HATMAN

I've mentioned my "weirdness" before, and how my daughter seems to have inherited it.

A few days ago, as the school year was coming to an end, my daughter brought me her artwork from school, and a couple of her sketchbooks.

She's definitely inherited the artistic streak from my side of the family -- actually my father's side. We are an artistic line. Some of us have a gift for music, others for painting and drawing, some for acting, writing.

I got the musical gift, and some writing. My daughter can draw very well -- I would say extremely well.

In one of her sketchbooks, she had a couple of drawings of the shadows she had seen in her room when she was younger, and I nearly puked.

She and her little brother have both mentioned seeing scary shadows in their rooms, but it was never to the point that they would scream, or run get in bed with me. And I would only hear about it months or even years after the fact.

One of the drawings was of a man in a wide-brimmed hat, that was pulled down low over his eyes, and he had a grin on his face. The other was a less distinct man-shaped shadow with white eyes.

I asked her about the drawings, where and when she saw them, if she was scared, if she dreamed them. She said she remembered seeing them, but might have been dreaming, since she was so young.

Finally I asked her if she had heard about the Hat Man. She said she hadn't. I told her that some people claimed to see a shadow man wearing a hat like that. She kind of blew me off about it, but it's been bugging me for days now.