Published April 20, 2015

UPDATE:

When I first started this project (August 2014), to write a book that ended the stereotypes about Gypsies by answering questions outsiders had about us, I had sent a request out, (most were sent to college professors of English, History, Psychology, Sociology, and Anthology classes, and most of the questions that came back, came from college students) for people to send me their questions.

The request was this:

If you could ask a Gypsy anything, what would you ask?

The request said, send as many questions as you like. 

I did not expect the response. I figured a few people would send a few questions. More than 700 people responded and most sent multiple questions. Most people sent in at least two questions. Some sent a dozen or more.

I had originally planned on just one book, however, more then 2,000 questions came back and even if I only devoted a single paragraph to each question, it would be more then a thousand pages long, and I like to devote a bit of detail and several pages to each question. 

Thus a single book, became a series of books instead. I am trying to sort the questions by theme or topic, with a single theme per book.

Near as I can tell, it'll require about 30 volumes to answer all of your questions. If your question wasn't answered in one of the books already published, keep watching, I am answering every question that was sent to me.

As of today (April 24, 2015) I have already written 450,000 words worth of answers (that's 1,447 pages) and I'm only about half-way through your question. This project ended up be much bigger than I had expected.

The first 7 volumes were published April 20, 2015, with more volumes following soon. And as questions are still coming in, it is unknown how many volumes it'll take to answer them all. At last count there were now more then 2,500 questions.

And yes, to everyone who has been asking me to bring back the 1,371 "Kboards Articles", which I took offline November 2014 during the Kboards Incident, yes, those articles ARE being republished as part of this series.  None of those articles was long enough to be an entire book on their own, most were only 4,000 to 7,000 words (12 to 22 pages) long.  I am trying to keep every book in this series at least 50 pages long, most are going to be over 100 pages long, a few are over 200 pages long. Most of these books will be 70 to 90 pages long, and the 1,371 "Kboards Articles" are all included through out this series, each article being placed in the appropriately themed volume.

Thank you and many hugs, to everyone who sent questions in for this project.

~April 24, 2015

about the series:

We are Gypsies NOT Roms and NOT Travellers...

There are three different nomadic races of Scotland: The Travellers, The Gypsies, and The Romany.

The Scottish Travellers are white skinned Celtics who originated from Rome, Italy. Their religion is heavily Catholic. They may see Færies as “fun to tell stories of” but they do not believe in them as real, not worship them as deity. They were woodworkers, tinsmiths, and sheep herders. They have no tradition of magic arts. They are very, very, very white often, nearly albino, with very thin and frail looking blond or red hair, and blue or green eyes.

The Scottish Gypsies originated from Persian Magi, and follow a religious tradition of magic arts and Fæ worship. We wear fur robes and heavily embroidered silks and are known for our cloth, needlework, rugs, tapestries, robes, and magic arts. We wear bright red clothes, tall red hats and were called by the Celtics “Little People” because most of us are under 5’6” tall. The Irish called us Leprechauns because our people made fancy silk embroidered shoes. We have golden reddish-olive skin, resembling pale Native Americans. And very thick wavy dark reddish-brown to black hair, and dark green to dark brown eyes that look black from a distance.

The Romany Gypsies of Scotland aka the Scottish/Welsh Romanichals originated from India. They are known for their music and dances, and clothes of many colors. Their religious tradition is a blend of Hindu and Catholicism. They have a rich tradition of belly dancing and spicy foods. They have very dark skin of a deep golden brown color, thick straight black hair, and brown black eyes. They don't believe in Faeries either.

My people, we are the Scottish Gypsies, descended from the Magi. We are in no way related to the Romany or the Travellers. We are the people the Celts referred to as “The Little People”. Our magic arts were feared by even the Romany and the Travellers, who like other races and cultures saw us Gypsies as “the children of Satan” due to our use of the magic arts.

The Scottish Gypsies of Old Orchard Beach is a large community of multiple family units within multiple Scottish clans that were abandoned on the Maine and Nova Scotia coast by the British between the 1530s and 1780s. The English initially viewed the New World as a dumping ground for societies unwanted, and rounded up every Gypsy, Puritan, Muslim, and Jew, they could find and marooned them in this frigid frozen wasteland that is 8 months of ice and snow. They also emptied their prisons, workhouses, asylums, and infermaies on these shores. Anyone with plague, pox, or influenza was likewise rounded up and dumped here. Few survived.

Between 1530 and 1780, several hundred members of the Googins, Lewis, MacDonald, Downs, Murphey, McDuffy,  McDuff, Ricker, Allen, and Atwater Scottish Gypsy Clans were herded up like cattle, loaded onto ships and dumped on whatever spot the ship found. Some were left as far north as Nova Scotia and others as far south as what is now Boston. Most were dumped off in Georgetown, at Fort Preble, at what is now the campus of Southern Maine Community College of South Portland. It's shipyard, marinas, and ports remain active to this day and are now the docking spaces of giant oil rigs and jumbo sized cruise ships.

While many Scots and Irish were dumped on these shores and left to fend for themselves, the Googins, Lewis, MacDonald, Downs, Murphey, McDuffy,  McDuff, Ricker, Allen, and Atwater clans were different from the other Scots and Irish. They were not Celtic Scots, they were Highlanders descended from the Picts, they were the clans hated and reviled by the Celtic Scots and the Irish, for they were the Scottish Gypsies.

The Googins, Lewis, and Rickers were the first of the Gypsy clans to band together and form a community. The land they settled on was 2 miles wide and 3 miles long and spread from what is now called Googins Rock to Milliken's Mill Pond. Each family unit (a man and his wife(wives) and their children) settled in a small encampment, a short distance (500 yards or so) from the next family unit. This was the first settlers of the town which is now called Old Orchard Beach. 

On this same location, sat a vast apple orchard which was tended by the native "Indian" tribes. Several tribes tended these trees. It was the MicMacs of Nova Scotia who migrated down here to OOB each harvest season to harvest the apples. Many of the Googins, Lewis, and Rickers married MicMacs and the Gypsy and MicMac cultures blended together so well, that by the 1600s when King George started giving land grants to Indians, he also gave a land grant to a Googins/Ricker family unit. The original land grant was for 300 acres of land and included the vast Ross Forest (known as The Twighlight Forest to the Gypsies.) Between the 1600s and the 1880s the land was divided up with fathers given their sons plots of land. Today in 2014 only 3/4 of an acre remmain and sits at 146 Portland Ave. The land, known as The Ricker Homestead, still remains in the original family that settled it in 1530 and was one of the locations which Stephen King's film crew picked for the filming of the movie The Thinner, because King had requested it be filmed “in a real Gypsy camp”..

 Some of the Googins married Rickers, some married Downs, others married Lewis and others married Rogers (including Thomas Rodgers of The Battle of Googins Rock.) Some of the Rickers married Stackpoles (who were Cherokee and others married Allens, while others married Lewis. Some Allens had previously married Lewis (including Mercy Lewis of the Salem Witch Trials).

Between 1640 and 1950 there was lots of intermarrying back and forth between the Lewis, Googins, Ricker, Allens, Murphey, McDuffy/McDuff, and Downs clans. 

The Atwater/Drake clans join with the Lewis/Ricker/Googins clan in 1973. Prior to that these two rival Gypsy communities had no blood link. The Atwater/Drake clans rarely married out into other families, so most of their history is Atwater or Drake, HOWEVER, both the names Atwater and Drake were "stolen" and adopted as their own. It is unknown what the real name of either family was. 

The Atwaters adopted the Atwater name in the 1600s when they worked as orchard pickers on David Henry Atwater's mansion in Kent, England. In honour of this Englishman who took them in, gave them shelter, a camp, and jobs, every Scottish Gypsy "Atwater" born since the 1640s has named at least one of their sons David Henry Atwater. Today in 2014 the tradition continues and there are currently more then 30 David Henry Atwaters alive in the clan, with some family units having as many as 7 children named David. (Yes, as in 1 mother with 7 sons all named David.) What the Atwaters real name was prior to living on the Atwater estate in Kent, England is unknown.

The Drakes adopted their name in about the 1730s (exact date unknown) when (pirate) Capt John H Drake adopted the name to make himself sound more "fierce" and so he could tell people he was a direct line from Sir Francis Drake the Dragon (which was a lie - Francis Drake had no sons and has no descendants.) What John Drake's real name was remains a mystery.

Because of the name change and no birth records prior to 1640 (Atwaters) and 1730 (Drake) we are not able to accurately trace either the Atwater or Drake lines beyond that point.

The Allens appear mysteriously in the 1600s when Salem witch accuser Mercy Lewis marries a man known only as "Mr. Allen" He is the first Allen to enter our family and it is unknown who he is or where he came from. It is suspected that, like the Atwares and Drakes, Allen was not his real name. In the 160s in New England, being Scottish (or Irish) was seen as a very bad thing and many Scots (and Irish) changed their last names to "English versions" of their real names. It is suspected that Mr. Allen changed his name in order to avoid getting caught up in the witch hunting craze (as being Scottish and having a Scottish name was all it took to qualify as a "witch" in those days.) What is known is that the Allen clan (often called The Allens of Portland or The Allens of Allens Avenue) was a branch of the MacDonald clan (of Mac's Garage in OOB and the state senate). In the late 1800s the Allens and the MacDonalds were still intermarrying.

The Lewis, the MacDonalds, the Downs, the Murphys, and the McDuffy/McDuffy were still intermarrying right up into the 1980s. 

What it boils down to in the end is that pretty much every single person living in Old Orchard Beach, who has the last name of: Googins, Lewis, Ricker, Allen, MacDonald, Down, Murphey, Atwater, Drake, McDuffy, and/or McDuff is related to everyone else with those last names and are today all 1st, 2nd, or 3rd cousins of everybody else in the town with those last names. Which means of the 8,000 people living in the town year round, more then 3,000 of them are family (whether they know it or not.) But fewer then 400 of them openly admit they are Gypsies and many of the ones born after 1950 are completely unaware of the fact they have Gypsy blood or that they are related to Stephen King's infamous Gypsy clan used for the filming of the movie The Thinner.

During Old Orchard Beach's tourist town boom of 1821 to 1957, EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of the  Googins, Lewis, MacDonald, Down, Murphey, McDuffie, and McDuff clans turned their backs of their Gypsy roots, abandoned their traditions, culture, and heritage to assimilate into white American society. MOST of then shunning their culture between 1820 and 1823 because Maine gained statehood in 1820, and they chose to become Americans, rather then continue with the culture and traditions of their ancestors.

Only the Rickers, Allens, Atwaters, and Drakes continued to live "the Old Ways", passing on their traditions, culture, native religion, and heritage. They remained living on the original settlement (originally The Googins Settlement in the 1600s, renamed The Ricker Homestead in 1820s, and unofficially dubbed by the town manager as The Allen Farm in 1983.) The traditions of the Scottish Gypsies remained intact thanks to George, Rose, and Helen Ricker, Margarete Stackpole (a Cherokee), Eva LittleJohn-Dyer-Atwater (a Kickapoo), Captain John H. Drake, Maggie Drake, and Maggie, Priscilla, and David Henry Atwater's refusal to assimilate into white society.

Because it is the Rickers, the Drakes, and the Atwaters who preserved the ancient culture of the Scottish Gypsies and kept it alive and still keep it alive to this day, it is therefore the Ricker, Drake, and Atwater family history which most of this book will focus on. If you want information on the Googins, Lewis, MacDonald, Down, Murphey, McDuffie, and McDuff lines of our family tree, you will find much information at the OOB Historical society and the town hall, and at the McArthur Library in Biddeford (where all the county microfilm records are kept), and from interviewing any of the 3,000 members of these family names who are still alive today in Old Orchard Beach. However, sadly, ALL of the information you find from these lines has been nearly 100% stripped of it's Gypsy roots. 

When Maine received statehood, most of the Googins, Lewis, MacDonald, Down, Murphey, McDuffie, and McDuff clans did everything they could to destroy any last trace of their connection to having been Gypsies. They were deeply and utterly ashamed of who they were and where they came from, and used Maine's entering the Union as an excuse to erase their Gypsy roots and "become REAL Americans! Yay!" 

This is a sad fact of most Gypsy, Traveller, and Romany families in America today: the white men bullied them so much that they became ashamed of who they were and felt the need to hide their race and culture and pretend to be something they were not: white men.

Today, because they turned their back on their family traditions and adopted the ways of the white men, the Googins, Lewis, MacDonald, Down, Murphey, McDuffie, and McDuff clans are largely shunned or politely ignored, by the Rickers, Allens, Atwaters, and Drakes who see them as traitors and deserters of the family. 

Every year the Scottish Gypsy Clan of Old Orchard Beach grows smaller as more and more younger Gypsies, turn their backs on their culture and pretend to be white Americans, living in white American homes and doing white American things, committing white American sins. In the 1930s the Scottish Gypsy Clan of Old Orchard Beach has thousands of members. Today the number is 368 and grows smaller each year, in spite of the fact that each couple averages 8 children and many couples have 12 or more children.

For 500 years our family simply said they were Scottish and Native American and no one bothered us. Then Stephen King's film producers show up and want to use us and our cars in that movie they were doing, said King had based some story on our clan and wanted to film the movie on location. They were here maybe 5 hours, long enough to get shots of various streets, houses, landmarks, etc. They wanted us in our traditional clothes wandering around the amusement park, and they wanted us to drive our cars off the Saco turnpike exit 5 into Old Orchard Beach. They were really bossy and bitchy and mad because they wanted lots of fog, and King had told them our town was foggy, but they were here at the wrong time of the year for the fog, so they had to bring in fog machines and they were all mad about that. I think somebody in the clan got paid for letting them in here with their cameras. I don't know who, just know it wasn't me. And that was it. We never heard from them again, they disappeared as quickly as they came.

Then about 2 years later, the tourists started showing up in town. Tourists always show up in this town, but these tourists were different. They were wandering around town, business to business asking the same questions:

"Do you know where I can find The Gypsies of Old Orchard Beach, I want to see if they are really like they were in Thinner."

"Thinner is my favorite movie, I heard Stephen King say in an interview he used real live Gypsies in that movie, filmed it on location in their Gypsy camp, it's supposed to be around here somewhere, I know we are close because there's the ferris wheel, they say if you can find the ferris wheel you can find the Gypsy camp, it's walking distance, supposed to be around the corner here somewhere in a wooded area, you don't where it is do you, I want see them for myself."

Well, I shop at Potvin's Market and 7-11 and David's Sub Shop and Radley's Deli and all the other little small local shops and yeah they're all walking distance from our yard, yep there's the ferris wheel, you used to be able to see it from our yard, but the trees grew. I walk downtown pretty much every day on the warm days, drive my rhinestoned Volvo the rest of the time....and well, you know how I dress...didn't take long for tourists to pick me out of a crowd and say: "She looks like she could be one of thems Gypsies from that movie, let's ask her."

So now, every time I go downtown, me and my car get mobbed, and I'm bombarded with:

"Are you one of Stephen King's Gypsies?"

"Can I have your autograph?"

"This car wasn't in the movie was it?"

"One of you Gypsies is supposed to be an evil death spell casting witch, can we meet her?"

No! I never meet Stephen King, don't know Stephen King, as far as I know he wasn't around when the film people were here, if he was I never saw him. No I can't tell you if the book or movie portrays our people accurately as I have never read the books or seen the movie, I don't even know what it's about, they didn't tell us, we never saw a script, they just asked if they could film the area for a movie, they never told us what the movie was about, just that they wanted some real Gypsies in it. So, I'm sorry, but I can't answer any questions about King or Thinner as we were never told a thing and I never read the book or saw the movie. None of us were actors in the movie. None of us had speaking parts, and they were asked not to film anyone's faces, so if they did as requested, you shouldn't be able to identify any REAL Gypsy in that movie. We pretty much were not asked if we wanted to be in it, they just landed here and started filming.

And all the locals are standing around watching and listening to what these out-of-state tourists are saying and looking at me and the way I dress and looking at my car and putting two and two together and all of a sudden we got locals flipping out on us, because suddenly it hits them: "Oh my god! They're Gypsies! We got real live Gypsies living in this town! We can't have that, this is the most white town of all towns in our 99.9% white state!"

And so while tourists are going all piss-pants excited loving the fact that they met a real live Gypsy and "THEY'RE REAL! OH MY GOD! THEY'RE REAL! GYPSIES ARE REAL! THEY AREN'T A MYTH AFTER ALL!! SQUEEEEEEE! HONEY GET A PICTURE!" the locals are shooting at us, throwing rocks, building bombs, dumping garbage on our land, and over all making our lives a living hell.

And that is why I'm writing this book, and very much breaking the Gypsy code of silence about who we are. Because in the past decade I have seen both sides of the stereotype extreme: half the planet thinks we Gypsies are mythical creatures like Unicorns and the other half wants us dead, for I don't know why! Everybody who comes up in here is ready to piss their pants in amazement or ready to blow our heads off! There's no in between with these people and it's all because of stupid idiotic stereotypes.

The "term" gypsy is a racial slur. Not against us mind you. White men use it as a racial slur against anyone they don't like, for any reason at all. Not a one of them has a clue what the word gypsy even means. Ask 20 white me what the word Gypsy means and you'll get 20 different answers.

"Gypsy means someone who moves around a lot"

"A Gypsy is a mythical race in Dungeons and Dragons, they are like witches only more powerful"

"Gypsy means thief"

"Gypsy means dirty whore"

"Gypsy means a person with psychic powers who tells fortunes and predicts the future"

"Anyone who lives in a trailer is a gypsy"

"Gypsy is a criminal subculture of the Roma"

"A Gypsy is someone who kidnaps babies"

"Gypsy means a nomadic tribe, Roma and Irish Travellers are a type of Gypsy"

Which of the above is true? None of them. Not a single one.

I think one of the primary problems with explaining Gypsies to people, is that few people are aware that Gypsy is a very specific and distinct RACE. Not an ethnicity. Not a culture. Not an adjective. But a RACE.

A race is genetically transmitted physical characteristics. Gypsies, REAL Gypsies are a critically endangered indigenous race of human beings, with fewer then 2,000 confirmed to be alive today and anthropologists suspect there may be as many as 3,000 currently alive. They are a NATIVE RACE in serious danger of extinction and suspected to be the last surviving Picts, HOWEVER by their own oral traditions, they have passed down stories stating that they are NOT Celtic, that they were invaded by the Celts, which is why they are known as "The Indigenous Highlanders of Scotland" rather then "Scottish".

The Gypsies have very distinct physical features: olive gold skin, dark eyes and hair, high cheekbones, round faces, and large noses and look vastly different from Celtic Scotsmen. Unlike the much darker skinned Indian Romany who are typically very slender, or the much paler skinned, fair haired Celtic Travellers who also often rather slim, the Gypsies are often plump or chubby, some are even quite fat. While a few clans of Gypsies are tall, most Gypsies are VERY short, many under 5' tall. Most Gypsy woman are 5'1" to 5'4" while most Gypsy men are 5'4" to 5'9". They closely resemble small, plump, pale Native Americans with big bushy beards.

There are three different nomadic races of Scotland: The Travellers, The Gypsies, and the Romany.

The Scottish Travellers are white skinned Celtics who originated from Rome, Italy. Their religion is heavily Catholic. They may see Færies as “fun to tell stories of” but they do not believe in them as real, not worship them as deity. They were woodworkers, tinsmiths, and sheep herders. They have no tradition of magic arts. They are very, very, very white often, nearly albino, with very thin and frail looking blond or red hair, and blue or green eyes.

The Scottish Gypsies originated from Persian Magi, and follow a religious tradition of magic arts and Fæ worship. We wear fur robes and heavily embroidered silks and are known for our cloth, needlework, rugs, tapestries, robes, and magic arts. We wear bright red clothes, tall red hats and were called by the Celtics “Little People” because most of us are under 5’6” tall. The Irish called us Leprechauns because our people made fancy silk embroidered shoes. We have golden reddish-olive skin, resembling pale Native Americans. And very thick wavy dark reddish-brown to black hair, and dark green to dark brown eyes that look black from a distance.

The Romany Gypsies of Scotland aka the Scottish/Welsh Romanichals originated from India. They are known for their music and dances, and clothes of many colors. Their religious tradition is a blend of Hindu and Catholicism. They have a rich tradition of belly dancing and spicy foods. They have very dark skin of a deep golden brown color, thick straight black hair, and brown black eyes.

My people, we are the Scottish Gypsies, descended from the Magi. We are in no way related to the Romany or the Travellers. We are the people the Celts referred to as “The Little People”. Or magic arts were feared by even the Romany and the Travellers, who lie other races and cultures saw us Gypsies as “the children of Satan” due to our use of the magic arts.

Gypsy is NOT an adjective. It does not mean someone who travels. The Gypsies were a settled race of farmers, who were driven off their lands in the Highlands of Scotland. They fled to the safety of Egypt, where they were renamed the Gypsies "the people who live with the Egyptians". In the 1500s several of their clans were forced onto ships and dumped/abandoned/marooned in what is now Nova Scotia and Maine. They survived by living with the American Indians and interbreeding with them.

The Gypsies have a distinctive religion belief system based around "The Little People". Gypsies believe in the existence of Leprechauns, FarDarrigs, Phookas, RedCaps, Pixies, GhullieDhu, and thousands of other dark and dangerous creatures of Fæ, known collectively as the Færies. Every move a Gypsy makes, every breath they take, every word they speak is done in great fear and reverence of the Little People, whom they believe they have a blood-link to. Many Gypsies see themselves as only half-human, believing themselves to be descendants of the Leprechauns. For this reason Gypsies often wear heavily embroidered, outlandishly decorated, red clothes decorated in gold bling (by ancient tradition Leprechauns wore red NOT green). They worship a creature known as The FarDarrig, a vampire Leprechaun feared in heaven, earth, and hell and has power over both angels and demons.

It is probably important to note that what white men call a "leprechaun" and what Gypsies call a Leprechaun are two very, very, very different things. Leprechauns are powerful Trickster Færies who bathe in Human blood, always dressed in long red robes and leather coats. They are similar in size to Humans, only very slightly smaller, usually between 5'1" and 5'6". They do not wear green, they do not hoard gold, they are not tiny in size, they do not grant wishes, they have no connection to good luck or rainbows what-so-ever. All those things are modern white men's interpretations and mockery of an ancient religion.

We were called “The Leprechauns” by the white Celtic invaders, centuries ago. A name that means “the shoe makers”.  Leprechaun is the Irish word for "little shoemaker", it does NOT mean Færies. Stupid modern white men, mixed our Færie Faith religion with Leprechaun the word, to come up with the comical green clothed man, usually associated with the word Leprechaun. Years ago, my people made soft red silk shoes embroidered and beaded. Our shoes stood out and thus how Leprechaun (shoemaker) was the name the Irish gave our people. It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with little green men or pots of gold or rainbows.

Because of these things there are some people who speculate that, The Gypsies, this elusive race of small chubby people who dress strangely, keep to themselves, chant wild curses when sighted by non-clan members, and flee at the sight of white men, are in fact the "Little People" of Celtic legends, themselves. For 500 years this clan of Gypsies has hidden themselves away in a small New England town, now known as Old Orchard Beach, where they remained hidden, until their discovery by Stephen King, who used them as the inspiration for his book Thinner, and its movie which was filmed on location in Maine, suddenly bringing them into the public eye of curiosity seeking tourists, and hate mongering white supremacists, who in the early 2000s invaded their camp, burned down their home and turned this peaceful tribe's lives upside down...

Interviews With Stephen King's Thinner Gypsies:

UPDATE: AUGUST 23, 2014

Yes, this is the official home page of the group of people white folks call "Stephen King's Gypsies of Thinner".

However...

No, we do not know Stephen King, have never meet Stephen King, we do not represent Stephen King, we can not answer your questions about Stephen King, his books, or his movies. Or anything else. No we can not forward your letters to him. No, we have no clue where he lives or how to give you directions to see him.

We are in no way affiliated with Stephen King or anyone else.

"Stephen King's Gypsies" is just a slang term people call us, ever since the film crew was in town. We don't even know if Stephen King even knows who we are or if he is the one who sent the film crew here. 

Us having let the film crew in here is something we have regretted for years and had we known the trouble it would cause or that white folks would think it was an open invitation for ANYONE to walk up in here, we would never have let them come here at all.

For whatever reason, white folks think that because we are connected to Stephen King, therefore they can do whatever they want. It's very frustrating.

Our connection to Stephen King is brief. Very brief. A film crew invaded Old Orchard Beach in the mid1990s and set out to filming the area around Exit 5 out of Saco into Old Orchard. They said they were filming a Stephen King movie about Gypsies and wanted the real Gypsies of the area to be in the movie. They lined up a bunch of cars and drove them on and off the turnpike exit, then they drove around town filming the amusement park, and what they called the "Gypsy camps", they did a lot of screaming and yelling about the lack of fog and the fact that they had to bring in fog machines, and about 5 hours later they were gone. They hardly said a word to us and most barged around shouting orders and acting like rude white folks always act: rude.

That was it.

That is the extent of our "connection" to Stephen King and the filming of the movie Thinner.

A bunch of white men, running around screaming and yelling for five hours.

Only this and nothing more.

And because of this, we have hundreds of people tramping around our yard every summer, acting like they think this is a public park.

And then we get bombarded with questions about what we think of the book and the movie.We've never read the book or seen the movie and have no clue what it is about. This event was insignificant to us, until late 1997 when people started showing up on town asking to meet what they called "Stephen King's Gypsies from Thinner". It's a strange term and we don't necessarily like it. 

Our understanding of Thinner (based on what trespassers have told us) is that it does not portray Gypsies in a good light and is filled with stereotypes, so needless to say we are not comfortable with people calling us "Stephen King's Gypsies." We do not belong to Stephen King and therefore do not like the term. We are Scottish Gypsies.

I mean think about it: how would you like having a title like that slapped on your family? How would you like thousands of strangers roaming around your private property every year without your permission?

WHO WE ARE IS THIS:

Do remember: The Roma ARE NOT Gypsies and nor are the Travellers. And no amount of calling them Gypsies is ever going to make them Gypsies, and no amount of reality TV calling them Gypsies is ever going to make them Gypsies either. Why? Because the word Gypsy means: "The People who Lived among the egyptians" and guess what? The Roma did not live in Egypt any more than the Travellers did.  Neither group are Gypsies because neither group lived with the ancient Egyptians.

There actually is an actual RACE who are called Gypsies, and no they are NOT the Romas. It is highly offensive to the Gypsies for you to call yourself a Gypsy when a simple DNA test will prove you have no blood link to them at all.

Do note that Gypsies, Travellers and Romany are THREE separate groups.

There are millions of nomadic people who inaccurately are called (by themselves and by others) Gypsies.

I am a Gypsy.

I am NOT a Roma

Roma ARE NOT Gypsies.

I am NOT a Traveller

Travellers ARE NOT Gypsies either.

Few people realize that there is an ACTUAL RACE whose name is CORRECTLY called Gypsy.

And of course, because Gypsy is a race of people, they can be male or female, adult or child.

A race differs from a culture or ethnicity in that race has distinct physical features. For example: Gypsies have olive toned skin, most have dark hair and green eyes, most are very short and tend to be on the chubby side. The have high cheekbones and long noses. You can identify them to look at them, without seeing their cloths or habits, which therefor makes them a unique and distinct race.

Gypsy is a racist term when it is used to describe Romas, Travellers, hippies, carnival people, boatmen, or ANY other group of nomads who are not by DNA blood ACTUAL Gypsies.

Travellers come in English, Welsh, and Scottish, in addition to Irish, though the Irish Travellers are the most common, most liberal, and most likely to be seen by outsiders.

The Welsh and English Travellers are far fewer population wise, and tend to be more secretive. While the Scottish Travellers are the smallest group, and also the most reclusive type of Traveller.

Travellers are the most likely to travel cross the country, though many are now settled.

Travellers are white people (often blond or redhaired) of Celtic (Roman/Italian) descent.

Romany are more reclusive then Travellers, thus why you see Travellers more often then Romany. Some Romanies still travel, but many are now settled. There are dozens of sub-groups or types of Romany, each with their own culture, and name.

The Romany are brown/tan people with dark hair and dark eyes, they are of Indian/Hindi descent and many groups still speak and dress in various Indian/Hindi derived languages. They settled in Romania for a few centuries, thus how they came for be called Roma/Romany. Many of them later settled in Spain and adopted Spanish language and habits  into their culture, thus why many today speak Spanish and are Catholic.

Gypsies are the most reclusive of all. RARELY having contact with outsiders. They also don't travel. ALL Gypsies are settled farmers. TRUE Gypsies (the actual race, not the slang "lifestyle" term that gets slapped on other races) are listed on the registry of Endangered Indigenous Peoples. There are fewer then 2,000 confirmed to still be alive as of the last census count in 2012. 

The Gypsies are often called "The Scottish Gypsies" because Scotland was their most recent extended stay location. They are also often mistaken for Scottish Travellers, who have no relation to them at all.

The Gypsies originated in Iran, in Persia, during the time of King Darius (the king mentioned in the Bible, who put Daniel in the Lion's Den). The Gypsies descent from Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego of the Bible. (Not them directly, but from the priests of the order they created.) According to the stories, after the "Lion's Den" incident, King Darius made Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego high priests in his court. While there, they founded a "secret order of priests" known as The Brotherhood of The Magi (aka The Wise Men at Jesus birth in the New Testament.)

The Magi, under the rule of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were seen by the people of Persia as powerful wizards and soothsayers, known for telling the future, divination, interpreting dreams, and speaking one on one with the spirits of the dead. They were also noted for their outlandish red, blue, and purple silk robes heavily embroidered with silver and gold sun, moons, and stars. This is where the myth that Gypsies are "magical" or have "psychic powers" came from. (And boy is that a myth I wish would go away! Yie!  Every week, I have to deal with some American walking up to me and saying: "So I heard you were a Gypsy. Can you sense anything about ____. What do you see happening about ____" It's incredibly annoying and frustrating how many people think the word Gypsy is interchangeable with psychic or witch. But it's our starting out as a branch of the Brotherhood of the Magi that started that stereotype, and no matter how hard we try to explain to people we are not born psychic, Americans simply refuse to accept or believe that. 

When King Darius' empire fell, The Brotherhood of the Magi gathered up their families and fled to Mongolia. In Mongolia they were (centuries) later captured by the Vikings and lived as "slave shaman" to the Vikings. They eventually escaped and ended up in Scotland, where they assimilated into the Pictish society.

When the Celts (Romans/Christians of Constantine) invaded Britania and killed most of the Picts, the Brotherhood of Magi once again took their families and fled back to Egypt. They lived in Egypt for centuries, where they became known as "the Gypsies" which meant: The people Who Lived Among the Egyptians.

In the 1400s they attempted to go back to Scotland and were chased by the Celts to Germany. During this short time in the British Isles, the Irish called them both "The Little People" and "The Leprechauns". Because they are very short, most of their women not much over 5'1" and most of their men under 5'9" and because of the elaborate curly toed red silk beaded shoes they made (the word Leprechaun means "shoe maker").

In the 1500s they tried to return to Scotland again, this time being captured by the British loaded onto a ship and marooned in the New World in about 1530. They settled in land that is now known as Old Orchard Beach, Maine, and lived among the Native American peoples. In the 1640s they were given a land grant by King George. In 1911 they legally bought the land from the American government (I still have the original receipt). In 1996 Stephen King's film crew decided to film the movie Thinner on their land. 

Today in 2015, the Gypsies still live on the land they have been on since 1530 and still wear the old Persian style heavily embroidered silk robes, and are still seen by locals as powerful psychics, known for telling the future, divination, interpreting dreams, and speaking one on one with the spirits of the dead... even though we don't do that sort of thing at all these days. Much of our culture and traditions remain virtually unchanged for centuries. Because of the way we dress and look and because of our extremely olde style "Arabian" fundamentalist traditions, they are often mistaken by outsiders as being Muslim.

This one little TINY group of people from Persia, is the ONLY group that is truly and correctly the race called The Gypsies. If you were not born into this group, you are not a Gypsy, no matter what you look like, how you dress, what your hobbies are, or how much you travel. These people did live among the Egyptians for many centuries and they were named Gypsies by the Egyptians, and no other group on the planet has the right to use the word "gypsy" to describe who they are.

The Roma are NOT Gypsies.

The Travellers are NOT Gypsies.

Hippies are NOT Gypsies.

Only the small sub-group of the Persian Brotherhood of the Magi (aka The Magicians) who lived for many centuries in Egypt, and were named by the Egyptians as Gypsies, can truly and correctly lay any claim to the title of Gypsy.

We are not comfortable with people calling us "Stephen King's Gypsies." We do not belong to Stephen King and therefore do not like the term. We are Scottish Gypsies.

I repeat:

WE HAVE NO AFFILIATION WITH STEPHEN KING!

"Stephen King's Gypsies" is just a slang term people call us, ever since the Thinner film crew was in town.

We do not know Stephen King,.

We have never meet Stephen King.

We do not represent Stephen King.

We can not answer your questions about Stephen King, his books, or his movies.

 We have no idea how to forward your fan mail to Stephen King. Please don't give it to us.

We are in no way affiliated with Stephen King or anyone else.

PLEASE: Do not come to our land and bombard us with questions about Stephen King. We are unable to answer any of your questions regarding Stephen King, his books, his movies, his life, or anything else. We do not know him, do not represent him, and are in no way affiliated with him.

We are the Scottish Gypsies of Old Orchard Beach, Maine, please stop calling us "Stephen King's Gypsies". Stephen King does not own us. We do not belong to Stephen King. Stephen King does not represent us.  As far as we know, he doesn't even know us. My understanding of the situation is that they filmed the movie here at Exit 5 out of Saco to Old Orchard, because they wanted the movie to be filmed in a "real Gypsy town".

And please try to stop confusing the Scottish GYPSIES of Old Orchard Beach, with the Scottish TRAVELLERS of Old Orchard Beach. they are two COMPLETELY SEPARATE groups with totally different cultures, coming from completely different bloodlines.

The Scottish Gypsies (US) are by surname: Googins, O'Rourkes, McDuffie', Murphey, Ricker, & Allen

The Scottish TRAVELLERS (THEM) are by surname: Atwater, Hall, Jergan.

How much of this info has a paper trail that can be proven, and how much is word of mouth passed down over the years? The paper trail (which includes birth record, death records, marriage certificates, deeds, grants, recipts, and other documents) goes from the current era Maine back to 1500's Scotland. The info from 1500's Scotland, back to Bible times, is passed down word of mouth and while some details can be found in historic documents, many can not be and are unknown as to how accurate they actually are. From 1648 to today, their exists a meticulously kept file of documents and nearly every member of the Googings/Ricker/Allen clan can be traced from 1648 to today. The parts about the Vikings, Mongolians, Sicians, and Persians, is word of mouth, passed down granny to grandchild, has no paper trail that we are aware of and at the moment is neither proven nor disproven.

The history of the Atwater side of the family (The Scottish Travellers, who are only In-Laws and NOT blood relatives, and are only relatives because one of their daughters married one of the sons of The Scottish Gypsy clan in 1973) unfortunaly has no paper trail past the 1820s, and two of their claims to fame (sir Fransic Drake and David Atwater of Atwater Castle in Kent, England) have been proven to be outright hoaxes, both of which were made up by David Henery Atwater and his son Richard Merlin Atwater.

What part of the Atwater family history can be proven? Only this:

David Henry Atwater was the first LDS/Mormon baptism in Saco Maine, and he and the Marr family did found the first LDS/Mormon Ward in the state of Maine, The Saco ward in 1952, later renaming it the Cape Elizebeth Ward, when it moved to it's own building. His son, Peter Atwater, was a bricklayer and did make the bricks to build said building, and his daughter Jeannie atwater was the first person in Maine to be baptised in an official Utah approaved church building (rather then outdoors in a river).

David's mother was in fact the daughter of a pirate named Captain John Drake, who did terrorize Nova scotia and Maine coasts in the late 1700s with a junk rigged ship with sails dyed blue from blueberries, HOWEVER, this was NOT his real name, he was NOT related to Sir Francis Drake, and there are no records to say what his real name was before he changed it to Drake. The Drake side of the Atwater line ends here in the mid 1700s. Without knowing John Drake's real name, there is no way to trace the rest of the line.

The name Atwater first shows up in the Scottish Traveller family in the 1640s, HOWEVER, there is nothing to indicate they are related to David Atwater of the castle in Kent. Their family tree does not connect back to his. The ONLY evidance we can find that they were connected to him at all, was a refence to the fact that on the castle grounds was an orchard, and at one point in the 1600's the Atwaters let a band of "Gypsies" stay on their band for a few months, while said Gypsies worked for the castle, harvesting the fruit crops. The Atwater clan, showed up in this same time period, claiming to be from Scotland, but also claiming to be the children of David Atwater of Kent, England. 

Near as we can tell, one of two things happened:

1: The Gypsy clan, to honour the man who was kind to them, named their next born male baby after him (including to give him the same last name). This is not an uncommon practic in Traveller families I have personally known, and very possibly what happened.

2: One of the daughters on the Gypsy clan, did in fact give birth to a son by David Atwater of Kent, but it being illegitimate, David Atwater of Kent, never acknowledge, or possibly never knew of the child and thus his family had no record of it. Unless the child was a result of rape, it is highly unlikely that such a child would have been born, given the strict taboos Travellers (and Gypsies) have against muddying up the blood line. a half blood child would likely have been shunned and NOT given it's father's name.

It is more likely the first option happened, because it is the tradition of this particular clan of Scottish Travellers to name their children after people they revere, thus why they currently have more then 30 living male members, all named David Atwater.

While the Atwaters are quick to spin lots of (often very wild) tales of their family tree, ONLY the facts listed above, have been proven. No paper trail has ever been found to support any of their other claims.

It is important to note here that David Henry Atwater, was a gangster in the 1920s. He was the driver for one of Honeyfitze's Old Orchard Beach to Canada connections. He went blind due to a bad batch of moonshine, thus ending his rum-running career. Bitter from having gone blind, David Henry Atwater, became a VERY VIOLENT wife beating, child abuser, who forced his first wife (my Kickapoo Grammy Eva) (he was a polygamist) to have THREE abortions, by tieing her down and beating her in the stomach until the baby was dead. Because their dog, like her better then him, he boiled it and forced feed it to her. THIS is the TRUTH behind the infamous SAINTLY LDS/Mormon high priest and patriarch David Henry Atwater of Saco, Maine and Ogden, Utah.

David Henry Atwater, to cover up his connections to having once been one of Honeyfitze's rum-running drivers, REINVENTED his ENTIRE family history, including to INVENT the story that his grandfather John Drake was the great-great grandson of Sir Francis Drake. 

In the 1970s David Henry became friends with John Applewhite and helped him to found what would go on to become Heaven's Gate, of the HaleBop mass suicide fame. David's sons are still today in 2015, ACTIVE members of Heaven's Gate and are waiting for yet another comet (WormWood) to come take them away.

By the 1980s David had become a Dragon (a type of priest like leader in the Ku Klux Klan). Today most of David's sons and many of his male and female grandchildren are members of the Loyal white Knights of the KKK.

By the 1990s David was actively protesting at the Salt Lake Temple claiming that the LDS prophet was a false prophet, and that he was the TRUE prophet of God. by the time of his murder at age 100 years and 14 days old, he was close to claiming that he himself was God reborn. He was killed by one of his daughter's husbands, who tied him to a chair, then pushed the chair down the stairs into the basement, where he was found by another daughter, 3 days later.

David's favorite colour was neon, day glow pink and it was the only thing he would wear. He was famous for his pink zoot-suits and fedoras. At his funeral, everybody wore pink instead of black, and he was buried in a custom built gold trimmed pink metalflake coffin that cost $10,000 to have made.

Unfortunately, The Atwater Clan has a LONG history of avoiding the government, not keeping records, refusing to get social security numbers, and changing their names frequently (often multiple times a year) as a way to avoid the law. They also have a HUGE history with credit card fraud, embezzlement, loan scams, identity theft, piracy, bootlegging, illegal gun hoarding, violence, KKK activity, UFO cults, and a connection to 5 separate mass murder suicide events. They are listed by the FBI as one of the most wanted crime families in America (The FBI calls them The Scottish Traveller Crime Family of America). It is because of their vast waves of crime, that they change their names often, AND change the details of their family history frequently, resulting in very little of the family history they currently recite being anything close to the truth. 

It is the Atwater Clan that pretty much single handedly destroyed the reputation of Gypsies and Gypsy-like groups everywhere.

The ONLY connection the Scottish Travellers have to the Scottish Gypsies is that one of the Atwater girls married one of the Allen boys, resulting in us now having Atwater IN-LAWS.

For the first two decades of our knowing the Atwaters we tried to get along with them, but their hysterical fighting, shoot outs with police, hoarding of guns and stolen credit cards, their sword fights in the street, and their cutting all the copper pipes out of all our neighbors houses, and finally planting acres of marijuana on our neighbor's land, resulted in us severing all ties to them and shunning them.

The movie Thinner does NOT accurately represent who we are, how our culture is, or how our people act.

Please repeat after me: It is just a movie. It is not real.

Thinner is a FICTIONAL movie. It is not based on FACTS. 

In the past decade since the release of the movie Thinner, hundreds of people have come to "visit" (trespass on) our farm. Most of them are just piss-pants happy to see the real Gypsies that were "featured" in the movie. Those people are fine, we don't mind them.

HOWEVER, there have also been quite a few "religious fanatics" who have come up in here, with vengeance, violence, and hate. On October 18, 2006, one of them put a grease fryer bomb in our house and tried to kill me, my family, and my pets, because ha said "God told" him to kill us "evil Satanic witches".

We are not evil.

We are not Satanic.

We are not witches.

Please stop  lying and spreading those nasty false rumors about us.

We are Christians.

Most of us are LDS/Mormons. Some are Pentecostals, some are Baptist, some are Seventh Day Adventists,  some are Calvinist.

Until 2006, we attended Church every Sunday. We only stopped because of the nasty rumors that started being spread about us, after the release of the movie Thinner, which resulted in members of our church, people whom had been our friends and neighbors for 40+ years, throwing rocks at us in the church parking lot, smashing the windows out of our cars in the church parking lot, cutting the brake lines off our cars in the church parking lot,, slashing our tires...CHRISTIANS...good upstanding Christians, doing these things, on Sunday, at the church, on Smith Lane, in Saco, Maine. We stopped attending church because we could not afford to buy new windshields, tires, and brakes lines every single week.

I used to landscape that church. I donated all those plants, the flowers, the bushes. I planted them all. When the roof needed repairs, it was my family that volunteered and did that work. When the janitor called in sick, it was my family that volunteered to clean the church, wash all those windows, vacuum all those floors, scrub all those seats and tables.

I cooked for EVERY church super. I cooked for every bake sale and fundraiser the children and youth did.

Many of the men in my family are bricklayers: guess who HAND MADE every single brick, and laid them down, and built that building.

It is horrible that Americans, because they saw some movie, think that gives them the right to come up in here and falsely accuse us of being evil, Satanic, or witches.

And this is how you treat us, because you saw something you didn't like is some stupid, fictional movie?

Some people have the nerve to come here to yell at us and call us squatters and thieves, kidnappers, baby stealers, murderers, cannibals,  scam artists, pickpockets, and all other manner of nonsense.

How many people do you know, who have to keep copies of the deed to their land on them, just so they can prove to the steady, constant stream of trespassers that they own the land and are not squatters? 

How many? Tell me that. So far everyone I've asked, has said they wouldn't even know how to get a copy of their and had never seen it.

Do you have any idea what it is like to have to live with hysterical white folks trespassing on your land every day, just so they can blame you for things you had no part in or and accuse you of things you never did, simply because of the race you were born as?

You'd think we were runaway black slaves from the Civil War era, the way white folks come up in here going on and on with their hatred for Gypsies.

We are the Googings family. We have lived on this land since the 1530s. King George (whom my cat Georgie is named after) gave us a land grant in the 1640s.  In 1911 my great-grandfather George Ricker legally bought the land from the American government.  He paid $100 for it (I still have the original receipt) which in 1911 was a lot of money for a 3/4 acre lot of land. His daughter Helen Ricker-Allen inherited it when he died. My father inherited on my behalf (because I was 8 years old) when she died.  We are not squatters, we own this land legally and since the 1530s my family has never lived anywhere else.

And all the white folks with their false accusations about scam artists, pickpockets, and all other manner of nonsense. It's horrific the stuff white folks come up with to say to us.

We are farmers. From 1821 until 1983 this was a full scale poultry farm,. We had hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of chickens. We provided eggs for most of the state of Maine during that time. We were the FIRST no-kill egg farm in the country. 

I am by profession an author and artist. From 1996 to 2011, I was also an Avon Sales Representative, as was my mother before me, and my grandmother before her.  From 2006 to 2011 I was a sales associate at Macy's. I stopped selling Avon and working at Macy's because my health no longer permitted me to do that much walking around town. We are not thieves or scam artists or any of those other horrible things people have said about us.

Please stop  lying and spreading those nasty false rumors about us.

It's mean.

It's hateful.

And it hurts.

And you wouldn't like it if someone did it to you?

How would you like it is steady lines of trespassers tramped around your yard tossing horrific false accusations about you and your family in your face?

You wouldn't want people doing it to you so why do you think it's okay to do it to us?

Please try to remember that the movie Thinner, is FICTION. It is NOT based on actual facts. It does NOT represent who we are. Please remember that it is just a movie, not a documentary.

Normally we Gypsies keep to ourselves and do not share any information about our culture with outsiders. HOWEVER, because there has been so much confusion as to who we are, what we do, and how we live, caused indirectly by the filming of a movie in our town,  we have decided that the only way to restore order, balance, and peace for our people and in our home, is if we open our culture to the world and allow the outsiders to see once and for all, what Gypsy life and culture, is REALLY like.

Because of this, I am starting a project, to write a book, about the history of our people, who we are, and why we are here, and why we keep to ourselves. And as there are many stereotypes about our people, I would also like, if outsiders would send me their questions about Gypsies and I will answer those as well.

This is the story behind the Scottish Gypsies of Old Orchard Beach, Maine and their connection to Stephen King's The Thinner:

already published:

Click on image to go to each book's Amazon page.

Or CLICK HERE to see the series page.

These books were unpublished by a civil rights violating court order issued by the Old Orchard Beach Town Hall. Read more about it here.

coming soon: