Page 10 - Demo

10|April 2020
The Stone Detective
Help! My Marble is Possessed!
Slippery rock GAzette
Listen Closely
A guy walks into a bar, sits down, and the bartender
says, “What’ll you have?”
“Jim Beam on the rocks,” the man says.
As the drink is being served, the bartender says, “That’ll be $7.50, please.”
The guy scowls. “What are you talking about? I don’t own you anything!”
“Of course you do!”
“I most certainly do not!” Another man down the bar
has been taking it all in. He approaches the bartender and says, “I happen to be a law- yer, and what this man says is correct. You made the original offer, which was binding upon acceptance. Since there was no stipulation for remuneration, Ipso Facto the drink is free.”
The bartender isn’t happy, but he accepts defeat. He leans across the bar and barks to the guy, “OK, you beat me out of a drink fair and square. Now get your ass out, and don’t let me catch you back in here again!”
A few days later, the same guy strolls though the door. The bartender is furious.
“Hey, deadbeat! What are you doing here? I told you to stay away from this place!”
The man recoils in shock. “Are you crazy, sir? What are you talking about? I’ve never been in this bar!
The contrite bartender apolo- gizes. I’m so sorry for the mis- take. You must have a double.”
“Why, thank you! the guy says with a smile. “Make it Jack Daniel’s this time.”
Ihave been in the stone busi- ness for over 30 years, and I am still shocked at some of the weird calls and things I see in this business that are just plain strange. Today would be no dif- ferent, but I had no idea it would be a first, even for me.
I was enjoying a cup of joe at my favorite greasy spoon and overheard Flo talking to one of the regulars about a new show on TV. I didn’t quite hear the name of the show, but I did hear her saying something about a little girl being possessed. I thought nothing of it, figuring it was just the normal diner chitchat that I hear every morning. Little did I realize that I would be involved with a case later that day where someone’s marble floor was sup- posedly possessed.
I finished my coffee and was headed back to the office when my cell phone rang. “Stone Detective here,” I said. The voice on the other end sounded frantic and scared. The lady was crying, mumbling something about her new marble floor was haunted or possessed. She was going on and on claiming some “spirit entity” had entered her home and started writing on her marble floor.
I wasn’t sure why she was calling me instead of a priest, but it roused my curiosity. After she finished her macabre tale, I started asking her my standard questions. How old was the in- stallation? When did she start noticing the problem? Etcetera, etcetera. Then I asked the most
SRG Mailbag
Continued from page 4
Soabout5or6ofusgotintoaLand Rover with 4 or 5 army transporters ahead of us and an equal number behind. About 15-20 miles from the quarries the convoy waved us good- bye and was careful to wish us good luck as they disappeared down the road, leaving us in the solitary Land Rover, driving down dirt roads to the quarries. Just before getting there we were met by two armed guards who told us that we had to abandon the truck, walk the rest of the way and they would act as our bodyguards as, I repeat, this was all rebel terri- tory. After a few minutes’ walk the
Frederick M. Hueston, PhD
important question: why did she think her floor was possessed?
She told me that her white mar- ble floor was installed about 6 months ago. One day recently, she woke up and noticed what ap- peared to be blurry words appear- ing on top of the marble. She told me that these words appeared to be getting more and more clear. I asked her if she could make out what the words were. She told me that one of the tiles appeared to have the number 666, and an- other one had the word, “Tha.... something.” She was convinced it was some kind of spirit writing or maybe a demon sending a mes- sage. Well, I almost laughed — but then again, I also was pretty scared when I saw The Exorcist. I told her I would be out there that afternoon to take a look.
I arrived at a large house that reminded me of the old hill-top house in the movie Psycho. As I pulled up in the drive, I thought, I hope Norman’s not home! I swear I heard some eerie music coming from inside the house.
I don’t know why, but my thoughts went to the music from Beetlejuice. I tried to keep a seri- ous face, but I laughed to myself. Maybe I’m watching too many movies.
I grabbed my bag of inspection tools and headed for the front door. Time to cue my own theme music: Tubular Bells.
When I rang the doorbell, a tall,
lead guard got a couple of 100 yards ahead, as he was used to walking the jungle and we were not. Suddenly we heard a gun go off, so we all thought we were being attacked by rebels. I promptly dived to the ground and had the privilege of having 4 or 5 fairly heavy gentlemen, to include Murray, piled on top of me.
Let’s say that it was most uncom- fortable, but I was buoyed by the thought that when the Assegai (stab- bing spears) guys came, I would be on the bottom and thus protected! However, nothing further happened and after 15-20 minutes we stood up, dusted ourselves off and continued walking. When we got to the quarry we discovered that the reason for the shot was not rebels, but our guard had
pale lady answered the door. She was wearing a long black dress that reminded me of the one that Morticia wore in the old Adams Family series. Yep. This is going to be a strange inspection, I thought.
She led me into a large living room. When I say large–I mean large. It looked more like a ball- room. The floor was a white Carrara-type marble. It was all perfectly vein matched, a beauti- ful job. I noticed right away that some of the pieces had black squiggles and writing that was foggy but appeared to be just below the surface of the stone.
I suspected right away what was causing it. I looked over at “Morticia” and wanted to tell her she needed to call Father Dyer. No, I didn’t – but I sure thought about it!
I did reassure her that her floor wasn’t possessed. I asked her if she had any leftover pieces that had not been installed. She told me there were a few pieces in the garage. She led me there, and indeed, there were several large pieces of thin marble lean- ing up against the wall. I care- fully grabbed one and pulled it away from the wall, to look at the reverse side. Bingo – just as
shot a Guinea fowl for lunch! There was much rejoicing by all. The rest of the trip was uneventful, and we re- turned to Salisbury late that evening.
Concerning Zimbabwe Black gran- ite, once it arrived and was sold in North America, we discovered a peculiar phenomenon: sawn slabs looked perfect, but some polished slabs would show a black “knot” about the size of a baseball, generally circular. One of my customers, Mr. Marc Bussiere (of Bussiere Granite, Megantic, Quebec), found a solution to the problem by wiping the spots down with diluted muriatic acid, after which they would disappear.
A friend of mine, Dr. William B. Size, was a professor of geology at
I thought. There was writing on the back of each piece in what appeared to be black magic marker. I told her that the alco- hol-based ink in the marker was bleeding though the stone and was wicking to the surface of the stone. She genuflected and said a relieved “Thank goodness!” I told her that the stone would need to be poulticed to remove the stains, and it could take nu- merous poultices applications. Another cased solved – and an- other stone floor exorcised!
What do you think: should I charge more for “ghost busting”?
The Stone Detective is a fic- tional character created by Dr. Frederick M. Hueston, PhD. Dr. Fred has written over 33 books on stone and tile fabrication and installation, and also serves as an expert witness. Fred has also been writing for the Slippery Rock for over 20 years. Send your comments to fhueston@ stoneforensics.com.
Emory University, so I asked him what could cause this problem. He in- vestigated and inspected a few pieces of stone with the defect clearly visible and gave the following explanation: Zimbabwe Black is an igneous rock, and was basically formed by erup- tions from down below.
During these eruptions, some mol- ten lava would be spewed into the air and, due to surface tension, become ball-shaped, after which it would fall back into the remaining magma. However, that meant that these gran- ite balls were in fact much denser than the surrounding material because the curved shape had reduced the vol- ume. When these balls fell into the surrounding magma they melted once again, forming an integral part of the
block so that, when it was sawn, you did not see this. However, under the polishing process, because these balls were denser and a little harder than the surrounding stone, they would take a deeper, darker gloss which be- came visible. The muriatic acid treat- ment aforementioned would simply attack the highly polished surface and tone it down a little to blend with the remaining material surrounding the balls. Suffice it to say that it worked, and that Zimbabwe Black is still being exported to this day some 45 years later!
Yours sincerely, Peter T. de Kok