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| No More Ghosts - Please!! |
By Seamus O’Bradaigh
The elusive Highland Wheeler.
A shimmering bike-bound shroud.
Rolling silent down a Highlands Highway.
Apocryphal?
Anecdotal?
Or rural legend?
The Wheeler, a Highlands’ phenomenon, and strange swaying apparition. Rod Serling popped the big nut, so it’s left to a local investigative journalist - who is either Crocodile Dundee, the newly risen poltergeist of Steve Irwin, or Jack Brezina dressed in Tilley drag – to draw us into the mystery surrounding this stunningly slippery specter via several vibrant videos on You Tube.
Scotland has its Nessie; the Andes has its Yeti; and my schizophrenic neighbor will apparently always have Elvis. Now, the Haliburton Highlands apparently has its Wheeler.
A synthesis of ectoplasm, titanium and rubber.
I’m just guessin’ here folks, based on the current cycling technology and paranormal studies and stats. The fearless You Tube reporter – Crikey I bloody hope it’s Stevie Boy - and a growing contingent of local riders, like the Tuesday Real Easy Riders Club, say they have had experiences, eerie premonitions and frank encounters during rides of late.
“I was nearing the top of a hill, and I was struggling, when suddenly I felt a push, from behind, that carried me to the top,” says one rider, via one Wheeler video. (Google You Tube “Highland Wheeler”). When I first checked in last week there were three videos. Now there’s five – or six. I don’t know. I’m not good with You Tube.
But I can report that the videos have gone viral. Well over 314 hits.
What?
No, I did not misplace a decimal. This is Haliburton, smart butts. Anything over 200 is Justin Bieber territory.
If we get 1000 hits Pastor Peter Mansbridge will be leading The National with The Highlands Wheeler.
If it bleeds it leads baby.
We of course will have to hope that sometime soon the Wheeler will take down a Moose on Highway 35.
Leaving an oozing smoky trail of ectoplasm and burnt rubber.
Pan to Sergeant Clark McBlaster, standing beside the dead moose, puzzled look on his face and quoting Robert Service for a CBC intern wearing gothic black and Clearasil pimple cream.
“Yes Julie,” says McBlaster. “Ol’ Robert was right: ‘There are strange things done ‘neath the midnight sun by cyclists on the road. And these Highland trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.’ ”
Ol’ Clarkie is apparently sliding a few months early into retirement, and pining hard for national face time. We digress, back to the chase.
Ahh, crap, just realized that I uploaded the videos out of order. Bad news. Steve Irwin is still six feet under with a stingray beak in his chest.
Good news. It is apparently Wolverine Jack Brezina, channeling his inner Indiana Jones. “Is this just the figment of someone’s imagination or is there indeed a phantom cyclist known as the Highlands Wheeler roaming around the hills of Haliburton?” asks Wolverine Jack in the lead video.
Mike Jaycock, Sean Pennylegion and Jim Hopkins are all intrigued.
But no one has the cohunes to come clean with that classic trailer park testimonial.
“YES, lord, lordy, lord. I saw him. Big white light atop a full schmush Trek Enduro. Darnitt if he didn’t roll right up to the trailer, knock on the door and shove a probe … right up my … hmmm. “We’s on You Tube? I don’t wants to disturb anyone’s lunch.
Let’s just say this Wheeler feller took out a long metal stick and put it where the moon never shines. Lemme’ tell you Wolverine Jack. It’s Roswell, all over again. Lordy, Mary get them curlers out of your hair. We’s on You Tube, Not America’s Most Wanted.”
Well, we’ve fallen down another tangential well here.
I just located another video. Brezina reports that the OPP forensics team has popped to life. CSI Haliburton springs to action in the Highlands. We swing to the Hawk Lake Log Chute. “The OPP has received several reports about a mysterious rolling object. Some people have nicknamed it the Highland Wheeler,” says our spokesman and forensics whiz Clark McBlaster.
He puts on the gloves.
Clue-sifting-gloves.
Latex, large, talcum coated.
He’s handed the evidence. A 50’s era bike horn and a top hat. Pennylegion says the sneaky SOB wears a top hat. McBlaster tries to place perspective on this big break. He’s gone silent. Hamsters grinding away on wheels in that forensic noodle.
Wait, he speaks.
“Ditched his horn and hat,” says McBlaster. “Bad sign. He’s probably bought a helmet.”
McBlaster is putting it together, hamsters spinning those wheels, neurons clacking hard connecting synaptic dots. The Highland Wheeler, says Clarkie, already a spectral commodity, is divesting all remnants of his past. Silent running, helmet. Better to blend with the locals. Infiltration.
Classic KGB tactics, says McBlaster.
Now if he can just get rid of that ectoplasmic neon glow that surrounds him, the Highland Wheeler would be all but invisible. Bad news.
The forensics expert roaming the woods with McBlaster has apparently stumbled on some mushrooms.
She comes out of the woods, grinning and wearing the top hat. The key evidence in the case.
“You’ve contaminated the top hat,” chides McBlaster.
Then a smile. Maybe pondering that impending retirement? “Hey, can you show me where you dug up those mushrooms?”
The video closes with a short snippet of the Wheeler, rolling luminescent and shimmering in the sun. Like a Canada Day pinwheel.
Back to the You Tube. A break in the case. Pan to Mike and Jane Jaycock on the road.
Wolverine Jack finally gleaning some concrete apocrypha.
“We’ve seen the Highland Wheeler, right beside the Share the Road Sign,” says Mike. “We have video of him right in front of the sign,” says Jane.
The Jaycock video that follows is a miasma of dashboard, grass, door handles, Mike’s butt – apparently ripe for that probe - and a full frontal of the Share the Road Sign. But no Wheeler visible on the shaky replay.
All of which begs the inevitable questions.
Do Mike and Jane live in a trailer? Do they grow mushrooms?
Okay. But I had to ask.
Mike leaves us with a poignant thought.
“I know we saw him,” says Mike. “And now every time I see a cyclist on the road, I’m gonna Share the Road.”
Ahh. Amen to that brother Mike, Sister Jane.
Let’s leave just that one ghost on the highway this summer.
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