Ghost of Whitmore (sample) by charles h galloway (includes link to music score) © 2015

click here to hear song Ghosts of Whitmore By Charles H. Galloway 

I have to admit experiencing both immense relief as well as measurable foreboding upon receiving my invitation to employment by the Mississippi State Hospital at Whitmore. During such bleak economic times any opportunity to employment is welcome, and one earning a reasonable wage with benefits to boot is truly a blessing to one whose resume leaves something to be desired. The accompanying anxiety I experienced upon receipt of such news was due to Whitmore's reputation and the rumored tales of things that supposedly transpired there under cover of night. Having long been know as “The Madhouse of Mississippi”, it was said that the clientele comprised only the most depraved and demented the state had to offer and that no one who entered ever saw the light of day again.

Since I was a youth I have repeatedly heard stories from friends and relatives about people they either knew or knew of that had broken down and after numerous visits to the local psychiatric facility without positive results, were committed to Whitmore. I was always told that the family would consider their loved one dead. Whitmore wasn't a place where people got better and returned home. It was a dead end. Within a few months of admission, the patient always degenerated into what could only be considered an animal.

I had never been to Whitmore before and remember my first day as though it were yesterday. The hospital is in the middle of nowhere. The road from the highway is barely noticeable; I actually missed it once on my first day. Once found, it winds for miles through a dense pine forest over numerous hills. There are a number of forks in the road, and without directions you'd never find the place. Soon the trees yield to various crop fields with adjacent farmhouses. Eventually, the road takes a one hundred eighty degree turn around to the right and you enter the main gates of the hospital. I've never seen another car coming or going on the road to Whitmore. No employees, no visitors, nothing. There must be a bayou or swamp or some body of water near the hospital because the air is always remarkably damp and there is a mist that perpetually permeates the entire campus. Spanish moss hangs from the great Oaks that line the concrete walkways between the buildings of decrepit, red brick. Whitmore was obviously once a very beautiful place, but as the years have passed the structures have begun to crumble and the untended overgrowth has begun its takeover. From the minute I entered the campus and even more so as I parked and stepped out of my car I briefly felt an overwhelming anxiety and sense of dread. Something was wrong here, something I couldn't put my finger on. As I approached the front door that first day I felt like a child about to enter a carnival tent, expecting to find a host of bizarre characters engaged in a plethora of grotesque behaviors. To my surprise and relief the place was actually quiet. The orderlies ushered a few lone patients through the hallways toward their rooms. The doctors had finished their rounds and had gone home. I was greeted my a large but friendly woman who thanked me repeatedly for taking the job. She said they couldn't seem to keep the position filled. The position I had accepted was a nighttime orderly...