Storytellers practice and perfect their art

Storyteller and retired railroader John Hubert of McCook tells about a railroader-ghost during a storytelling session at the museum called "Smoke on the Steel".

Shivers ran down spines. Shaky "oohs" echoed to the high ceiling of the two-story great room of the High Plains Museum as a McCook man told about a house in Indianola haunted by the spirit of a railroad man killed in a train derailment more than 100 years ago.

The art of storytelling -- and getting the desired response to the story told, like the shivers and oohs -- is the basis of McCook's annual "Buffalo Commons Storytelling Festival." Every year for the past 11 years, storytellers have practiced and perfected that art in McCook, teaching and learning anything-but-dry analytical classroom lessons, sharing personal experiences and passing along local history.

Storyteller, McCook historian and retired railroader John Hubert shared a story of local railroad lore during the "Smoke on the Steel" session Saturday morning at the Museum of the High Plains.

In a derailment many, many years ago, in 1895, near a two-story house in Indianola, the train's fireman was killed when the locomotive turned over. The man's body was buried under tons of twisted iron and steel, and it was five days before workers could reach it and bury the poor man's body in the McCook cemetery, Hubert said.

For years, inhabitants of the two-story house reported strange sounds, Hubert said ... shades raised, creaky doors opened. "A presence ... " they insisted, "especially when a train passed by ... "

It was as if the fireman's spirit "took refuge in that house," during the five days it took rescuers to reach his body, Hubert said, quietly. For years after the train wreck, the railroader's spirit seemed to walk through doorways, Hubert said, raise window shades to watch trains pass by.

Hubert, a railroader himself and fascinated by the story of the ghost fireman, brought into the house an "aura meter" -- an instrument that can detect the atmosphere around a living creature. "There was something there, at several places," Hubert said to the hushed, expectant crowd. "There was something there, and then it wasn't. It seemed to move."

In 1995, Hubert remembers, a severe thunderstorm pitched giant, sizzling bolts of lightning at the ground near the house in Indianola. A train rumbled through Indianola, westbound, past the house. And a light, Hubert said, seemed to follow the train along the tracks, all the way to McCook.

In McCook, too, streaks of lightning penetrated the dark, electrifying the air around the north cemetery, and especially around the grave of railroader William McCarl.

Believers think, Hubert said, that the railroader's spirit finally caught a train. "It took 100 years for his spirit to find his body," Hubert said.

The crowd sat entranced ... quiet, reverent, believing. The shivers ... the "oohs."

Then, with a mischievous grin, Hubert said, "This is a true story. Only the fact have been changed."

Hubert's storytelling, and the tales told by fellow railroaders, highlighted the Saturday morning session at the museum. Their presentations were followed by performances by the Boulder Acoustic Society (BAS) and storyteller Andy Offutt Irwin.

At Memorial United Methodist Church, Barbara McBride-Smith and the Rev. Dr. Dennis Smith of the McCook Ministerial Association explained "The Power of Story."

At the Bieroc Cafe in downtown McCook, Hubert, joined by Mary Ellen Goodenberger, encouraged others to share their stories. In Norris Park, Barbara McBride-Smith, Irwin, BAS and local talent performed during a "Bandshell Boogie" while youngsters enjoyed "Kids' Fest."

"Tall Tales & Toe-Tapping Tunes" at the Historic Fox Theater rounded out the two-day schedule of storytelling events.

See page 10 in today's Gazette for coverage of Buffalo Commons activities.