October 26, 2025 • 30 mins
Dean is talking today about how to NOT live in a haunted home.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. Your
guide to better understanding that place where you live. Why
because every home has a path forward, and once you
see it, that's what changes everything. And I'm here every
week to help you find that path and make it
(00:20):
a reality so that the house that you live in
can become truly your home. What's the difference between a
house and a home in my opinion, And I'm not
talking about the you know, the emotional aspects. I'm talking
about the fact that when the house that you live
in is really mirroring and becomes a tool and a
machine and an implement and a part of the family
(00:43):
that pushes your life forward the way you want it
to be. That's when a house becomes a home, when
it mirrors who you really are and amplifies it and
makes being you that much easier and better along the way. Anyway, Today,
on the program Halloween just around the corner coming up
(01:03):
here on Friday, we're playing around with a little bit
of house hauntedness, weird sounds that your house makes. Also,
we're talking with my very special in studio guests, my
own sister, darc Staniforth, who is an American Studies scholar
at cal State Fullerton and works with Haunted OC and
(01:23):
will be our special VIP guide through the historic Kellogg
House tomorrow night, of which we still have a couple
three tickets to give away, which we'll do in just
a bit. I'm trying to remember where we were at.
We're on the edge of talking about something.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
You were asking about the other buildings. Oh, yes, grounds
of the Heritage.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, So the Kellogg House is not in its original location.
It was a few miles down the road, but it
has been restored and removed to the Heritage Museum of
Orange County. There's more there than just the Kellogg House.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, so I mentioned the mag Farmhouse. So we have
not only the farm house, but the original water tower
and the carriage house. Carriage house of the Mag and
the water tower have been fully restored. They're much smaller buildings. Yes,
the Mag House it's fifty six hundred square feet, and
the museum it's very big. And the museum wants to
fully restore her, not just so folks can go inside,
(02:16):
but to become a museum learning center, and the Home
of Orange County Archives. Oh so we're not only looking
for funds to be raised for that, but also even
like plumbing sponsors, electrical sponsors, things like that, because it's
gonna take a lot.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, that's a big that's a big that's a big
restoration project. But how old does the mag farmhouse?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Eighteen ninety nine, Okay, so one hundred and twenty six yeah, okay, yeah.
We also it's much newer, much newer, so much newer,
so much newer. But we also have a fully functioning
blacksmith shop on the grounds that the Orange County black
Smiths Guild uses. We have a full farm and we
(02:58):
have the pristine swamp land in the back known as
the Gospel Swamp. It's a nature preserve so that people
can come and enjoy that as well.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
So the grounds are quite large.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Quite extensive, Yes, extensive grounds.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Extensive grounds for your cravat and your bustle.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
But the Kellogg House kind of like right up front,
sort of the you know, the pre eminent, you know icon.
She is the crown jewel, she is the heritage, and
she's beautiful. She's a beautiful home. One of the things
I love about it custom home right, Hiram Kellogg's civil engineer,
right up on the turret of this, you know, because
(03:39):
every good Queen Anne Victorian, larger Queen Anne Victorian has
a turret up on the second floor and a round
roof and a little witch's hat roof on top up
on that turret should be you would think, okay, but
it makes sense. But you would think because of his
obsession with sailing, you would think that, you know, we'd
have a weather vein up there, that it's a gull,
(04:01):
a bird, a ship. But no, that's for the inside.
On the outside, Hiram's like, oh, and by the way,
I'm a civil engineer, so what's the weather vane up
on the turret? The transit a transit surveyor's transit. It's
so cool.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
It's how he advertised.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, right, I'm I'm the civil engineer, the civil engineer
in Santa Anna.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And so that's how he advertised the neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It's a beautiful thing. And he had his office, uh
kind of down out up.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Well, well, he had three offices.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Okay, he had an office on the main floor which
he met with clients.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Right back to the left of the stairs, right off
of the drawing room or sitting it's off the kit
it's off the it's off the dining room, off off
the dock.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And then he had a private office on the second floor,
and then he had an office in the basement.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Where he conducted his experiment his experiments. Hiram, are you
down there?
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Sorry?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That made no sense whatsoever. I don't even know what
he did in the basement.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I want to know who's calling to It was that
Helen calling.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
That was Helen had a very deep masculine voice. I'm
not sure if you were aware of that, but you
can add that to your tour.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Look at that.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Look at those sounded like this, im that's why he
was hiding in the basement. By the way, that's fair
because you know she was quite mannish loud anyway, okay,
uh we digress and said this is what happens when
I have my sister on the show. I have a
lot of fun, and the listeners are like, are you
(05:36):
actually going to get to anything but useful stuff about
the Kellogg House custom? What else is custom? Well, maybe
we should mention the probably the most custom piece of
the entire Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you see
it right when you walk in the door.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, so we have a stunning spiral staircase.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
In the house.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Three three story, three story.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, technically because it goes into the attic, right, But
it is built around a ship's mast.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
A ship's mast, yes, not a simulated ship's mask.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
No. No.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Where did he come up with a ship's mast.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
He was on a job in San Francisco and came
across a decommissioned ship from the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, a tall ship, A tall ship from the eighteenth century.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yes, And it's like, I have an idea, and.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
He's like, Hey, that mast. What are you guys doing
with that mast?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
You're gonna Can I have that? Can I have that?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
But he had already designed the house, He had original
plans drawn up, and then decided to redesign the entire
house around the ship's mask.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Oh so okay, So that wasn't part of the original plan.
It was just a fine It was a find. And
he's like, wait a second, hang on, yep, what if?
And then boom right there in the middle, and.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I can't imagine the house any other way because of
how incredibly custom and unique it is.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
It's iconic, it's iconic. You walk in, You're like, oh,
that's what is that large pole in the center of
you know, going up the middle of the spiral staircase.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Help you get to the second floor.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Now it's an eighteenth century ship's mast. Get up there
and the attic area that it accesses. He left it open, yeah,
open concept because it reminds him of a crow's nest
up there. It has that sense of a crow's nest
railing up there way at the top, and somebody tends
to appear at in the crow's nest. That's what I heard.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Sometimes we have a little girl, a little girl up
there shows up in the attic looking down, looking down.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
So sometimes you go up the stairs, you look up
and there's somebody looking down at you.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
That happens.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Sometimes footsteps we've had on tours just sounds like someone's
walking around the attic and nobody is because I could
see them.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I can't see anybody.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Okay, now you're freaking me out, all right. On the
other side of the break, we're going to talk more
about solving your own haunted issues in your home. Will
we'll do that next more good stuff on the way.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp House Whisper.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Here to help you take your home to the next level.
Thanks for joining us on the program today. It is
our pre Halloween show. What does that mean? You know,
just using it as excuse to have some fun talk
about some fun things. One of the things is my
very special in studio guest, Darcy Staniforth, who happens to
also be my sister. The most important part of her CV,
by the way, it is, it.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Is really I actually I have it right at the top,
above education.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Above your above the fact that you're a professor of
American Studies at UC Fullerton. You're like, well, you know,
I'm also Dean Sharpe's sister, so hello, a.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I'm related to the house Whisper.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
That probably is you should put that on the back
of your CV or not at all if you, you know,
really want to get a good job. Okay, just saying anyway,
Darcy's here and she is actually going to be our
guide through the historic Kellogg House and it's alleged hauntings,
your ghost host ghost. She's going to be a guiding
(09:06):
us tomorrow night, and I am telling you right now
that we are about to give away the final four
tickets to that event, two pairs, two pairs. Okay, so NICKI,
we're gonna have two winners. Now, okay, you're gonna pick
two winners. We're giving away the last two pairs of
tickets two that VIP ghost Tour of the Kellogg House
tomorrow night. The number to call in eight three three.
(09:30):
Don't do it yet, wait eight three three two ask
dean eight three three the numeral two asting eight three
three two, asking if you want to be a part
of tomorrow Night's the IP House Whisper Ghost Tour of
the historic Kellogg House led by my sister Darcy. Uh,
get ready to call right now, and there you go.
(09:53):
The phone lines are lighting up, and uh, Nicky is
going to pick two winners. And then Nicky send me
that h info so I can announce them yet again
on the air. Okay, I want to get back to
a couple of practical thing gees. Here Where am I at? Here?
Are there? We are living in a haunted house. Is
(10:15):
your home possessed? Probably not, even though it makes creaks
and squeaks you might think so. Sometimes problems in the
house take on a life of their own. Let's talk
about that hissing toilet in the middle of the night. Right,
You're lying in bed and you're like, who is using
the toilet? Why is my toilet hissing at me? Is
there a snake in there? Is there a snake in
my boots? No, there is not. It's a very simple things.
(10:39):
It could not be simpler. Okay, if your toilet is
hissing in the middle of the night, okay, this is
what's going on inside the tank. The most basic component
of I'm not talking about the bowl in the tank, okay.
The most basic component of the stuff in the tank
is the flapper, the little flapper. It's a rubber gasket
(11:01):
that flips down and covers the hole and keeps the
water in the tank. It's what the chain from the
handle is connected to the flapper. So when you flush
the toilet, you you pull the handle, the chain lifts
the flapper, and all the water in the tank goes
rushing down into the toilet bowl. Those flappers they wear out,
and they don't wear out like all of a sudden,
they're just gushing. They just get old. So if you
(11:22):
reach down into and you can reach down into your
toilet tank that is not sewer water, just fresh water
inside a bowl. Okay, that's all there is, not the bowl,
the tank, reach down in there and uh touch the flapper.
And if you're you come out with your fingers with
like black or red because flappers are usually either black
(11:42):
rubber or there's this reddish colored rubber. If you come
out and there's there's stuff on your fingers black are red,
you know what that tells you? Your flapper is starting
to degrade. Okay, it's literally dissolving in the water there,
and it's time to replace it. Now, what's that gonna take.
It's gonna take a trip to the hardware store or
the big box store, visit the plumbing department and buy
(12:03):
a new flapper. Four are you ready? Like three dollars?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
It's three to five dollars, depending on whether you get
the super flapper or the regular flapper. So you know what,
splurge the full five bucks and get the best flapper.
That will end the hissing because what's happening is water
is leaking out in the middle of the night down
into the bowl and then the little float inside the
(12:29):
ballcock assembly. That's what that's all called. In there, the
float goes down just enough to start the refill valve going,
and the refill valve is hissing. It's not fully pouring
water out. It's just hissing, and that's what you're hearing
until it refills and then it stops again. And that's
why it's been going on and off, on and off
all night long. Okay, so that's the deal, and you
(12:52):
want to shut that down and keep that from happening.
And don't know, Wait, I know you're gonna tell me. Wait, Dean,
that's not the problem, because guess what. My toilet bowl
never fills up with water. It's not any fuller with
water than it is during the day. So it's got
to be something else that would be incorrect. My friend,
did you know this. Here's a little trivia for you.
You cannot overflow your toilet bowl. Did you know this, Darcy?
(13:17):
You cannot overflow your toilet bowl by pouring water into it.
Go get a big bucket and start pouring water into
your toilet bowl. It will never fill above its regular level.
You can pour hundreds of gallons of water. You can
put a garden hose in there. Set on low. Your
toilet bowl will never overflow because the way it's designed
in the back, any extra water above a certain level
(13:40):
just pours down the drain. The only time the toilet
bowl overflows is when there's a clog in the drain period.
That's the end. Does that make sense? All right? So
there you go. That was free more when we return
your Home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisperer.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Transform your ordinary house into an extraordinary home. That's what
we do every week. We help you find the path forward.
Once you find it, everything changes. Until you find it,
nothing changes. And I mean that in all seriousness. You
can just keep adding stuff and switching out materials and
doing all that, and all you're doing is spending money.
(14:20):
Uh well, I don't want to say, well, okay, I'll
just say it, lipstick on a pig. That's kind of
the metaphor that we're using. Right, We need to change
the pig, We need to alter the pig into not
a pig, and then lipstick counts. It really does. At
that point, did Dean just say our house is a pig. No,
I'm just saying, listen, I'm just saying I think.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
You're getting lost in the metaphor.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah, okay, listen, design matters most. That's what I'm saying.
We got to find the path forward. Okay. There is
a way that your home, that your house becomes truly
a custom home. There's a and it's not just a
new code of paint. And it's not just refreshing the cabinets.
It's finding the path. And that's what I'm here trying
(15:07):
to help you with every week when I don't get
lost in the metaphor. Thanks Dars. My sister Darcy Standard
for sitting across the table from me, my very specially
in studio guest today. She is an American Studies scholar
at cal State Fullerton also works with Haunted OC. She's
going to be our ghost host tomorrow night. Congratulations to
(15:30):
our final winners. You know what, I just put the
list away. I'm such a bad host. Hang on a second,
Hang on, I got this somewhere. No, maybe I don't.
All right, I'm gonna announce the winner's next break. I'm
gonna come up with our names. Don't worry, You'll get
your due We're talking about the historic Kellogg House with
(15:52):
Darcy today, but also I'm going through little tips and
tricks on how to keep your house from sounding haunted,
getting rid of squeaks and creaks and weird sounds. We
just talked about hissing toilets. I want to do a
little lightning round here and get through some more items
on my list. Okay, how about pipes that hammer and shudder. Okay,
(16:16):
you turn on a certain faucet and you get this
classic Okay, no one wants that in their life. No one.
That is called water hammer. And you know, I don't
need to explain why, because it sounds exactly like that.
Water hammer is not the result of some plumber not
doing their job. Plumbing pipes in a house very very tricky.
(16:40):
There's no way, literally, there is no way for us
to figure out ahead of time whether or not a
plumbing system is going to hammer on us or not.
When it's done. Pipes have water flowing through them every
bend that they make, every ninety degree turn, we get
this thing called cavitation, in which the water gets disrupted
(17:02):
and a new energy shock wave runs through the water.
If that builds up in just the right way, we
end up with this hammering effect at the end of
the line somewhere, and usually it's activated when you turn
on and off a faucet. There's no way to know, Okay,
so don't get angry at the people who designed your plumbing.
There's literal I mean, we've done it. We've plumbed very
(17:23):
very simple, very small homes and had water hammer We've
plumbed mansions and had water hammer issues. The solution, fortunately
is relatively simple. You just need a shock absorber on
the system, and they make such a thing they are
water hammer shock absorbers. Then the good news is you
can install one yourself if you're even just a little
(17:45):
bit handy, because they don't have to be built into
it's soldered into the copper lines. They can be installed.
They're just a little pipe. They look like just a
little copper pipe that's about four or five inches long,
and they can be installed under the sink in question.
And what they have in there is a they've got
(18:06):
a membrane and a spring and they very much work
like a shock absorber and they're sitting there and so
when the hammering starts to happen, it absorbs that shock
and we don't get that sound reverberating through the pipes.
And if it doesn't solve the problem putting one or
two underneath the sink in question, then you go to
the next sink over and you put a couple of
(18:28):
there too, and you can put one by the water
heater wherever it is. You can keep adding these to
your home until it goes away. But I guarantee you
after one or two of them it will go away.
And so boom, water hammer done. Nobody has to live
with that disturbing sound running through the pipes in their home.
What else have I got for you here? How about
(18:49):
that unsettling sound when the whole house settles. You're just
sitting in your home watching TV at night, and then
all of a sudden, everything just shudders and pops and creaks,
and like, what is happening? Is my house falling down?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
No?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
It's not, it's not. Was that an earthquake? No?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Not?
Speaker 1 (19:04):
If you didn't feel, you know, the ground under you rumble.
What happens is, from time to time a house will settle.
Why because the majority of homes are built with what
we call green lumber, meaning wet lumber, it has not
been kiln dried. Okay, the furniture that you buy for
(19:24):
your home is kiln dried lumber. It has the it
has been run through a kiln, and all of the
water content inside or most of the water content inside
the lumber has been dried out. And that's what makes
furniture as stable as it is. Okay. It's also is
what makes it expensive as it is because just like
(19:44):
regular drying, like if we were at air dry lumber
without a kiln, it's one inch of dryness in lumber
thickness per year. Yeah, that's what it takes to just
air dry lumber to make furniture grade furniture. So we
run stuff through a kil but it still takes a
lot to do that. Your house is built out of
green lumber. And if you've ever been to like you know,
(20:06):
the lumber yard or the lumber department at Low's or
home depot, and you've you've you needed a few two
by fours, right, you're picking up a two by four
like okay, and that one oh, and then all of
a sudden you're like, why does this one weigh four
times as much? Because it just you got a wet
one there. It's it's water weight. Okay, so what's the point.
The point is this that water weight will eventually leave
(20:29):
every home. The older home gets, the more the water
evaporates out of the studs, Okay, slowly but surely. Like
I said, if they were out in the open, it
would be one inch a year okay of drawing it out.
So it's inside your house, it takes even longer for
that to happen. And when that happens, this is the
(20:51):
reason why we kill and dry furniture. When water leaves
a piece of lumber, it dimensionally shrinks. The lumber shrink
a little bit, just a little bit, not like inches,
just a little bit. So all the studs in your home,
in the walls, as they get older, they are shrinking
in width and also in length just a little bit.
(21:15):
I mean sixteenth of an inch, maybe eighth of an inch.
Sometimes at some point, all the weight that's distributed around
your house, after those studs have shrunk enough, the house decides, okay,
well I'm not going to just sit up here being
held up by the dry wall. And the weight pushes
(21:38):
down and it resettles, the top plates resettle on the studs,
and all that pressure gets relieved and That's why sometimes
every once in a while, when you're sitting in a home,
an older home, all of a sudden, boom boom boom,
boom boom, crack creek above, you know, and it may
even you may even if it's bad enough in some area,
you may even see a little tiny crack and dry
(22:00):
wall appear somewhere on a ceiling or on the top
of a wall. And you're like, oh no, don't worry.
Your house is not falling down. It just shrunk a
little bit and settled a little bit, you know, like
an old guy who's all bent over now and who
used to be six feet tall and now he's like five,
you know, ten and three quarters. Things shrink as you
(22:21):
get older. That's all I'm saying. Stop laughing, Darcy. Things
shrink when you get older. Okay. I try and tell
Tina that all the time. Anyway, it's settlement and your
house is not falling down. So that one, there's no
solution to other than just to tell you don't worry
about it. Don't worry about it. Your house is not haunted,
(22:41):
nor is it collapsing. It is just aging a little bit,
all right. More to come. Thanks for joining us. On
the program you hang tight, We're gonna talk to Darcy
about the one more time about the Kellogg House and
some closing thoughts when we come back. You're Home with
Dean Sharps.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Good morning to you, almost afternoon right here, wrapping up
our three hours. How fast they go by. I hope
you've enjoyed the show today. It's still a little bit
more to go here to remind you every home deserves
great design, especially yours. That's why we are here every
weekend doing what we do. We've had some fun today
talking about Halloween coming up, talking about little fixes to
(23:28):
your house. If if you've never figured out why it
makes weird noises in different ways, you know, I've got
a much bigger list, but I wanted to divide that
list today in time with my very special in studio guest,
my very own sister, Darcy Staniforth, sitting across the table
from me, who I always love spending time with on
(23:49):
and off the air. And Darcy is a professor of
American Studies at cal State Fullerton, also works with Haunted
oh See. Also going to be our tour guide, our
ghost host tomorrow night with the VIPs who have won
tickets to go on the historic Kellogg House tour tomorrow
(24:10):
evening at the Heritage Museum of Orange County. Any any
last thoughts, Darcy before we push you off the gang
plank here as it were, about the Kellogg House and
what people can expect tomorrow night, and just in general
if you haven't made the winner's list for tomorrow night's tour.
The fact that people can come down any old time.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Yeah, we run tours all year long.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I've still got some tickets available for people to purchase
for Wednesday and Thursday night's later tours.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Oh of this week of this week.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
So there are still stuff still tickets available for the
twenty ninth and thirtieth tickets at hanadoc dot com. And
I'm just really excited to meet these VIPs and share
about this incredible house, not just what we've talked about today,
but really ready to show you all in person and
tell you some great history and some incredible ghost stories.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
I love the fact that the Kellogg Houses not just
it's not it's not just restored, but furnished, yes, furnished,
and so many of the things that y'all have put
in there are items of amazing historical conversation, like hair wreaths, yes,
and photographs and things like that. I mean things that Again,
(25:23):
we started out the show talking about this idea that
that you know, it's it seems in some ways the
way the Victorians handle death seems a bit maybe morbid.
It's strange to us from our perspective, but really they
just they were a people who who had to face
it more directly than we do and not skirt around
(25:44):
it as much. And so when you really kind of
get see the world through their eyes, it makes very
much sense. The way that they handled things.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
A lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
And also the Victorians were very sentimental, like not just
in the idea of the Victorian good death, but jewelry, clothing,
all kinds of things deep with symbolism. Yeah, deep, deep,
deep symbolism. So I'm excited to share some of the
death culture parts of that tomorrow night.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
All right, it's going to be a good time. And
again if you can't make if you weren't one of
our winners, you can take these Haunted OC tours yes
throughout the year, and still some tickets available for tours
later this week. Yep, babe, thanks for being part of
the show. As always, I love you, I love you
all right. So here's a you know, I got up
(26:31):
this morning and I had a thought and this was
on my mind, and so I'll leave you with this
thought today. Apparitions, shadows, disembodied voices, objects that move on
their own, things that go bump in the night. Right,
classic hauntings that send a chill down the spine, none
of which actually I have ever personally experienced. But let
(26:54):
me tell you what haunts me. Regret in security, ego, anxiety, powerlessness, frustration, confusion, exhaustion, frailty,
bad news, death, and the ever increasing acceleration of time
(27:15):
toward it. You know these specters as well as I do.
They haunt us all. They attend our birth, they follow
us through life. They show up at the worst possible time.
They aren't dispelled by sprinkles of holy water or circles
of salt, and they don't simply disappear when you turn
the lights on. Okay, Dean, well, aren't you just a
(27:36):
beacon of sunshine this morning? Well? Hey, I've been looking
for answers my entire life, just like you and I
am sorry to report. The older I get, the fewer
good answers there are. But that doesn't mean that there
aren't any. Now, you might not consider what I'm about
to say much of an answer, and I wouldn't blame
you for thinking that. But there are a couple of
(27:58):
things that, when I remember to go, oh there, consistently
bring me comfort despite all the other troubles that life
can bring along. First, there is the fact that I
am alive at all. And you know, the universe is
unspeakably massive, and the universe is almost entirely empty. Even
if there are billions of other civilizations out there, that
(28:21):
is a drop in the bucket. The universe is still
almost entirely devoid of life except here except me. So
death is not the winner. I am the winner, even
if I'm here for just a moment. I was here.
I am here. I'm the one who beat the astronomical odds.
(28:45):
And yeah, everything is bigger than me, everything, and yes,
I'll only be here a bit longer to witness just
how overwhelming it is. But that is the wonder of
this life. It's life, and life is rare, and I
am rare, and against all odds, I'm here to witness it,
which brings me to the second thing that brings me comfort.
(29:08):
I'm not the only one. You are here too, so
look at us, Look at us. Turns out the reason
we've been haunted from the cradle to the grave by
every imaginable trouble is because we're here. We are literally
we've won the universe's lottery. Forget about death. Death is common,
(29:30):
death is ordinary. Life is what's extraordinary. Statistically, we're not
even supposed to exist, but we do. And despite all
the troubles, we get to experience this wonder together and
that makes me smile. So for me, it's all about
wonder and friendship. Sorry, I don't have many answers beyond that.
When I was younger, I used to know a lot more. Now,
(29:51):
after all these years, the best I've come up with
is wonder and friendship. But I'll tell you what. Wonder
and friendship they'll keep you young, and they'll do a
pretty good job of driving the ghosts away. And they
won't build you a perfect life or worry free life.
But I know for a fact that you can use
wonder and friendship to build yourself an awfully beautiful life.
(30:14):
And I hope you do, and I'll be to hell
here to help if I can, because from time to
time we all get scared at the dark. So with that,
happy Halloween, and I'll see you right back here next week.
This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty
every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time and
(30:37):
every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp the
House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app. Your
guide to better understanding that place where you live. Why
because every home has a path forward, and once you
see it, that's what changes everything. And I'm here every
week to help you find that path and make it
(00:20):
a reality so that the house that you live in
can become truly your home. What's the difference between a
house and a home in my opinion, And I'm not
talking about the you know, the emotional aspects. I'm talking
about the fact that when the house that you live
in is really mirroring and becomes a tool and a
machine and an implement and a part of the family
(00:43):
that pushes your life forward the way you want it
to be. That's when a house becomes a home, when
it mirrors who you really are and amplifies it and
makes being you that much easier and better along the way. Anyway, Today,
on the program Halloween just around the corner coming up
(01:03):
here on Friday, we're playing around with a little bit
of house hauntedness, weird sounds that your house makes. Also,
we're talking with my very special in studio guests, my
own sister, darc Staniforth, who is an American Studies scholar
at cal State Fullerton and works with Haunted OC and
(01:23):
will be our special VIP guide through the historic Kellogg
House tomorrow night, of which we still have a couple
three tickets to give away, which we'll do in just
a bit. I'm trying to remember where we were at.
We're on the edge of talking about something.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
You were asking about the other buildings. Oh, yes, grounds
of the Heritage.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Okay, So the Kellogg House is not in its original location.
It was a few miles down the road, but it
has been restored and removed to the Heritage Museum of
Orange County. There's more there than just the Kellogg House.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, so I mentioned the mag Farmhouse. So we have
not only the farm house, but the original water tower
and the carriage house. Carriage house of the Mag and
the water tower have been fully restored. They're much smaller buildings. Yes,
the Mag House it's fifty six hundred square feet, and
the museum it's very big. And the museum wants to
fully restore her, not just so folks can go inside,
(02:16):
but to become a museum learning center, and the Home
of Orange County Archives. Oh so we're not only looking
for funds to be raised for that, but also even
like plumbing sponsors, electrical sponsors, things like that, because it's
gonna take a lot.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, that's a big that's a big that's a big
restoration project. But how old does the mag farmhouse?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Eighteen ninety nine, Okay, so one hundred and twenty six yeah, okay, yeah.
We also it's much newer, much newer, so much newer,
so much newer. But we also have a fully functioning
blacksmith shop on the grounds that the Orange County black
Smiths Guild uses. We have a full farm and we
(02:58):
have the pristine swamp land in the back known as
the Gospel Swamp. It's a nature preserve so that people
can come and enjoy that as well.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
So the grounds are quite large.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Quite extensive, Yes, extensive grounds.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Extensive grounds for your cravat and your bustle.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
But the Kellogg House kind of like right up front,
sort of the you know, the pre eminent, you know icon.
She is the crown jewel, she is the heritage, and
she's beautiful. She's a beautiful home. One of the things
I love about it custom home right, Hiram Kellogg's civil engineer,
right up on the turret of this, you know, because
(03:39):
every good Queen Anne Victorian, larger Queen Anne Victorian has
a turret up on the second floor and a round
roof and a little witch's hat roof on top up
on that turret should be you would think, okay, but
it makes sense. But you would think because of his
obsession with sailing, you would think that, you know, we'd
have a weather vein up there, that it's a gull,
(04:01):
a bird, a ship. But no, that's for the inside.
On the outside, Hiram's like, oh, and by the way,
I'm a civil engineer, so what's the weather vane up
on the turret? The transit a transit surveyor's transit. It's
so cool.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
It's how he advertised.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, right, I'm I'm the civil engineer, the civil engineer
in Santa Anna.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And so that's how he advertised the neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
It's a beautiful thing. And he had his office, uh
kind of down out up.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Well, well, he had three offices.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Okay, he had an office on the main floor which
he met with clients.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Right back to the left of the stairs, right off
of the drawing room or sitting it's off the kit
it's off the it's off the dining room, off off
the dock.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And then he had a private office on the second floor,
and then he had an office in the basement.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Where he conducted his experiment his experiments. Hiram, are you
down there?
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Sorry?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
That made no sense whatsoever. I don't even know what
he did in the basement.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I want to know who's calling to It was that
Helen calling.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
That was Helen had a very deep masculine voice. I'm
not sure if you were aware of that, but you
can add that to your tour.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Look at that.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Look at those sounded like this, im that's why he
was hiding in the basement. By the way, that's fair
because you know she was quite mannish loud anyway, okay,
uh we digress and said this is what happens when
I have my sister on the show. I have a
lot of fun, and the listeners are like, are you
(05:36):
actually going to get to anything but useful stuff about
the Kellogg House custom? What else is custom? Well, maybe
we should mention the probably the most custom piece of
the entire Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean you see
it right when you walk in the door.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, so we have a stunning spiral staircase.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
In the house.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Three three story, three story.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, technically because it goes into the attic, right, But
it is built around a ship's mast.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
A ship's mast, yes, not a simulated ship's mask.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
No. No.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Where did he come up with a ship's mast.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
He was on a job in San Francisco and came
across a decommissioned ship from the seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, a tall ship, A tall ship from the eighteenth century.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Yes, And it's like, I have an idea, and.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
He's like, Hey, that mast. What are you guys doing
with that mast?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
You're gonna Can I have that? Can I have that?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
But he had already designed the house, He had original
plans drawn up, and then decided to redesign the entire
house around the ship's mask.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Oh so okay, So that wasn't part of the original plan.
It was just a fine It was a find. And
he's like, wait a second, hang on, yep, what if?
And then boom right there in the middle, and.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
I can't imagine the house any other way because of
how incredibly custom and unique it is.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
It's iconic, it's iconic. You walk in, You're like, oh,
that's what is that large pole in the center of
you know, going up the middle of the spiral staircase.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Help you get to the second floor.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Now it's an eighteenth century ship's mast. Get up there
and the attic area that it accesses. He left it open, yeah,
open concept because it reminds him of a crow's nest
up there. It has that sense of a crow's nest
railing up there way at the top, and somebody tends
to appear at in the crow's nest. That's what I heard.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Sometimes we have a little girl, a little girl up
there shows up in the attic looking down, looking down.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
So sometimes you go up the stairs, you look up
and there's somebody looking down at you.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
That happens.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Sometimes footsteps we've had on tours just sounds like someone's
walking around the attic and nobody is because I could
see them.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I can't see anybody.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
Okay, now you're freaking me out, all right. On the
other side of the break, we're going to talk more
about solving your own haunted issues in your home. Will
we'll do that next more good stuff on the way.
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp House Whisper.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Here to help you take your home to the next level.
Thanks for joining us on the program today. It is
our pre Halloween show. What does that mean? You know,
just using it as excuse to have some fun talk
about some fun things. One of the things is my
very special in studio guest, Darcy Staniforth, who happens to
also be my sister. The most important part of her CV,
by the way, it is, it.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Is really I actually I have it right at the top,
above education.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
Above your above the fact that you're a professor of
American Studies at UC Fullerton. You're like, well, you know,
I'm also Dean Sharpe's sister, so hello, a.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I'm related to the house Whisper.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
That probably is you should put that on the back
of your CV or not at all if you, you know,
really want to get a good job. Okay, just saying anyway,
Darcy's here and she is actually going to be our
guide through the historic Kellogg House and it's alleged hauntings,
your ghost host ghost. She's going to be a guiding
(09:06):
us tomorrow night, and I am telling you right now
that we are about to give away the final four
tickets to that event, two pairs, two pairs. Okay, so NICKI,
we're gonna have two winners. Now, okay, you're gonna pick
two winners. We're giving away the last two pairs of
tickets two that VIP ghost Tour of the Kellogg House
tomorrow night. The number to call in eight three three.
(09:30):
Don't do it yet, wait eight three three two ask
dean eight three three the numeral two asting eight three
three two, asking if you want to be a part
of tomorrow Night's the IP House Whisper Ghost Tour of
the historic Kellogg House led by my sister Darcy. Uh,
get ready to call right now, and there you go.
(09:53):
The phone lines are lighting up, and uh, Nicky is
going to pick two winners. And then Nicky send me
that h info so I can announce them yet again
on the air. Okay, I want to get back to
a couple of practical thing gees. Here Where am I at? Here?
Are there? We are living in a haunted house. Is
(10:15):
your home possessed? Probably not, even though it makes creaks
and squeaks you might think so. Sometimes problems in the
house take on a life of their own. Let's talk
about that hissing toilet in the middle of the night. Right,
You're lying in bed and you're like, who is using
the toilet? Why is my toilet hissing at me? Is
there a snake in there? Is there a snake in
my boots? No, there is not. It's a very simple things.
(10:39):
It could not be simpler. Okay, if your toilet is
hissing in the middle of the night, okay, this is
what's going on inside the tank. The most basic component
of I'm not talking about the bowl in the tank, okay.
The most basic component of the stuff in the tank
is the flapper, the little flapper. It's a rubber gasket
(11:01):
that flips down and covers the hole and keeps the
water in the tank. It's what the chain from the
handle is connected to the flapper. So when you flush
the toilet, you you pull the handle, the chain lifts
the flapper, and all the water in the tank goes
rushing down into the toilet bowl. Those flappers they wear out,
and they don't wear out like all of a sudden,
they're just gushing. They just get old. So if you
(11:22):
reach down into and you can reach down into your
toilet tank that is not sewer water, just fresh water
inside a bowl. Okay, that's all there is, not the bowl,
the tank, reach down in there and uh touch the flapper.
And if you're you come out with your fingers with
like black or red because flappers are usually either black
(11:42):
rubber or there's this reddish colored rubber. If you come
out and there's there's stuff on your fingers black are red,
you know what that tells you? Your flapper is starting
to degrade. Okay, it's literally dissolving in the water there,
and it's time to replace it. Now, what's that gonna take.
It's gonna take a trip to the hardware store or
the big box store, visit the plumbing department and buy
(12:03):
a new flapper. Four are you ready? Like three dollars?
Speaker 3 (12:07):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
It's three to five dollars, depending on whether you get
the super flapper or the regular flapper. So you know what,
splurge the full five bucks and get the best flapper.
That will end the hissing because what's happening is water
is leaking out in the middle of the night down
into the bowl and then the little float inside the
(12:29):
ballcock assembly. That's what that's all called. In there, the
float goes down just enough to start the refill valve going,
and the refill valve is hissing. It's not fully pouring
water out. It's just hissing, and that's what you're hearing
until it refills and then it stops again. And that's
why it's been going on and off, on and off
all night long. Okay, so that's the deal, and you
(12:52):
want to shut that down and keep that from happening.
And don't know, Wait, I know you're gonna tell me. Wait, Dean,
that's not the problem, because guess what. My toilet bowl
never fills up with water. It's not any fuller with
water than it is during the day. So it's got
to be something else that would be incorrect. My friend,
did you know this. Here's a little trivia for you.
You cannot overflow your toilet bowl. Did you know this, Darcy?
(13:17):
You cannot overflow your toilet bowl by pouring water into it.
Go get a big bucket and start pouring water into
your toilet bowl. It will never fill above its regular level.
You can pour hundreds of gallons of water. You can
put a garden hose in there. Set on low. Your
toilet bowl will never overflow because the way it's designed
in the back, any extra water above a certain level
(13:40):
just pours down the drain. The only time the toilet
bowl overflows is when there's a clog in the drain period.
That's the end. Does that make sense? All right? So
there you go. That was free more when we return
your Home with Dean Sharp, the house Whisperer.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Transform your ordinary house into an extraordinary home. That's what
we do every week. We help you find the path forward.
Once you find it, everything changes. Until you find it,
nothing changes. And I mean that in all seriousness. You
can just keep adding stuff and switching out materials and
doing all that, and all you're doing is spending money.
(14:20):
Uh well, I don't want to say, well, okay, I'll
just say it, lipstick on a pig. That's kind of
the metaphor that we're using. Right, We need to change
the pig, We need to alter the pig into not
a pig, and then lipstick counts. It really does. At
that point, did Dean just say our house is a pig. No,
I'm just saying, listen, I'm just saying I think.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
You're getting lost in the metaphor.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yeah, okay, listen, design matters most. That's what I'm saying.
We got to find the path forward. Okay. There is
a way that your home, that your house becomes truly
a custom home. There's a and it's not just a
new code of paint. And it's not just refreshing the cabinets.
It's finding the path. And that's what I'm here trying
(15:07):
to help you with every week when I don't get
lost in the metaphor. Thanks Dars. My sister Darcy Standard
for sitting across the table from me, my very specially
in studio guest today. She is an American Studies scholar
at cal State Fullerton also works with Haunted OC. She's
going to be our ghost host tomorrow night. Congratulations to
(15:30):
our final winners. You know what, I just put the
list away. I'm such a bad host. Hang on a second,
Hang on, I got this somewhere. No, maybe I don't.
All right, I'm gonna announce the winner's next break. I'm
gonna come up with our names. Don't worry, You'll get
your due We're talking about the historic Kellogg House with
(15:52):
Darcy today, but also I'm going through little tips and
tricks on how to keep your house from sounding haunted,
getting rid of squeaks and creaks and weird sounds. We
just talked about hissing toilets. I want to do a
little lightning round here and get through some more items
on my list. Okay, how about pipes that hammer and shudder. Okay,
(16:16):
you turn on a certain faucet and you get this
classic Okay, no one wants that in their life. No one.
That is called water hammer. And you know, I don't
need to explain why, because it sounds exactly like that.
Water hammer is not the result of some plumber not
doing their job. Plumbing pipes in a house very very tricky.
(16:40):
There's no way, literally, there is no way for us
to figure out ahead of time whether or not a
plumbing system is going to hammer on us or not.
When it's done. Pipes have water flowing through them every
bend that they make, every ninety degree turn, we get
this thing called cavitation, in which the water gets disrupted
(17:02):
and a new energy shock wave runs through the water.
If that builds up in just the right way, we
end up with this hammering effect at the end of
the line somewhere, and usually it's activated when you turn
on and off a faucet. There's no way to know, Okay,
so don't get angry at the people who designed your plumbing.
There's literal I mean, we've done it. We've plumbed very
(17:23):
very simple, very small homes and had water hammer We've
plumbed mansions and had water hammer issues. The solution, fortunately
is relatively simple. You just need a shock absorber on
the system, and they make such a thing they are
water hammer shock absorbers. Then the good news is you
can install one yourself if you're even just a little
(17:45):
bit handy, because they don't have to be built into
it's soldered into the copper lines. They can be installed.
They're just a little pipe. They look like just a
little copper pipe that's about four or five inches long,
and they can be installed under the sink in question.
And what they have in there is a they've got
(18:06):
a membrane and a spring and they very much work
like a shock absorber and they're sitting there and so
when the hammering starts to happen, it absorbs that shock
and we don't get that sound reverberating through the pipes.
And if it doesn't solve the problem putting one or
two underneath the sink in question, then you go to
the next sink over and you put a couple of
(18:28):
there too, and you can put one by the water
heater wherever it is. You can keep adding these to
your home until it goes away. But I guarantee you
after one or two of them it will go away.
And so boom, water hammer done. Nobody has to live
with that disturbing sound running through the pipes in their home.
What else have I got for you here? How about
(18:49):
that unsettling sound when the whole house settles. You're just
sitting in your home watching TV at night, and then
all of a sudden, everything just shudders and pops and creaks,
and like, what is happening? Is my house falling down?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
No?
Speaker 1 (19:01):
It's not, it's not. Was that an earthquake? No?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Not?
Speaker 1 (19:04):
If you didn't feel, you know, the ground under you rumble.
What happens is, from time to time a house will settle.
Why because the majority of homes are built with what
we call green lumber, meaning wet lumber, it has not
been kiln dried. Okay, the furniture that you buy for
(19:24):
your home is kiln dried lumber. It has the it
has been run through a kiln, and all of the
water content inside or most of the water content inside
the lumber has been dried out. And that's what makes
furniture as stable as it is. Okay. It's also is
what makes it expensive as it is because just like
(19:44):
regular drying, like if we were at air dry lumber
without a kiln, it's one inch of dryness in lumber
thickness per year. Yeah, that's what it takes to just
air dry lumber to make furniture grade furniture. So we
run stuff through a kil but it still takes a
lot to do that. Your house is built out of
green lumber. And if you've ever been to like you know,
(20:06):
the lumber yard or the lumber department at Low's or
home depot, and you've you've you needed a few two
by fours, right, you're picking up a two by four
like okay, and that one oh, and then all of
a sudden you're like, why does this one weigh four
times as much? Because it just you got a wet
one there. It's it's water weight. Okay, so what's the point.
The point is this that water weight will eventually leave
(20:29):
every home. The older home gets, the more the water
evaporates out of the studs, Okay, slowly but surely. Like
I said, if they were out in the open, it
would be one inch a year okay of drawing it out.
So it's inside your house, it takes even longer for
that to happen. And when that happens, this is the
(20:51):
reason why we kill and dry furniture. When water leaves
a piece of lumber, it dimensionally shrinks. The lumber shrink
a little bit, just a little bit, not like inches,
just a little bit. So all the studs in your home,
in the walls, as they get older, they are shrinking
in width and also in length just a little bit.
(21:15):
I mean sixteenth of an inch, maybe eighth of an inch.
Sometimes at some point, all the weight that's distributed around
your house, after those studs have shrunk enough, the house decides, okay,
well I'm not going to just sit up here being
held up by the dry wall. And the weight pushes
(21:38):
down and it resettles, the top plates resettle on the studs,
and all that pressure gets relieved and That's why sometimes
every once in a while, when you're sitting in a home,
an older home, all of a sudden, boom boom boom,
boom boom, crack creek above, you know, and it may
even you may even if it's bad enough in some area,
you may even see a little tiny crack and dry
(22:00):
wall appear somewhere on a ceiling or on the top
of a wall. And you're like, oh no, don't worry.
Your house is not falling down. It just shrunk a
little bit and settled a little bit, you know, like
an old guy who's all bent over now and who
used to be six feet tall and now he's like five,
you know, ten and three quarters. Things shrink as you
(22:21):
get older. That's all I'm saying. Stop laughing, Darcy. Things
shrink when you get older. Okay. I try and tell
Tina that all the time. Anyway, it's settlement and your
house is not falling down. So that one, there's no
solution to other than just to tell you don't worry
about it. Don't worry about it. Your house is not haunted,
(22:41):
nor is it collapsing. It is just aging a little bit,
all right. More to come. Thanks for joining us. On
the program you hang tight, We're gonna talk to Darcy
about the one more time about the Kellogg House and
some closing thoughts when we come back. You're Home with
Dean Sharps.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Good morning to you, almost afternoon right here, wrapping up
our three hours. How fast they go by. I hope
you've enjoyed the show today. It's still a little bit
more to go here to remind you every home deserves
great design, especially yours. That's why we are here every
weekend doing what we do. We've had some fun today
talking about Halloween coming up, talking about little fixes to
(23:28):
your house. If if you've never figured out why it
makes weird noises in different ways, you know, I've got
a much bigger list, but I wanted to divide that
list today in time with my very special in studio guest,
my very own sister, Darcy Staniforth, sitting across the table
from me, who I always love spending time with on
(23:49):
and off the air. And Darcy is a professor of
American Studies at cal State Fullerton, also works with Haunted
oh See. Also going to be our tour guide, our
ghost host tomorrow night with the VIPs who have won
tickets to go on the historic Kellogg House tour tomorrow
(24:10):
evening at the Heritage Museum of Orange County. Any any
last thoughts, Darcy before we push you off the gang
plank here as it were, about the Kellogg House and
what people can expect tomorrow night, and just in general
if you haven't made the winner's list for tomorrow night's tour.
The fact that people can come down any old time.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
Yeah, we run tours all year long.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
I've still got some tickets available for people to purchase
for Wednesday and Thursday night's later tours.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Oh of this week of this week.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
So there are still stuff still tickets available for the
twenty ninth and thirtieth tickets at hanadoc dot com. And
I'm just really excited to meet these VIPs and share
about this incredible house, not just what we've talked about today,
but really ready to show you all in person and
tell you some great history and some incredible ghost stories.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
I love the fact that the Kellogg Houses not just
it's not it's not just restored, but furnished, yes, furnished,
and so many of the things that y'all have put
in there are items of amazing historical conversation, like hair wreaths, yes,
and photographs and things like that. I mean things that Again,
(25:23):
we started out the show talking about this idea that
that you know, it's it seems in some ways the
way the Victorians handle death seems a bit maybe morbid.
It's strange to us from our perspective, but really they
just they were a people who who had to face
it more directly than we do and not skirt around
(25:44):
it as much. And so when you really kind of
get see the world through their eyes, it makes very
much sense. The way that they handled things.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
A lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
And also the Victorians were very sentimental, like not just
in the idea of the Victorian good death, but jewelry, clothing,
all kinds of things deep with symbolism. Yeah, deep, deep,
deep symbolism. So I'm excited to share some of the
death culture parts of that tomorrow night.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
All right, it's going to be a good time. And
again if you can't make if you weren't one of
our winners, you can take these Haunted OC tours yes
throughout the year, and still some tickets available for tours
later this week. Yep, babe, thanks for being part of
the show. As always, I love you, I love you
all right. So here's a you know, I got up
(26:31):
this morning and I had a thought and this was
on my mind, and so I'll leave you with this
thought today. Apparitions, shadows, disembodied voices, objects that move on
their own, things that go bump in the night. Right,
classic hauntings that send a chill down the spine, none
of which actually I have ever personally experienced. But let
(26:54):
me tell you what haunts me. Regret in security, ego, anxiety, powerlessness, frustration, confusion, exhaustion, frailty,
bad news, death, and the ever increasing acceleration of time
(27:15):
toward it. You know these specters as well as I do.
They haunt us all. They attend our birth, they follow
us through life. They show up at the worst possible time.
They aren't dispelled by sprinkles of holy water or circles
of salt, and they don't simply disappear when you turn
the lights on. Okay, Dean, well, aren't you just a
(27:36):
beacon of sunshine this morning? Well? Hey, I've been looking
for answers my entire life, just like you and I
am sorry to report. The older I get, the fewer
good answers there are. But that doesn't mean that there
aren't any. Now, you might not consider what I'm about
to say much of an answer, and I wouldn't blame
you for thinking that. But there are a couple of
(27:58):
things that, when I remember to go, oh there, consistently
bring me comfort despite all the other troubles that life
can bring along. First, there is the fact that I
am alive at all. And you know, the universe is
unspeakably massive, and the universe is almost entirely empty. Even
if there are billions of other civilizations out there, that
(28:21):
is a drop in the bucket. The universe is still
almost entirely devoid of life except here except me. So
death is not the winner. I am the winner, even
if I'm here for just a moment. I was here.
I am here. I'm the one who beat the astronomical odds.
(28:45):
And yeah, everything is bigger than me, everything, and yes,
I'll only be here a bit longer to witness just
how overwhelming it is. But that is the wonder of
this life. It's life, and life is rare, and I
am rare, and against all odds, I'm here to witness it,
which brings me to the second thing that brings me comfort.
(29:08):
I'm not the only one. You are here too, so
look at us, Look at us. Turns out the reason
we've been haunted from the cradle to the grave by
every imaginable trouble is because we're here. We are literally
we've won the universe's lottery. Forget about death. Death is common,
(29:30):
death is ordinary. Life is what's extraordinary. Statistically, we're not
even supposed to exist, but we do. And despite all
the troubles, we get to experience this wonder together and
that makes me smile. So for me, it's all about
wonder and friendship. Sorry, I don't have many answers beyond that.
When I was younger, I used to know a lot more. Now,
(29:51):
after all these years, the best I've come up with
is wonder and friendship. But I'll tell you what. Wonder
and friendship they'll keep you young, and they'll do a
pretty good job of driving the ghosts away. And they
won't build you a perfect life or worry free life.
But I know for a fact that you can use
wonder and friendship to build yourself an awfully beautiful life.
(30:14):
And I hope you do, and I'll be to hell
here to help if I can, because from time to
time we all get scared at the dark. So with that,
happy Halloween, and I'll see you right back here next week.
This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty
every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time and
(30:37):
every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Home with Dean Sharp News
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