The tax refund checks are in the mail. I should receive little or nothing. Any tax advantage never works in my favor. I pay a huge amount of tax and am never the one to benefit. All the theoretical tax deductions you get from giving to charities never help me much. I just give to the charities and pay taxes to boot. Even my son, who is an accountant, can’t help me. When I die the government is going to lose one of its major contributors. They should declare a national day or mourning.

Even if I do receive a pittance of a tax refund it has already been consumed by the increase in cost of gasoline. The trip we took to Dallas last weekend about did it. The only one to benefit from my little tax refund are perhaps, a rich Arab oilman or an oil company executive.

If the trip is only partially paid for, it was sure worth it. Seeing my granddaughter perform was worth ever penny. The experience of the Stoneleigh Hotel was also even better than I imagined. In my previous blog, I mentioned that the hotel, although newly renovated, seemed haunted. I guess it was all the pictures of long dead movies stars who had stayed there. The lack of other occupants on our floor, as well as strange noises during the night, also made it spooky. I was sure I sensed the presence of a ghost.

I finally figured out who the ghost was. There is one. There was a famous director of stage productions who lived in the hotel from the late 40s until her death in 1955. Margo Jones had become famous with her directing talent in New York. She worked with folks like Tennessee Williams on the original production of the “The Glass Menagerie.” She directed such productions as; “Summer and Smoke,” “Inherit the Wind” and many, many more. She worked with famous stars like Geraldine Page. She was born in Livingston, Texas and moved to Dallas in the mid 40s where she ran the Dallas Theater and started the concept of theater in the round. She was very well known and revered by the theater crowd.

Margo lived in the Stoneleigh and at age 44 died from inhalation of carbon tetrachloride that was being used to clean the carpet in her room. Her untimely death left much work unfinished. I think she still haunts the Stoneleigh because she was unhappy with having died so young at the peak of her fame. She is trying to get even.

Margo did nothing to harm us during our visit, but I’m a little nervous about going back to the Stoneleigh. If you think I’m a little crazy, I suggest that you spend the weekend in the Stoneleigh on the 6th floor. It might be interesting to take a video-recorder. It’s a little like the Stephen King movie, “The Shining.” When I got back to the porch and discovered that Barack Obam continues to surge ahead, that was even more scary than the ghost of Margo Jones at the Stoneleigh. If Obama is elected, the Stoneleigh might be the safest place for me to be, because they say that people of his ethnicity are especially afraid of ghost. Maybe the place would even be scary enough to drive the IRS agents away.