Did a pair of young Virginia men travel into an earlier period and location, apart from a typical scenario for the time? Very interesting account that asks several questions, with few answers.
The following account was recently forwarded to me:
"This was an event that took place several years ago. I'm writing this story down on behalf of my fiancé. He has told me this story before in bits and pieces, but tonight we got back on the topic and he told me the story in full detail. My fiancé is not the type of person to make anything up, and has no reason to lie. That's why I'm telling this story out of both anxiety and excitement. Everything in quotes I will say as if he were telling it to you, in the order he told it to me:
"My cousin and I were out drinking and riding around, him driving, in a county bordering ours. We weren't extremely familiar with the county but had been through it before several times and have family there. I was about 19 and my cousin, PJ, was about 20. Nothing was out of the ordinary about the night, as we liked to drink and ride around back roads. Out of nowhere we had to piss, and ended up coming upon this old country store.
Here in rural Virginia, in a lot of places, it's not unusual for a common country store to look super old. The store looked very old-fashioned, but was neat and tidied up. We decided to stop here to piss around the side of the store building. It was around 9 PM around sunset/dusk. We noticed the store looked like it was being closed up for the night, but strange thing is there were a few people and a couple of kids there but dressed differently. The adults were sitting on a little porch with a swing on it at the store. The looked like they were dressed from the 20s, but we paid literally no mind to it. There were old style gas pumps there and the store had a screen door as the entrance.
We came across this man out by the pumps, looked like he was in his late 20s, dressed nicely. He wore a top hat with dark parted hair underneath, dark red suspenders, dress shoes, and a dress shirt with a tie. He reminded me of someone from the Italian mob. He was around 6 foot tall, quiet but very friendly, and a built dude. He was there to close up the store for the night and check things out before doing so. We had small talk, being drunk and friendly, and he said he had plans of drinking once he was finished. We told him to join us and ride around some back roads and drink. He agreed, and we got in the car. He was drinking some sort of wine, and told us which roads he wanted us to take him riding on. We didn't know these roads whatsoever, we were just following his lead. We even sipped the wine with him (which I have never drank again to my knowledge by the distinct taste).
We were all buzzed and talkative. The young man told us about how his family owned the store and he worked there as well. He said the store was passed down the generations of his family. This man was really cool but gentle in nature, and spoke very highly of his family. About five or six hours of this passed. We had a great time hanging out. He was grateful that we asked him to ride with us because he was hiding his drinking from his family. He didn't want them to worry about him and seemed like a "proud Italian" man; very respectable guy. He said other things, and since we were drinking we can't remember everything (how it usually is, nothing out of the ordinary), yet it seemed like he was in a sort of bad place in life and wanted better for himself and his family.
After telling us that, his mood seemed to change, like he was starting to feel down, and he told us to take him back to the same store, but we took a totally different route, still following the directions that he gave us. We were planning on getting more gas at the store, since we were on almost on empty from cruising the back roads all night. Once we arrived at the store, he told us he was going to unlock the store so we could go inside. He exited the car and we heard the back door shut. Literally immediately after that, we looked around and the store was completely run down. Grass was growing way too tall around it, windows were broken, and it looked like it had been abandoned for a very long time. The man was nowhere in sight, and the gas pumps were broken and rusted. A brown paper bag that we had seen the young man with was even still in the back seat.
We both freaked the hell out and had no idea what had happened or how we were going to make it home. It was around 3 or 4 AM and we didn't know what to do or think. Everything about the situation seemed so normal, until this point. We didn't know where we were because we were just riding random roads, but decided to try to find a gas station nearby. We did, and to this day sh*t freaks me out. I told my mom about it and she said she thinks she knows what store I'm talking about, and it had been closed since the 70s. My cousin freaked out about it so badly for so long that he was almost committed by his family. He couldn't sleep, eat, or function at all. I was and still am freaked out about it, but just have no explanation to it."
As my fiancé was telling me this story, I interrogated him. I kept asking him what the roads looked like, what exactly the man looked like, what he wore, etc. While asking him, I kept pulling up Googled photos on my laptop of "top hat and suspender fashion decade" which led me to searches like "1920s country stores" and "1920s roads." I had a few questions but he answered them all to where it made perfect sense. I came across this photo of an old country store, before I found out he didn't actually enter the store, and asked him if this is what the inside looked like. He was shocked. As soon as he saw the photo because of the man standing in it. He got cold chills all over his body and told me to look at his chills. He was genuinely freaked out. He said "that's the guy, I'm sure of it." The young man in the photo perfectly fit how he described this man in the story too. I clicked on the photo and it was an "about us" section of a fruit packing company in California. The website stated the business had been family-owned and passed down the generations, just as my fiancé had said the young man told him about his store. The dates in the website "about us" section matched up, even with this young man's assumed age, which would have been around 27. His name was Alex Lambado, which has a freakishly familiar sound to it. But, if we search the name, we can't find anything except for that small bit about him on the website. Primavera Marketing 'about us'
You guys let me know what you think happened. He was pretty damn buzzed that night, he told me, but not super drunk. He didn't hallucinate this, and his cousin was there for it all too. To this day no one can bring up the event to his cousin PJ, because he will literally lose his mind over it. I want to hear what you guys think this could have been! Who is Alex Lambado and why does he sound so familiar? PM
NOTE: I have searched the name 'Alex Lambado,' and was unsuccessful in gaining any results, other than what was posted in the account. The most interesting aspect of this account, to me, is that the location of the incident was in rural Virginia. The information provided seems to suggest that the actual store had been in California and that the family who owned the store were of Italian descent. This is not a common scenario for 1920s rural Virginia. Did this 'time slip' also result in the regionally change as well? Interesting story. Lon
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