Grandpa's Bedtime Stories: True Tales of Adventure, the Mysterious and the Unexplained

By Don Manning

In Grandpa’s Bedtime Stories: True Tales of Adventure, the Mysterious and the Unexplained, Don Manning weaves true tales of his exciting encounters with Bigfoot, mountain lions, and bears and recounts stories of his mysterious experiences with UFOs and the paranormal and spiritual realms. Sprinkled throughout are nuggets of wisdom and insight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9780359407484

Don Manning

Six Words... Three Commitments... One Crazy Cool Family. Don and Suzanne Manning both grew up in Denton, Texas. They both graduated from the University of North Texas, Don with an accounting degree and Suzanne with a teaching degree. After being set up on a post-college blind date, they have been married for over twenty-five years. In their first year of marriage, they helped launch Valley Creek Church, now a large, multi-site church in Denton County. Don serves as an elder there and Valley Creek has been a big part of their married lives. Suzanne began her career as a teacher in the public school system. As more children came along she was called to stay home and train them up in the way that they should go. This past decade she has been serving at Liberty Christian School as a teacher and Minister to Girls. Now she is back home and devotes herself to the Crazy Cool Family ministry. Don is a CPA and is in the real estate business in the Denton County area. He is the CFO of a property management company and along with the owner puts together real estate deals for investors in the community.

Book preview

GRANDPA’S BEDTIME STORIES

True Tales of Adventure,

the Mysterious and the Unexplained

Don Manning

Copyright © 2019 by Don Manning

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations for the purpose of review.

ISBN: 978-0-359-40748-4 (eBook)

Cover art by Cathy Manning

Introduction

My father often said, We have all had at least one good story to tell about some strange event that took place in our lifetime, a story that defies explanation. They are the many unexplained things that crop up in our everyday lives and are usually without foundation or fact in this dimension.

I grew up listening to my father tell myriads of exciting stories about the mysterious and unexplained things he experienced in his lifetime. Many of those stories he experienced first-hand as a child, and I know they are true. Dad had a way of telling a story that made the listener feel they, themselves, were living the mystery or adventure.

My parents took all four of us children with them nearly everywhere they went. I remember camping in the wilds with grizzly bears, mountain lions and wolves. We even had an experience with a Bigfoot that I will never forget. Many weeks were spent fishing and exploring the mountains, rivers and mysterious places that my father knew like the back of his hand. We even lived in a haunted house for a time. He told us many stories about the experiences he and my mother had in these places. That which I cherish today is not only our family history but the way my father passed it along in storytelling fashion. There is also a moral and a lesson to be learned from each story my father told.

After the four of us grew up, married and had children of our own, we would often come to visit at my parents’ home. I can remember our children running up to their grandpa and asking him to tell them a story before they went to bed. Grandpa would always oblige them and retold many of the exciting stories I had listened to as a child.

Grandpa would not tell a story until late at night, just before bedtime. In the winter, he would tell his stories inside the house with dimmed lights. In summer, Grandpa and all the grandchildren went out in the back yard where they would sit in lawn chairs in the dark. The grandchildren could look at the stars as Grandpa explained the constellations and mysteries of time and space. This became a nightly ritual when we visited.

It was also the time when the grandchildren could ask any question they wanted about any subject that was on their minds.

Grandpa always listened to their questions and tried to answer them as best as he could. Then Grandpa would begin to tell a story about a great mystery or an exciting adventure, and, as the story unfolded, the grandchildren would be looking over their shoulders into the night because they had now become part of his story.

The stories you are about to read are true. I have heard these stories many times and can relate some of them word for word, just like my father told them to us. They are about the many peculiar experiences that have happened to my father and our family. They are about the unseen or unknown phenomena that surface within ourselves and our reality. I know you and your children will be just as baffled at his mysteries and just as excited with his adventures as we and our children are.

― Hank Manning

Grandpa telling stories around the campfire in 2018;

photograph by Zane Manning

The Journey Begins

Grandpa, is there such a thing as ESP? And is it true some people have it and others don't?

First of all, I'm not sure it should be called extrasensory perception. It might possibly be better explained by simply calling it sensory perception.

That means we all have the ability to listen, feel and see the things our own inner self is trying to reveal to us. I don't think there is anything extrasensory about it. It simply is a deeper, natural intelligence that exists in all of us.

Some people learn to listen and feel this inner self at an early age, and others never learn to recognize it. Those who use this inner knowledge and wisdom will grow more proficient in it, while those who never use it lose what ability they do have.

Grandpa, how does ESP work? And why does it happen only at certain times?

Maybe I can explain how it works by telling you a few things that happened to me as a small child. The earliest memory I have about this deeper sensory perception began after my first train ride in a smoke puffing locomotive from Minneapolis to Cumberland, Wisconsin. My mother was taking me to see my grandparents for the first time. My grandpa and grandma were retired from the farm in McKinley and had moved to a little house in Cumberland.

I remember leaving the train and seeing my mother carrying a large, cumbersome suitcase. Mom was very concerned about finding Grandma's house because she had forgotten the piece of paper that had her address written on it.

My grandparents didn't have a telephone, so there was no way to contact them to find out where they lived. Mom did remember the avenue, however, so we started to walk in the hope of finding my grandparents’ house. Cumberland was a small community, and it wouldn't take long to walk from one end of town to the other. I think my mother was counting on seeing her parents in the yard or outside their house.

We walked for quite some time, and Mom was becoming anxious, not knowing if we had passed the house already or still had farther to go. At age four, I didn’t realize that my mother’s shyness kept her from knocking on someone's door and asking if anybody knew her parents. I remember being extremely troubled about mom and sensed her fear when she couldn't find the house.

A short time later, I spotted a little, white house in the middle of the block on the same side of the street as we were walking. I instantly knew this was Grandma and Grandpa's house. There was not a thread of logical or rational evidence that could prove this was their place. At age four, though, I didn’t consider how I knew it. I just knew it was their house.

I told Mom this was where they lived. When Mom asked how I knew, I told her that I had seen Grandpa standing near the front window. She accepted this without a doubt and went to the front door and knocked. Grandma came to the front door, and we were welcomed in. After Grandma and Mom exchanged greetings, Mom asked where Grandpa was. Grandma said that Grandpa was taking a nap, but she would wake him because he would be happy to see us.

It was then that Mom knew that I couldn’t possibly have seen him near the window. She also realized this was my first trip to see my grandparents, and I wouldn’t have been able to recognize either of them, even if I’d seen them in the window.

As a small child, I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to know these sorts of things. As I grew older, I found the secret of knowing something had to be important or significant to me or another person I was close to, and it had to have some feeling or emotion attached to it before anything would be revealed to me.

Another incident I remember happened when I was six years old while living in Minneapolis. I admired both of my older brothers and was always trying to do the things they did. My twelve-year-old brother used to put a bicycle inner tube around his waist like a hula-hoop, then twist it once and wrap the other end of the loop around his neck. The inner tube was full of air and made a life jacket for him. With his life jacket, Virgil could swim all the way across Lake Harriet. My brother was an excellent swimmer and probably didn't need a life jacket. He probably used it as a safety measure.

One day, I found an old inner tube in the basement and blew it up with a tire pump I found nearby. When it was inflated, I wrapped it around myself the way my brother did, and, without supervision, I went over to the lake.

I couldn't swim yet and was just beginning to learn how to dog-paddle. This, I thought would give me a chance to swim like my older brother. I went into the roped-off swimming area at Lake Harriet and found I could go anywhere I wanted to. I swam in deeper and deeper water and was exhilarated at the freedom and control I had. I decided to swim across the lake like my big brother did and crossed beyond the ropes.

I could easily swim or float on my back with my head held out of the water by the inner tube around the back of my neck. I could also roll over and swim forward because the tube crossed in front of me at the neck and chest, keeping my face out of the water. With total confidence, I headed way out into the lake.

I was enjoying myself immensely and had absolutely no fear of being so far away from shore when I gradually became aware of a strong, uneasy gut feeling. I didn't understand the feeling at that age, but I began to feel that something was wrong and that I was in some sort of danger. I stopped swimming and lay quiet in the water, wondering what I should do. It was not long before I became aware of a strange sound. I rolled onto my back and lay still again. I could see tiny, fizzing bubbles surfacing on the water on my left side.

A strong feeling of fear shot over me, and I panicked because I knew, if my inner tube was deflating, I would never get back to shore. I turned around and began swimming for shore as fast as I could. I swam and swam until I was exhausted and kept on swimming, knowing I didn't have much time left. The inner tube was getting softer, and I was gradually sinking a little as each minute passed.

I was getting closer and closer to the ropes and buoys. However, the inner tube had very little air left in it, and I was scarcely able to keep my head out of the water. I was completely exhausted and began to sink when I was only ten feet away from the ropes. The water was about four feet over my head as I sank to the bottom of the lake. With eyes open, I could see the ropes and buoys, and I kicked myself off the bottom towards them. When I surfaced, I gasped for air and sank again. I had gained about two feet in the first thrust upwards, and I continued sinking and thrusting myself forward until I finally grabbed the ropes. I desperately hung onto the ropes until I gained my strength back and refilled my lungs with precious air. I eventually pulled myself along the ropes into shallow water where I could walk out of the lake.

If I had not stopped to figure out what that awful gut feeling was, I would have drowned. Was it ESP? I don't know, but something inside me was warning me of imminent danger. It may have been warning me even before I journeyed out into the lake, but, being that young and inexperienced with such matters, I probably didn't get the message until it was almost too late.

Today, it’s obvious to me the inner tube I used was in the basement because it had a slow leak and one of my brothers hadn't fixed it yet. I learned a big lesson that day. None of this would have happened if I had asked first about the inner tube before using it, and I should never have gone to the lake by myself without supervision from either my older brothers or my parents.

Grandpa, how could you deal with the fear of drowning at that age and still have enough sense to try and save yourself?

I wouldn't say that I had the sense to save myself in this case because fear often times brings out the instinct, strength and knowledge to help us survive a crisis. To better understand what I'm saying, I must tell you about several variations of fear and instinct and the will to survive.

The Story Begins

My father was a lenient, generous and humorous man who had many friends. Dad allowed me great freedom in my childhood adventures and interceded on my behalf when my mother restricted me too much. He was an avid reader and loved to read about great mysteries. When he finished a book or story with an unsolved mystery, he would tell us the story and then offer his explanation for what might actually have happened. Dad was also a wonderful storyteller and related many stories about his childhood and the mysteries of his time. I think it was the way he told a story and how he analyzed a mystery that taught me to look deeper into all things unexplained.

My mother was a strict, religious person who set stiff rules and guidelines. She was systematic in her household duties and was dedicated to raising her children in a moral manner. She often spoke about the many unexplained mysteries that happened to her and her family when she was growing up.

I didn't discuss the unexplained things I saw or experienced with anybody except my mother. She would intently listen to the things I would tell her, but she usually didn't offer an explanation. I learned never to speak about these unexplained things with the rest of the family because I was ridiculed as having an