It will have been two years ago this October when I and my stalwart friend Ted Skirvin hopped into my decrepit Sazuki Samurai and began a cross-country road trip to examine UFO landmarks. I had long wanted to take a trip across the good old USA, but didn't have a theme - and what, my friend, is a road-trip without a theme? Then in the Summer of 97 with the Hale-Bopp comet clearly visible in the sky the members of the "Heaven's Gate" cult offed themselves. And I figured it was some kind of sign. Why not go see a bunch of the places where UFOlogy got started. And we'd make additional stops as needed. After all, what's a road-trip without flexibility?

So we started by going to Gulf Breeze Florida, where Ed Walter's takes polaroids of colorful ray-shooting space-ships. Then we moved West and stopped in Louisiana and visited Marie LaVeux's (spelling?) VooDoo grave. On Westward to Houston - where nothing supernatural or paranormal transpired, but which boasts the home of Ted's Aunt and Uncle who were kind enough to house us for free.

And then North to Dallas where we visited the 6th Floor Museum, where Kennedy's assassin may have fired the killing shots. And we also visited the conspiracy museum, where I bought a hat.

Then we began West once again, stopping overnight in the sleaziest motel I've ever been in. The next morning we stopped to get gasoline, and Ted noticed the sign that said "CROSS PLAINS 24." He was pretty sure that the town was the home of Robert E. Howard, author of the Conan books. [And yes, I know he authored many other stories - Solomon Kane is my favorite of his burly literary progeny...] We had time to spare, so we headed south into the town that time forgot.

Cross Plains hasn't changed much since REH left it. They've added a tasty-freeze. (Or it might have been a DQ - either way I doubt that would have been enough to get him to avert suicide.) We weren't sure if it was the right town. They didn't have a big statue of Conan to greet you or anything. Frankly, my experience in that town was the closest thing to living out an RPG I've ever encountered. We'd come to a new town and didn't know what to do next... so we WENT TO THE NEWSPAPER OFFICE! There we met the editor of the Cross Plains newspaper who told us that yes this is the home of REH. She also gave us a valuable clue and directed us to the LIBRARY FOR RESEARCH! So we went to the library, and found that REH's estate had left it a generous allotment, as well as a fine collection of his works. [And here's the HPL tie-in - you knew it was coming, right?] Among them was a collection of REH's correspondence with HPL. And it was a thick volume of the most amazing communications. I attempted to read as much as I could while we waited for the Librarian to take us on a tour of REH's house. The letters covered an amazing range of subjects, and I couldn't help but wonder how these two literary bachelors from radically different worlds ever managed to meet and correspond.

[Flash forward a year - I made it back from my trip, no UFO's but a bit more cynical. I'm now convinced that UFO stands for Unlimited Financial Opportunity!]

I'm reading one night from S.T. Joshi's annotated H.P. Lovecraft book, and am enjoying "The Rat's in the Walls." If you haven't read it this section contains a spoiler:

********SPOILER!!!!****************

In the end of the story when Delapore is reverting/de-evolving into the cannibalistic beast, Lovecraft uses an interesting convention to show us the change. He begins having Delapore speak in progressively older languages. Joshi is kind enough to translate the passage in his text. The passage goes from English, archaic English, Middle English, Latin, Gaelic and then Grunts. Because of the locale of the story, the language before Latin should have been Cymric rather than Gaelic - but Lovecraft took an easy cheat and figured nobody would notice the difference. He'd lifted the passage from a story called "The Sin Eater" by William Sharp (1856-1905). Now Lovecraft was aware of the mistake, but he didn't think anyone would notice and told Frank B. Long as much in a letter.

But when the story was reprinted in Weird Tales in 1930, someone did notice. Robert E. Howard wrote the editor, Farnsworth Wright and said, "...I note from the fact that Mr. Lovecraft has his charcter speaking Gaelic instead of Cymric, in denoting the Age of the Druids, that he holds to Lluyd's theory as to the settling of Britain by the Celts." [And this is published in "Selected Letters" A 5 volume edition by Arkham House. I'm not sure if it's currently being published or not...]

Wright forwarded the message to Lovecraft, and according to Joshi this is what spawned their six years of frequent correspondence. Now isn't that wonderfully ironic? Lovecraft takes a shortcut, then finds a fellow writer who not only notices it but provides some justification for it having some accuracy! Every time I think about this I just find myself laughing.

I hope if you've made it all the way to the end of this that you found it entertaining too!