Brain Candy #31 - Forbidden Fruit

The first URL is marylaine.com/neatnew.html. It's called "Neat New Stuff I Found on the Web This Week". I'll be honest with you; this URL is one of my prime sources for this column. Every few weeks, I drop by to see if there's anything here worth talking to you about. Sometimes I use links I find here; sometimes it just gives me an idea for a column. The author is Marylaine Block, until very recently a librarian and now a "librarian without walls" as she's left St. Ambrose University to pursue writing and internet training. She originated www.sau.edu/bestinfo/, the "Best Information on the Net" site, which is what first caught my eye. It's an information resource created by librarians for librarians, but as most of us know, librarians are the information equivalent of hungry truckers. You know, "eat where the truckers eat". Anyway, she's no longer associated with that site, but her Neat New Stuff site went with her and is a top-notch place to look for sites about all sorts of things. She keeps the last six months of sites, so there will be a lot to look at. Check it out!

The reason I was hesitant to reveal the Neat New Stuff site is a bit selfish. I felt it might take some of the novelty out of my column. On the other hand, I use only a small fraction of the links found there - those which appeal to my personal interests. There's a lot more that I don't use that you might like, so I feel like I should share the site with you. I hope you find it useful and entertaining.

My reason for hesitating about the next topic is the potential it has for exposing you to ugliness. I'm interested in mysteries -- real-life mysteries. Throughout human history, there have been events that have occurred that we don't fully understand. I've occasionally touched on these in a column or in conversation with other Mensans. The web is an especially good place to search for information like this. You must be aware however, that some of what you'll find is false information, speculation, and occasionally some shocking, explicit descriptions and images. You're at the mercy of the authors of the pages you visit. Some of them like offending squeamish visitors.

There are topics which are generally innocuous, like "Are thylacines extinct?" or "What is the Voynich document?" Other have some potential for unsettling revelations: paranormal mysteries usually fall into this area. There are some topics, violent crime, for instance, that have graphically explicit web sites devoted to them on the web. If you choose to explore the mysterious crimes of Jack the Ripper, the Cleveland Torso Murderer, the Black Dahlia killer or Zodiac, there exist web sites that will test your tolerance for gore. In addition, the violence shown in these sites is real. Be very sure you are willing to see what you might see if you go this route.

Here's a recent search I conducted, which is typical of my interests. On April 9, 1947, one of the most deadly tornado outbreaks in the history of the U.S. began near White Deer, Texas. Tornadoes completely destroyed the cross-roads town of Glazier and heavily damaged Higgins. The information I can find about events in these towns is scanty, even on the web. I would like to know more about what happened there, but that information doesn't yet appear to be on the web. The outbreak didn't end there, however. The worst was about to occur.

Woodward, Oklahoma was the largest town in the path of the tornado family. The damage caused by this event represents the greatest tornado disaster in Oklahoma history, a state legendary for devastating tornadoes. The story of the tornado that hit Woodward is filled with tales of horrendous damage, injuries and death. In the aftermath of this disaster, there were also several mysteries. Three of the dead were very young girls and were never identified. It seems unlikely that they ever will be, but there is always the possibility. A second, possibly solvable mystery, is what happened to 4-year-old Joan Gay Croft.

Joan Gay Croft was slightly injured in the tornado, and was taken to the Woodward hospital. Her mother was killed and her father was severely injured; other relatives were searching for still missing family members, so no one was immediately available to care for her and her half-sister. Since there were hundreds of injured, many dying, coming in to the hospital, the two girls were placed in the hospital basement. An aunt visited them before going off to tend her badly-injured mother. She came back early the next day, but Joan Gay was gone. Her sister, Jerry, said that two men dressed in khaki clothing had asked for them by name and removed Joan Gay by stretcher to a waiting car. At first, a mistake was assumed; in all the confusion it was expected that she would turn up at another hospital. She was never found.

The book I found this story in, "In the Shadow of the Tornado" by Richard Bedard, is a few years old. I hoped that I'd find more recent information about this mystery on the web, and I did. My first search using Google used the keywords "Joan", "Gay" and "Croft" was not narrow enough. A particular hazard is that "Gay" is not a good word to use for genteel searching; a lot of explicit stuff popped up, even if it was only text. I refined the search by adding "Woodward". If you repeat this search, you will find that the top hit is at www.ardmoreite.com/stories/041498/news/news06.html. This is an article from the Daily Oklahoman about Joan Gay Croft. It doesn't solve the mystery, but it does offer the possibility of a solution. The article is 22 months old and sadly, there has been no web-based update, although based on the story, one might have been expected. Still, this is one mystery that might be solved. I won't spoil it; visit the site if you're curious.

There are frequent horror stories in the media about offensive web sites that are easy to blunder in to. I've never had an experience of this type, unless I was lurking in areas where I might expect to find such sites. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but some care on the part of web explorers can minimize such events for those who don't want to experience them.