room a good look just to see if there was even the slightest possibility of being able to get in there. It was just as messed up as everywhere else we’ve been! Maybe if I crawled & didn’t put my full body weight I could…Nope, NOT gonna try it! The last thing I needed was to fall through a rotting ceiling & land on the nasty concrete floor OR worse, having a metal bunk bed break my fall & impale me! I don’t know what would have been worse…Dying in that place due to stupidity OR having the Bestie stand over my bleeding body telling me what an idiot l am! I decided to forgo either scenario & turned to go back down the steps. And I don’t really care what was carved into that door at the top of the steps…Being up their & trying to climb back down those steep steps certainly did NOT kick ass!

  A Quick Peek…

  IT WAS ON the way back down that I looked out one of those rusty, grated windows & immediately regretted doing so. In my mind I saw a brief flash & instantly knew what they were. The Dozier guards would shut the heavy metal doors at the foot of the stairs & could stand at the top OR midway down, checking to make sure the boys were in bed without having to actually enter the room. In theory it makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, knowing what I know, that’s NOT the picture that I got in my mind. The flash I got as I snapped a pic, was of a wolf looking down on a flock of sheep, deciding which one he would prey upon. It made me nauseous & for the 1st time EVER I felt the need to get out of that stairway…FAST! How many boys had been snatched in the night by one of the wolves? How many were still out there, buried in an unmarked graves on Dozier land, waiting to be found…Waiting to go home.

    DURING THIS TRIP I had NO idea exactly how many boys were unaccounted for. Today as I write this I can say that there are close to 200…At least the ones tnat I know about! I’m not saying that this means every one of them are buried here BUT given the history I’ll leave everyone to draw their own conclusions.

  BUT WHERE ARE THE HEADSTONES?

WE LEFT THE 1st dorm but held off on going into the 2nd just to take a breather for a few minutes. We walked the dirt path, now entirely taken over by Kudzu, turning between the dorms & the dining hall. The woods were very thick in this area, so the possibility of hiking through would be slim to none, especially this late in the day. As we walked to where the path dead ended at yet another chain link fence, I looked to my left & said “If my research is accurate, Boothill Cemetery would be on the other side of those woods.” I was pretty sure of this BUT if Boothill sits inside of those woods, where did the grave markers go?

  Original Cement Crosses (circa 1961)

Original Crosses Found Discarded In Dozier Woods ~ 2009

Replacement Crosses (circa 1996)

1996 Crosses in 2013-14

  THIS WOULD BE yet another question that I worried about never really having a complete answer to. Though I’d eventually find a partial answer 6 months later….

      MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE…WAIT, IS THAT A BOY?

IT WAS STARTING to drizzle again & it was getting darker, so if we were going to get into that last dorm, we had to do it soon. We walked back & basically went through the same routine (minus the Google search!) & were soon standing inside. The set up was similar, although it had way less furniture. There were more beds, some flipped over on their sides. I started looking at the overturned beds & noticed several things about them…1) They each had a metal footlocker at the bottom & 2) There were numbered tags on each.

    THE TAGS WERE filthy, ripped & most were peeling off the metal around the edges. Almost all of them were legible, making it easy to snag a few. It took a minute to carefully pull each off but when I finally got each one, I held it flat in my hand. They felt the same way a wet sticker felt after you take it off your shirt & the adhesive side gets dirty. They were also extremely brittle, literally disintegrating in my hands! I quickly & gently placed them inside of a plastic bag, sealed it & put it inside of my backpack. I still have them, in their bag, to this day. I then went through the back door into a narrow hallway to search for the Bestie. It didn’t take long to find her; She was standing at one end of the hall looking into what I assumed was a closet. She quickly pointed out that it definitely was NOT just a closet. I walked over to see & it was clear why she was disturbed…The little “closet” was more like a solitary confinement room! Although it would barely be big enough for more than 1 person, it had a light fixture hanging from the ceiling & its most disturbing feature was that the “closet” had a lock on it…And it locked from the outside.

  A Closet OR Something More Sinister?

  THERE WAS NO end to the horror show that this place had to offer. There also seemed to be NO end to the building itself. Everywhere we turned, there was another room, hallway OR “closet” to look at. After heading around a corner, I landed myself inside of the dorm bathroom. Like the rest of the building, the walls of this area were brick. The floor was also filled with, thick, muddy water due to the roof that had collapsed in several areas. Thank God for rain boots because the sludge was almost ankle deep in spots! The 1st thing I saw were the filthy porcelain sinks. They were screwed into the brick wall, lined up in a row. I stood & faced them & then headed to my right where a brick wall divided the sinks from a row of toilets that were full of water & leaves. Above them the roof was gone with wood beams hanging.

    ON EITHER SIDE of the sinks were small brick enclosures with openings at the front. I stepped in not knowing what they were. Looking around there wasn’t anything really to look at. Other than the walls, there was nothing inside. I was stepping out & happened to glance up to check out the condition of the ceiling…that’s when I saw it; I should say “them” as there was more than one. They were shower heads coming out of the ceiling. Apparently I was standing inside of one of the group showers.

    I STEPPED OVER the lip of the shower & looking across the room I saw something that stood out as being oddly placed. It was a blue framed mirror attached to the wall but its positioning felt off. I stood in front of it & as I stared at my reflection I swear I felt movement behind me, it felt like a whisper but when I turned, I didn’t see anything. I decided to take a couple of pics of it & then turned to leave the area. But I couldn’t shake this nagging feeling that there was something about that mirror….

  “MY MIRROR”

  I WOULDN’T KNOW What that nagging feeling was until after we were home…As I took that pick of the mirror, apparently I was being watched by something that appeared to be a small boy. peaking out from around the brick shower wall. It was jarring to say the least.

  A Closer Look…

  WHAT I CAPTURED in that photo would be confirmed on a late summer day. You see, when comparing the boy from my pic to dozens of archive photos of the boys at Dozier, the general look of the boy I saw possibly matched the look of the boys serving sentences in the 50’s & 60’s. There are several names that came to mind but I’ll never be sure.

  A Possible Match??

  NOW HIS MESSAGE is a different story. I wholeheartedly believe that he was there to offer confirmation that there are still boys buried at the school but I think he was saying more than that; Just look at the position of the mirror in that bathroom & what you can easily see in its reflection…

  A Chilling Reality…

    NEWER DOES NOT EQUAL BETTER

OBVIOUSLY I HAD no idea of what I had caught on film at the time, so I decided to use the few remaining minutes we had to see what was further back in the building. On my way, I met up with E who was starting to feel uneasy. To be honest, she had made it very clear from our 1st step inside that she didn’t like this building. Now that twilight Was upon us, she just wanted to get the Hell out of there. I told her that I was heading toward the back of the building to look at the last of the rooms. She, however, would NOT be going with me & said as much as she started back toward the front. It was really dark & of course my phone was dying rapidly. It only took me a minute to reach the final room (At least that I know of!) & in that minute it became cave like….Dark, damp & musty. The door to the room was missing from the frame, propped up against a wall inside the room. The only sound that could be heard was the constant dripping of water echoing throughout the dorm. The room looked like another sleeping area as there were a number of beds crowding the space. Up against the far wall I could see what looked like lockers OR storage for personal items.

    THE ODD THING was that even though the room itself was utter chaos, a majority of the stuff in it was in decent shape. Maybe being tucked away in the back of the building had offered enough protection from the elements but seeing the posters for more “current” bands like Metallica made it just as likely that this particular area hadn’t been used for as long as the others. Either way it didn’t really matter as it still had the markings of the children who had once been there.

    IN THE END there was just way too much stuff strewn around the room for me to go inside, especially with it being so dark. Before heading back to the front, I stood in the doorway & used what little battery power to snap a few pics.

    I WASN’T ABLE to use the flash so while you can make out a majority of the items inside, the quality isn’t great. I’m not too disappointed though because at least I got something!

      IT AIN’T A PARTY TIL SOMEONE FREAKS OUT!!

FEELING MORE ACCOMPLISHED than I had ever imagined I would, I made my way to where we had started from & E was still inside looking around although she was definitely looking more & more unsettled by the minute. Since we had pretty much reached the end of the road for this trip, I was lingering, trying to take everything I could in & make sure that I didn’t miss ANYTHING! It was then that I realized how quiet it had gotten. Even the dripping had ceased. I had just turned to ask E if she noticed the sudden lack of sound & that’s when it happened…3 loud banging noises, almost like knocks, echoed through the building! It was so loud that I swear you could feel the floor vibrate & see the walls shake! Before the banging stop we both looked at each other & I just yelled one word…”GO!!!” We both took off running, not caring about having to get through the Kudzu & NOT taking even a millisecond to look back. We didn’t glance at the building we’d just hauled ass out of until we were back at the car. We were out of breath & unfortunately out of time…But E did manage to hang on to another school brick during our escape!

  Bye Felicia!

I Guess I Took A “Running For My Life” Selfie!

  I WASN’T SURE what E thought the banging was from but I had actually thought the building was coming down…That’s how loud it was! When we did give the dorm another look, it appeared in one piece, standing silently in the evening light. I was sad & didn’t want to say goodbye again…With every visit, I had to prepare myself for the reality that it could be the last time I’d be able to stand on the campus, explore its buildings & still find evidence of what had been preserved inside the crumbling walls.

    AS WE PULLED away that Sunday, at the end of May, I had NO idea what was to come & NO clue just how close we’d be to losing everything….

  View Of The South Campus…

  ☆ IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW WERE HOUSED AT “THE FLORIDA INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL FOR BOYS” AKA “THE ARTHUR G DOZIER SCHOOL FOR BOYS” OR THE OKEECHOBEE SCHOOL FOR BOYS, PLEASE REACH OUT VIA HERE AT findingflorida.blog OR ANY OF THE CONTACT INFO LISTED BELOW!!☆

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HEADING BACK TO DOZIER ~ Conclusion: The Boy In The Mirror MAY 2018 ONLY MOMENTS AFTER squeezing out of the church we were back in the car, climbing the steep hill toward the 3 large, red brick buildings.