Once again, I’ll be at the West Virginia Book Festival on October 19 in Booth 502. Here’s another week in Pandemonium.

August 26, 1968—The Democratic National Convention is besieged by Vietnam War Protestors. Among their number are the Pandemonium Four, who are infamously detained by local authorities for their extreme anti-war activism and public drunkenness.  

August 27, 1922—The Pandemonium Buccaneers apply to the newly established National Football League for membership. Unfortunately, their application is rejected after League officials are denied a tour of the south side of the island.  

August 28, 1963—Martin Luther King Jr. gives his “I Have a Dream” speech to 250,000 people attending the March on Washington. None other than Pandemonium residents Minerva and Daemon Davis are in attendance, though they come wearing heavy coats and thick makeup, almost as if they don’t want to be seen.

August 29, 1831—The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad’s new steam engine locomotive races a horse drawn car in Pandemonium and nearly beats it before the engine inexplicably implodes. Satanic High Priest Beauregard Davis, who had $20 beat on the horse, would remark that “science has a long way to go to be good old-fashioned horsepower.”

August 30, 1804—Calvin Eastwood, an enslaved man, plans a rebellion on the south side of the Line, but is caught and beaten to death by a mob of angry Witches.  

August 31, 1886— A 7.6 magnitude earthquake strikes the state of South Carolina, leaving 100 people dead. In Pandemonium, the instability leads to the collapse of a dilapidated building owned by the Davis family, the future site of the Athena Oratorium. No evidence exists of what the previous building on the site was used for, but Grand Dame Elizabeth Davis would later claim it was a dance hall were her father, Col. Robert Davis, met her mother.

September 1, 1774—The Royal Governor of South Carolina decides to lock up Pandemonium’s supply of powder, fearing a rebellion. Redcoats sent to the island are sent back in a wheelbarrow with their heads turn completely backwards.