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As an amateur historian with a slightly morbid leaning, I find cemeteries a fascinating inlet to the people and times gone by.

Within Joliet is Oakwood Cemetery, founded in 1855 to receive the remains of the city’s founding fathers. Over 18,000 interments have been performed there – and in the rear of the cemetery, there is a Woodland Indian burial mound estimated to be over a thousand years old, containing the remains of over 300 people. This burial seemed hasty, possibly indicating an epidemic or disaster long before the first Europeans settled the area.

It is just south of Hickory Creek, which runs through Pilcher Park to the east – a locale historic in its own right for its role in helping escaped slaves flee via the Underground Railroad during before and during the Civil War, and noted today by ghost-hunters and paranormal investigators alike for its spooky activity during both daylight and nighttime hours.

Further west, also along historic Route 6, is Aux Sable Cemetery. This location is also famous among those seeking chills and evidence of the afterlife. Ghost stories abound, as well as urban legends, but to date no credible evidence has been recorded.

Both sites are beautiful, well-kept memorial grounds. As with any cemetery, they are open to visitation only during the daytime, and trespassers at night risk arrest and prosecution – and perhaps a haunting that will last a lifetime.

Doctors have yet to definitively decide the whys and wherefores of headaches. There are no nerve endings within the brain to create “pain,” so why we can have headaches is a mystery. So, too, is a riddle that some people can have headaches and others - blessed that they are - never experience a single one.

Doctors do know some causes for headaches. Trauma - a bump to the head - can cause a headache; also hunger, dehydration, lack of sleep, too much sleep, hangovers (from alcohol, actually a combination of low blood sugar and dehydration), noise, eye strain, and muscle tension in the neck and shoulders (often caused by stress).

Aspirin - in its pure form a preparation of bark from the unassuming willow tree - is a known blood-thinner, and quite effective on most common headaches, which leads some to believe that headaches might be caused in part by increased blood pressure within the skull. (Of course, if your headache is caused by lack of food, water, or sleep, aspirin will not help you.)

More, on Migraines, at www.wildaspie.info