[Spectral animal of some kind. Source: Safari search.]
When old Blue died he died so hard
He shook the ground in my backyard
We lowered him down with a golden chain
And every link we called his name
Bye bye Blue You good dog you
Bye bye Blue
You good dog you
~~Roger McGuinn “Old Blue”
Ghosts!
It’s almost Halloween and what else do we concern ourselves with besides ghosts? You might say witches. Fair enough. Point taken. But after Owego’s First Annual Witch Walk, I, for one, saw way too many witches strolling along Lake and Front Street. Don’t get me wrong, it was an awesome event, some costumes were quite original, reflecting time and effort. But the pointy witches hat trope is a bit too much of a trope for me…all in one place at one time.
But that’s another story for another blog post.
I was strolling along the River Walk one late afternoon recently, lost in thought about the nature of ghosts. I’m well aware of how many ghost stories are connected to my hometown. There’s the spirit of a guy looking out of a window on North Avenue. And the eerie sounds of boots thumping on the wooden bed of the old and long gone Court Street Bridge. The spirits of the tainted ladies of the Park View Hotel and the ethereal song that has been reported emanating from the trees beyond Sa Sa Na Loft’s grave. Oh yes, I’ve heard them all and so many more.
When I was a boy my father gave me a copy of Things That Go Bump in The Night by Louis C. Jones. After reading a particular story of a ghostly hitchhiker on Devil’s Elbow, I was convinced that the story was embedded in Owego’s ghost lore. It’s referenced on page 172, check it out. Then I grew up and found more books and came to learn that the hitchhiker is probably one of the most widely known urban legends in the world.
Back to the River Walk. I stopped to sit on a large stone block and thought about ghosts and why they linger here in this plane. The experts tell us that their energy is still around because of some kind of unfinished business. That seems reasonable, in a way. But then I began to speculate. Nearly all ghost stories involve humans. One has to delve into some of the more marginal concepts of ghost lore to come across references to non-human specters.
That brings me to Animism. This philosophy holds that all living things, animals and plants, possess a soul. An apple tree with a soul? Well, yes. It’s not so outlandish as you might think at first. Some researchers claim that there is solid evidence that plants can communicate. I won’t go into any details about this except to say that some years ago I read that botanists injected a tree with a disease…and other trees in the vicinity began to produce defenses against the disease.
I’ll leave you, dear reader, to delve further into the subject if you find it interesting.
[Ghost pets? Source: Safari search.]
When I was a boy growing up in Owego, we had a dog. He was a cocker spaniel mix and he had a clipped tail; a little thick thumb-length tail that would wag like a inverted pendulum on pills.
His name was King.
There are so many stories I could tell you about King, like the time he got into the garbage can and proceeded to get his snout stuck in a can of Campbells Chicken Noodle soup. Four boys chased him around the yard and tried to remove the offending can. We never managed to catch up and corner him by the hedge. King ran off towards the river. An hour later he was sitting on the back porch as if nothing happened. Or the time two of my brothers and I gave him a bath in the upstairs bathroom. After we toweled him off, he broke lose and tore through the house and, after pushing the screened back door, he made for the river where he rolled in the mud for twenty minutes.
I guess that what dogs did back in the 1950s. There were no doggie spas in my hometown.
Once, King followed me to school one day. You know, like a sheep. Right there on Front Street I yelled: “King! Go home!” He eventually peeled away and after crossing the street, he went back to our house. He didn’t have his tail tucked between his legs, it was too short.
But we all loved King, didn’t we?
[My brother, Chris, me and King after a foot of snow fell on Owego. Image is mine.]
Then things got dark.
Like all good pets (and everyone else) King crossed the Rainbow Bridge. It happened during a week I was out with the flu or some other ailment. I was in 8th grade. He was put down by our neighbor, Dr. Phelps, a vet with a practice on Fifth Avenue in the space where the Arbys is located. I never found out where Dr. Phelps buried him.
I grew up and my memories of King began to fade, like all such thoughts.
Which brings me back to Animism. If all living beings have a soul (for lack of a better word), then the idea is that the soul may (or may not) remain on this earthly plane. A lot of questions arise when you go down this road. Too many questions.
Do humans choose to remain? Is there a choice at all? If so, then we have to consider the idea of free will and whether or not animals have such a choice.
Personally, I have a problem with that idea. I intend to write a post addressing my issues with the concept of ghosts in general, so I won’t go any further at this time.
Did King possess a soul, an energy that survives death? I never really thought about it. But lately I’ve been reading a great deal of literature about ghosts and the afterlife, and I began to wonder.
Sometime in the last few years I read about grieving humans making attempts to contact their departed pet through a medium. I can’t verify such a claim but I do know that some pet owners have very strong beliefs in the ability of furry companions.
But, if one accepts this line of thought, then, by extension, we have to consider the possibility of ghost gerbils or spectral goldfish.
There really isn’t much more I can add to this very large and problematic topic. I haven’t owned a pet in decades and I have no intention of doing so. There is enough sadness in the world already.
I’m not sure I could say good-bye to another King.
[Source: Safari search.]
