Quite a Character

and even our grandparents. Whether it's a love of old movies, or the way we hold a pencil or how we say certain words. Our families and friends leave their marks on us in so many ways, and for the more artistic of us, they become fodder for our creative endeavors. That's what happened to Elsie Seeger. Seeger was born in the small town of Chester, Illinois eight His father worked as a handyman, and when Elsie was older, he often brought him along on the jobs. When he wasn't painting

houses or hanging wallpaper. However, the young Seeger could be found playing the drums, which made him popular with local theaters and movie houses in need of musical support. His early days were spent a company in vaudeville acts, until he eventually took a job running the projector at the Chester Opera House. The owner of the Opera House was a man named William Schuchert, who often sent Seager out

to fetch him hamburgers at meal times. Meanwhile, there was a local general store run by Dora Pascal, whose tall and lanky frame loomed over her customers, her hair tied in a loose bun that fell at the nape of her neck. All of these individuals left a lasting impression on Sieger, but perhaps none more than Frank Feigel. Figel was known by his nickname Rocky due to his prominent jawline and muscular stature. Rocky lived with his mother and didn't have many friends. He fought a lot and was

not one to shy away from a brawl. He also spent most of his time in the town's bars. Rocky didn't have a steady income, instead choosing to do odd jobs around Chester as a day laborer. Given his shaky employment history and love of drinking, he earned a less than flattering reputation as a bum, but he wasn't afraid of anything. According to a story by his nephew, Rocky once entered a saloon where two Ruffians had a rule

for anyone coming in. The customer either had to buy the whole bar around of drinks or put on the gloves and fight one of the thugs. So Rocky put on the gloves. The next thing everyone knew, the bruiser was on the floor, with Rocky standing over him victorious. But he wasn't always fighting. Despite his sour demeanor, he often made time to help the kids in town, especially the meek ones who were getting picked on by bullies. He would offer candy or coins to the ones in need.

Even though he was tough on the outside, he had a heart of gold on the inside. Rocky could be easily identified by a few trademark characteristics too. For one, he always had a corn cob pipe sticking out of his mouth. He'd also lost one of his eyes, which led him to squint on one side. Rocky was quite a character and affected everyone he met, for better or for worse. Elzie Seger certainly remembered him when he finally

left Chester for a job in the big city. Seger had started taking correspondence courses at eighteen years old with a dream of becoming a cartoonist. After spending a number of years in Chicago working for The Herald and the Chicago Evening American, he moved out to New York. He took a job at King Features Syndicate, a content distribution company that put comic strips in papers all over the country. Among his first creations at the new job was a

strip called Bull Theater. It introduced characters that were literally drawn from Seeger's own life, including a tall, thin woman with her hair in a loose bun named Olive Oil, reminiscent of Chester General store owner Dora Pascal. Eventually, William Shooker to the Hamburger, loving Chester Opera house owner who had employed Seeger as a teen, also made an appearance. He became j Wellington Wimpy who would gladly pay you

Tuesday or a Hamburger today. And finally there was Rocky, the brawling, toughest nails outsider with one good eye who always had a pipe in his mouth. Although he never worked on the water. His headstone said everything you needed to know about him. Frank Rocky Figel inspiration for Popeye. The sailor man. Before the days of jeep p s it road maps, travelers needed another way to know where they were and where they were going. Compasses helped, the rising and setting of the sun did too, but the

Native Americans came up with a brand new way. They used the help of nature to carve out their own trail markers. You see, when trees are saplings, they can be bent in specific ways without causing the tree any long term damage or ill effects. These shapes will be retained as they grow, leaving the landscape with mature trees bent at odd angles and into strange shapes. Some trees were tied down by rocks, way down with dirt, or carved in particular patterns, all with the same idea in mind.

When you see the tree bent in a ninety degree angle, you know where you were and where to go next. This method does, not, however, describe the mysterious nature of all bent trees. If you were to visit the small town of Graffino in poland take an hour walk to the south, passing through a regular looking pine forest, you would come into a grove that defined explanation, a grove that looks something out of a fairy tale, maybe even a horror story, the layer of some kind of nether

world monster. And while most fairy tales have a meaning and most mystical lands have a purpose, whatever purpose this grove had is still unknown. It's a four acre grove of four hundred trees, all pines, all planted in nine except unlike their neighbors, all four hundred of these trees, as the name of the forest suggests, are crooked, almost all identically. So they are so uniform, in fact, that to describe one tree is to describe all of the

trees in this particular grove. Just above the ground, the tree bends sharply, almost exactly, at a ninety degree angle and aims to the north. A gentle curve takes the trunk upward and then back toward the original center, before straightening out and heading for the sky. It looks like a land of giant wooden fish hooks, or of backward jay's, depending on which way you're looking at them, or of a side down question marks. Now, many have looked at

this forest and assumed that had human origins. After all, if Native Americans can bend in shape trees, why couldn't the Polish but Native Americans bent and shaped one tree every so often to mark a trail or point towards water. Never four hundred trees all at once, all together, all exactly the same. Another theory is that whoever planted this forest bent the wood in this way to make it

easier to fashion into furniture or boats. After all, boats are curved vessels, and perhaps precurved wood made for a more workable material. But if that's the case, whatever happened to the plan, Why were no trees cut down to serve this purpose? And why was there no record of

such forethought? Still, another theory is that a heavy snowstorm blanketed the area soon after being planted, forcing the trees to push sideways underneath the snow until it melted, at which point they broke upwards and then curved act towards the sun. But there is no record of such a snowstorm, nor an explanation as to why the neighboring trees grew

up just fine. And one last theory, because it's just too fun not to mention, that a unique gravitational effect pulled at the trees in this area, maybe or maybe not, because of an alien spacecraft. Whatever, the case, you would be happy to know that all four trees are perfectly healthy.

They all reach up to fifty ft tall, as a good pine tree is known to do, and if nothing else, it provides for an excellent photo opportunity for tourists who are eager to post a unique picture on social media, because there's nothing quite like a grove of crooked trees to get likes and followers. Just be sure to use the hashtag curious. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour

of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.