War Story #14 Ghosts @ Maryland Potomac, Summer, 2025 and Whatnot. War Story #14 -- Danger, Craziness -- and WTF. How I, Patrick Tyrrell Survived, and Got info about Human Bones back to the U.S. Army.

"i come from a small town, how 'bout you?

I only ask because I'm ready to leave L.A.

And I want you to come too."-- Lana Del Ray

bones, human being, found in Maryland where ghost stories scare people. Did a spy? Kill a Spy? Read about it below on RockNRollConcerts,com (War Story #14).

NOT B.S. (DO NOT LET THE BS ZIPPERHEADS RUEL THIS WORLD).

I had been alternating between walking and running all day long in the hot Virginia Sun, originating the day in Arlington, Virginia, and really only stopping once; to get a haircut, and also to lose The Alexandria Fire Department. They like to follow me around in their $1.1 million dollar or more firetrucks which they have far too many of.

Ben Franklin I'm sure would be appalled that his early Colonial America fire fighting techniques and innovations have turned to this -- a $1.1 million firetruck largess following me around every couple of blocks in Northern Virginia and that Northern Virginia has no need for.

Anyway, I walked from the well-known Ballston area of Arlington, through the Clarendon, and the Rosslyn areas, my Bose Bluetooth speaker probably popping out Classic Rock or Gangster Rap the whole way, I can't remember which it was.

For 38 years I have always been inside the forests on the Virginia side of the Potomac river. Marylanders were often seen across the river on the other side; silent and fishing; their beaming flashlights giving themselves away in the night; or occasionally, people who seemed cool were there on the other side making out with each other in the daytime. No sorry, Virginia, Maryland is obviously 'for lovers' as well. from the looks of things.

I wasn't familiar with the Maryland side of the river though, because I had seen very little of it on foot -- except in a few places when me and a few of my friends would swim over there to the rocks on the the other side.

In those days, sometimes the river was more majorly polluted than other days when it was less polluted. (Now it is always like night and day cleaner, now).

So, today, here, I am talking about War Story # 14, which happened in July, 2025. . .

It is now October of that year as I am writing this.

So, as I was saying, I jogged through the Rosslyn, last-neighborhood-in-Arlington-VA-before-D.C.-neighborhood.

Then I decided to cross The Key Bridge and go over to the Georgetown area of Washington D.C., instead of running down the grass-slope that borders the George Washington Parkway, down to the wooded riverbanks on the other side of the PKWY on Virginia's side. I had seen an F.B.I. detective or someone closing in to investigate me or something down there, the guy was wearing a "Super Mario's" black and red sweatsuit as I gave him the slip, if you know what I mean, saying hello to him as I ventured from my hideout on the river -- the F.B.I. Super Mario's fan not guessing it was me, as I acknowledged him and walked on through the forest that day previously. I bet Detective Super Mario had had wild fantasies about arresting yours truly for speaking the English Language to pampered snowflakes in paddle boats and yachts that day, but, as I said, that was not to be, that day or ever.

Not feeling like being in Georgetown by light of day, I quickly cut left down to the Canal Road path along the semi-filled canal, which runs adjacent to that semi-filled body of water.

by leaving the path temporarily, I got a sandwich for lunch somewhere at a deli in Maryland, and I returned to the Canal Bridge which crosses Canal Road to eat it.

We used to jump off the top of Old Canal Bridge, which once supported railroad tracks and trains crossing it before I was born, but this time I was here just to eat my lunch.

Old Canal Bridge over the old canal road which is only partially filled with water these days but once transported goods into the Washington D.C. area by barges from places as far away as The Great lakes of Lake Michigan, Lake Eerie, and the other great lakes, before the invention of the combustible gas engine, and the rise of the Teamsters and truckers unions.

I was eating a very good roast beef sandwich there, when some 'nattering nabobs of negativity' i.e., the snobs, circled by me below, walking by me a few times. They were wearing summer fashion clothing from summer places like Cape Cod, or Martha's (Vineyard).

The people I suspected of this were snickering and concealing their faces behind huge black sunglasses--which resembled non-round dinnerplates covering their unseen eyeballs. People like them are not my problem though. They are America's problem.

I guess they didn't like my loud music emanating from a speaker I had with me.

So -- anyway, I sprinted over the bridge seen in the nearby picture, The Canal Bridge, on Canal Road. Do NOT EVER TRY THIS, OR YOU WILL DIE, BUT . . . in the early 1990s, the water was about 6 feet deep. There was a picnic table just beneath the surface on one of the sides of the Canal Bridge which meant certain death or paralysis to those who don't know and whom jump off the wrong side, and the water is brown. We could jump in from the level of the bridge that you cross on foot or bicycle, or do you see those steel pieces in the nearby picture? We could climb those steel pieces, all the way up, to the second level up, and we'd jump into the six or sometimes six and 1/2 feet deep muddy water which would break our fall into the soft clay mud at the bottom of the canal.

That is what I did often, diving is not my sport.

(Another friend of mine though, whose father was a U.S. Senator though, he liked to do triple-back flips off the top there -- so, he was trying to impress the ladies, I'm sure. . .)

So anyway, I found a 17th century or an 18th century brick ice cellar on somebody's property, as I charged away through some ivy, it was buried under the ivy, and it is possible the owner isn't aware of its existence.

Back down on the canal path, I continued on my way and walked many miles and for many hours.

Eventually I came to an eerie entrance to a wilderness-looking section of the Maryland forest along the river, grey mangled dead trees and tree limbs twisted menacingly at me under dark clouds in the twilight.

Canal Road had ended.

It seemed that a dog walker was warning me not to go any farther in because of poltergeist activity she or he perceived, or maybe she was just warning me about an oncoming thunderstorn.

It was cloudy and raining and dusk was settling in.

I went in anyway.

I forgot to write perhaps the creepiest part earlier. Before I had eaten my lunch, I had come to a break in the canal trail where I had ventured into a marsh there and there was no trail or path, not even a deer trail.

I had scattered my RockNRollConcerts.com business cards on a moldy sleeping bag in the marsh forest there because they were soggy and useless for me to carry any further, and on a nearby sleeping bag there was a blue bottle with a skull and crossbones on it indicating a poison. I felt the peeling white letters on the bottle which had been there a long time and the letters felt like brail, bumpy, and peeling off but written not in Braille, but in English. The bottle was sealed and full, and I dropped it back in the little wooden box holder I had found it in.

A few yards away were stacked up white and brownish bones, missing the skull though of what I at first supposed was a large mammal. But on second thought, the spinal column, and other bones I now recognized as most likely human -- a deduction that is easy for me to deduce because of the bottle of poison.

Sadly, I deduce that two English-speaking spies agreed to kill each other for whatever reason, and one drank his or her poison, believing the other spy would also, but the second spy then went on his or her way abandoning the sealed, weather-beaten still-sealed poison of un-drank stuff on the secluded river bank area on The Maryland side there.

"It's a bumbled up, mixed-up. messed up world," said The Kinks in the rock ballad "LoLa", right? Especially in Spy-ville I ascertain -- but it is interesting? that the instructions on the bottle of poison were in English, I think it is interesting.

I took pictures and uploaded them of the bones to Facebook, but they were removed, I got the information to the U.S. army also though, so don't worry.

Alright so I ran through this area of the Potomac River as a major summer storm was traveling downriver from West Virginia, and I ran, and I ran, and I ran.

I was going to get to the Cabin John bridge I think it is called, where I intended to cross that bridge which crosses the river as 495-The beltway. I planned to cross it from underneath it on the metal bars under the bridge that traverses The Potomac like my friends and I did frequently in high school, climbing along under the bridge and then sitting out on the stone columns that go down into the river in the middle and drinking beer and carrying on.

But before I could do that this dark night, I almost got killed running along the path. . .

The river was messed up this night, I am not used to the Maryland side, and it appeared that the river had cut a new path of rushing river-water through some jagged rock area of the forest. Any kayakers coming through from Virginia on the other side of the Cabin John, would have been crushed and dashed to pieces on the new path that the river had cut through the rocks. Where is the U.S. Army of Engineers? I wondered, aircraft was circling above me but a lot of help they could do me.

I motioned for the piloted, light aircraft when it would swoop low to go pay attention to the Virginia side, not where I was because loud piercing screams of girls voices were shrill over there in Virginia and I could hear whoever they were were terrified, hopefully just lost their way in the dark woods, I hoped.

I was running along and the rushing water was now on both sides of the about six-inch wide trail, or what was left of it as I ran along and -- to my shock -- what was left of the trail -- was going downhill -- I ran until there was likely a centimeter or two only of trail above white swirling water rapids on both sides of the muddy runway, six inches wide was all the sunken trail was.

But Jesus Christ is real, and a miraculous thing, as usual did occur, the path began to run uphill, and I running on it also gained higher ground, until we, the trail and I were -- again -- several feet above the swirling river water on both sides of us, the trail and me, in the dark.

Thanks Jesus.

As I approached The Beltway Bridge, Cabin John Bridge, in the dark, I felt victorious, and I climbed the side of the bridge and found that due to weird construction work by construction workers, it was going to be too hard to climb underneath the bridge and cross it from underneath, so I crossed it above it along the highway. I have no idea what was going on there.

Traffic was horrible in the middle of the night on that 495-Beltway southern bound, mostly semi-truck traffic, I wondered, did New Jersey invade Pennsylvania and all these people were trying to escape from the the colloquially termed "Garbage State" war?

Or; Did a nuclear reactor breakdown and they were all fleeing?

Or; what?

Was it beach traffic, it being Friday night in the summertime?

I never found out what the deal was and a couple of cars almost ran me over as I crossed the bridge. Thank you Jesus again.

I strode into Virginia on the other side, both of my legs limping and bleeding and I called an Uber or a Lyft to go home.

I had been walking, except when I jogged or ran, since 11:00 a.m., pretty much, and it was now about Midnight.

The Lyft Driver was dressed in his army fatigues, and I told him the story of the spy's bones I had found, and he reported it to his supervisor later in the U.S. Army.

Don't try this at home.

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