My mother, Emmery Verbetta, used to tell me scary stories as a child.  Not to scare me but because she simply believed there was some truth in almost all folklore.  She avidly believed in damn near everything and everyone but herself.  She was a little bit eccentric, a little bit erratic and highly irrational but she could justify anything.  “How do you know it is not true?  Just because you haven’t seen it or cannot explain it doesn’t mean that it is not real!” she would say.

“Scientific proof, Mother, I need to see actual photographs if I am going to believe in aliens, ghosts, the Loch Ness monster and all of the other bullshit you’ve been talking about since I was a kid,” I yelled, as a precocious teenager, full of derision and anger.  “You&rs...

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