Hi! 2023 Thomm here. This article has vanished from the internet since the publication went out of business. (I am not saying it is because of this article, but I may be implying it.) I thought it deserved to be resurrected, especially as I am too enmeshed in rushing out a book for a proper update. Still, I will drop in my comments, so there is some freshness. I've also fixed a few style guide issues.
Also -- fun fact -- this was my first time reading this article. Reading my press or reviews of my work fills me with dread.
October 16-22, 2015
By Brian Hubert
Columbia-Greene Media
Mid-way through the interview, Brian Hubert said this was the last thing he would ever write for this paper. I'm not saying it is because of this article, but I may be implying it.
Local author Thomm Quackenbush has been busy collecting local lore of the strange, the mysterious, and the unbelievable - well, maybe not to all.
And at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 22 the Red Hook Public Library is hosting a community event at the Enchanted Café in Red Hook at which Quackenbush will share his stories and take questions from those equally engaged in the supernatural and the bizarre.
The Enchanted Cafe was a fantastic place to have in my town before Covid caused the proprietor, Joe, to lose it. That space is now an insurance agent or real estate office. I don't know because I have no reason to approach it. I was not the biggest draw, but I filled the small cafe. I once saw Stephen Bassett there, who packed it just as much because there was only so much room. Bassett tried to goad us to give him thousands of dollars so he could lead us into a field and summon a UFO. I do not think anyone ponied up the cash. All I wanted from them was for them to buy my books, which I do not believe happened.
Quackenbush said he will touch on several local legends, including the Pine Bush UFO incidents that briefly garnered a great deal attention during a summer in the 1980s, but soon were mostly forgotten.
There has been a Pine Bush UFO Fair for a decade, so not entirely forgotten. I do not know how frequently people see the ships, though. Perhaps they should bribe Bassett? Writing that, I genuinely cannot be sure he hasn't done that, though he has not been a guest at the UFO Fair.
He said people in the area claimed to have seen triangular flying objects in the night sky. Some dismissed them as being some type of ultralight aircraft, but he said he dismissed that explanation of what people had observed.
Because it doesn't make sense. The ships were silent, seen by thousands at a time, most of whom were not kooks. When the hoaxers tried to claim ownership of the phenomenon, everyone knew that wasn't what they had seen before. Tell me the Hudson Valley UFO Flap was an experimental aircraft from Stewart Airforce Base. I will nod that this is possible -- unwise to fly it over the populous Hudson Valley, but possible. Don't tell me it was paragliders with lawnmower engines in perfect formation, which is a ridiculous conjecture. This is the sort of nonsense that makes people believe in disinformation.
So many people went to go see for themselves as word spread of the flying objects that the town had to ban the practice of people parking alongside roads, or gathering in fields, to gaze up at the sky.
"People were setting fires in fields and leaving them," he said.
Quackenbush said he also will be talking about the story of Leatherman, a vagrant man who traveled in a 350-mile circle every 30 days during the late 1800s.
The Leatherman wore makeshift clothing made out of nothing more than shoe leather, he said.
"That must've really smelled bad in the summertime," Quackenbush joked.
hope I said something more clever than that, but I cannot be sure. The idea of the interview made me anxious, more so when Hubert wanted to see the inside of my apartment. Aside from overflowing bookshelves -- it's a real problem -- there isn't much there that would speak to my being a writer.
He as quickly wanted to leave my apartment, which is fair.
Leatherman sort of became beloved curiosity by people in local towns and no town ever sought to outlaw him, Quackenbush said.
"Sometimes he asked for food, he never asked for money," he said.
Even more than that, the Leatherman would become offended at being offered money. If you left shiny pennies for him, you would find corroded ones in their place. All he wanted was to be left alone to his circuit.
A newspaper at the time published a fabricated story that said the Leatherman was actually an exiled Frenchman who had made the leather business fail.
"That story was completely false," he said.
But Quackenbush said perhaps the strangest story about the Leatherman centered around his grave in Westchester County.
He said when it was exhumed, folks found nothing but animal bones and nails, leading to countless questions about the true location of his remains.
I appreciate all the "he said" to couch that I am offering conjecture, but this is what happened. You can look it up. What it means is up to you, but they did find his grave largely empty -- and without a doubt absent of any Leathermen.
Quackenbush has a hunch someone just moved them elsewhere.
In the end, the gravesite, which was located on U.S. Route 9 in Ossining, was moved.
"It was just too dangerous, people were getting hurt stopping to look at it," he said.
Ultimately the gravesite was moved far away from the busy highway, he said.
He said he also will talk about the infamous legend of Bigfoot, noting that a local shopkeeper has told him of several sightings she has had of the creature.
Bigfoot Researchers of the Hudson Valley is headquartered at a bait shop in town, a fifteen-minute walk to the middle and high schools. Gayle Beatty claims to have a Bigfoot habitation site in her backyard and posts occasional pictures people have taken of the beasts, few of which would convince a skeptic.
She is an utter delight and makes appearances discussing the local sightings. She is higher profile than I am and probably would have made for a more compelling interview for Hubert, on reflection.
For those who believe in their existence, it is thought that Bigfoots are generally known to be friendly and non-aggressive and are known to talk to people.
"They keep coyotes as pets," he said, noting that humans should steer clear of Bigfoots with white fur. "They are the devil."
See, here is where I would like authorial distance. I am repeating what Beatty told me and am doing so with my tongue firmly in my cheek. The modern Bigfoot myth does mention their relationship with coyote pups, but I am not willing to definitively state that cryptids keep pets.
I do not think the white ones are the devil.
Now, if you showed me a pink one, that could be the devil.
Reportedly, we do have white ones in the area. I haven't met any.
A native of Beacon, who moved to Red Hook three years ago, Quackenbush said he's always been interested in legends, recalling a time when he was riding in the car with his parents near Pine Bush one winter in the early 1990s and he spotted something that looked like a UFO.
I saw my supposed UFO in Glenham, but these things get tangled. I can point out over which house I saw the UFO. It was by the old Texaco plant, long since razed. I also saw it in the late 1980s, coming home from my cousin Phil's birthday party.
As far as my research went, this was after the flap had ended, and I was the only person who admitted to seeing it. My details may not be reliable, though more so than Hubert's recounting.
He said they dismissed it, told him to stop fantasizing, and told him to roll up the window.
They did not tell me to stop fantasizing. They just didn't understand why I would open my window in the winter.
I am sure I was yammering about it, but they were used to that talk from me and wouldn't have remarked on it specifically. My tendency to talk about UFOs would account for why my parents did not bother looking the one time I spoke sense.
"It was January," he said. But Quackenbush never stopped allowing his imagination to run wild.
The detail likely doesn't matter, given that it is a grade schooler's memory of something improbable, but it happened in mid-December.
I feel that "imagination to run wild" is a little pejorative. I was a creative little monster who wrote frequently and read incessantly as a child. Still, my imagination generally stayed near its box until my neurodivergence decided to seize upon it. Then it made me anxious, but not inclined to believe in anything incredible.
This has led to three books, in his "Night's Dreams" series. A fourth book in the series is expected to be for sale before the end of the year, he said.
It deals with a flu epidemic that is attacking the area's paranormal population. He said he drew inspiration from a swine flu epidemic in the early 1900s and the more recent bird flu epidemic when writing the book.
A few people who have read Flies to Wanton Boys have noticed some uncomfortable resonance with Covid, but that may be credited to the fact that too few people seemed to have learned anything from previous plagues.
During one of my final panels during what turned out to be the final No Such Convention, I spoke about the Swine Flu of 1918, warning that the world was overdue for a pandemic of that caliber. I take no joy in that being prescient, finding the memory of it uncomfortable.
The setting of the book is a version of Red Hook, which is populated by paranormal figures, with much of the story revolving around a fictional college campus called "Annandale," that's inspired by Bard College and Vassar College, where Quackenbush has given several talks.
Last weekend, Quackenbush sat in the living room of the apartment where he lives with his wife, Amber Haqu, and offered more previews of the characters he's concocted in his books.
One of those being an inept vampire.
"He's kind of bumbling," he said.
Quackenbush corrected the belief that vampires are destroyed by sunlight, which is a myth that began with the 1922 film Nosferatu, whose makers didn't want to pay the rights to use the real story of Dracula, Quackenbush said.
"The original Dracula could get around during the day," he said. "He was weaker but he could do it."
Another of Quackenbush's characters is a vampire who is loosely based on the owner a local eating establishment.
In the book, the vampire uses human corpses to make his fare.
"His prices are just so cheap," Quackenbush said about the character in his book. "He has to be up to something."
Joachim does not put any human parts into the food. He sells them separately and keeps his prices low to keep up this front for his black market body shop.
That being said, the Historic Diner does have low prices and only accepts cash, so I will allow you to make your own conclusions.
In the reissue, this eatery's name has shifted from Red Hook Diner to Hardscrabble Diner, as the latter does not exist. Several years after *We Shadows* was published, The Apple a Day Diner had some tax issues and was turned into the Red Hook Diner. I wouldn't want anything to think I was retroactively accusing them of selling ground corpse parts to ghouls.
His first book "We Shadows" was contracted by the SyFy Channel, but they never did anything with it, he said.
I have the contract in a folder, but I do feel it was more that my former publisher pitched a portfolio of contracted properties to Syfy rather than that the channel sought them out.
Still, I was difficult. The contract said I gave them the first pass at my new seven books, which I had struck. There were a few other clauses that I needed to be made more explicit. The head of Double Dragon commented that I was "thorough," which I imagine was not a compliment in this context.
He said he would've enjoyed seeing a really campy made-for-TV movie made out of his book. "I like bad movies," he said. "Who knows, it could've been the next 'Sharknado."
I had no illusions it would have been abysmal. Despite having cringed into a ball when my one-act play was radically altered and miscast (nothing against the actors), I was prepared to watch the mutilated *We Shadows* as often as possible since I expected Syfy would radically change it.
It would have been glorious for my career. How I would have thrilled to hear, "Oh, the book is way better."
Quackenbush's day job is much more steeped in the real world. He is an English teacher for incarcerated minors at the Red Hook Residential Center.
I do not like mentioning my day job in interviews since people seem to think adolescent felons make more compelling copy than paranormal plagues.
As for how he keeps track of the ideas that pop into his head, he still takes a liking to an old-fashioned pad of paper.
"I could do it on the computer," he said. "But then I find myself checking email, or saying maybe I'll watch some Netflix."
But he admitted he's starting to give in to technology.
"I recently bought a smartphone and now I'm using Evernote," he said. "Then I don't have to have a paper and pen."
I still prefer paper and pen for this reason. I intentionally use a fountain pen when possible, as it is like creating art with art.
When asked why the Hudson Valley is home to so many legends, he said it may just have something to do with the historical nature of the area.
He then noted the large number of religious cults that began here.
"The explanation is that this has always been a popular tourist destination," he said with his signature humor.
"And who better to exploit?"
