This Is Not The Scary Halloween Blog You Were Expecting

Oct12

You read the title correctly. I’m very sorry but I just don’t have the energy, creative or otherwise, to put together a high-quality very scary blog that you have come to expect of me. I just put the spooky image at the head of this post to grab your attention. I know I posted something at the start of October that promised a series of totally mind-blowing blogs celebrating my favorite time of year. But, as I’m sure many of you know, I took sick shortly after attending my 50th High School reunion. I’m still not well and it’s been a month, three ER visits, a chest x-ray, a hefty dosage of antibiotics, a diagnosis (shown later to be a little inaccurate) of pneumonia, and all capped off by an allergic reaction to one of the drugs I was proscribed. My flesh looks like a scary Halloween story by itself. I have red spots on parts of my body that I forgot I had. I’ve been rubbed with aloe vera and other lotions that you would have to travel to a cheap Bangkok brothel to find.

So, instead of something scary, I thought it would be highly entertaining to tell you about our last-minute preparations for our winter “on the road” in our R-pod RV. Remember the late part of 2013 when Mariam and I drove across the country to visit my grandson, Elias, in Orting, WA? I even compiled those travel blogs and published them in book form. It’s called: “In the Middle of Somewhere”–and did I mention it’s available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle.

Anyway, here is a picture of part of the R-pod. I tried to get some colorful trees in the frame as well to show you that its peak foliage time up here in the North Country.

Like I was saying, I am picking out the books I intend to take along. We’re busy choosing CD’s, books-on-tape and DVD’s. I also pack all the writing material for future projects (like a few novels, etc). I even considered bringing along my banjo. I googled music lessons in Fort Myers and found that I can get private lessons for a reasonable rate. But, I’m having second thoughts about this. It will require practice time and I just can’t see myself sitting by the door of the RV and learning chords for the banjo. People (mostly elderly from what I hear) will think they’re in a scene from “Deliverance”. I don’t want to frighten old people.

I’m writing this late at night on October 11. The rain has stopped and it is very dark. It’s nearly midnight. I just looked out the front door and noticed a dull light shining at the end of the driveway. I thought of the moon, but it’s too low to the ground. Perhaps it’s a reflection of the light in the guest bedroom against the front window of my car. Maybe someone is out for a late night walk? Hold on while I check if it’s moved…

Nope. The dull light is still there. It’s not our new motion lamp because it would be much brighter. I wonder…

Well, on second thought, maybe some of you would feel shorted somehow if I didn’t come through with some weird Halloween photos. I must keep my contract with my readers. If I say I’m going to do something–I have to do it!

After all, what are the “things that go bump in the night” going to do to me? Come creeping down my driveway and walk through my dining room wall? I doubt it. This isn’t the History Channel. There are no aliens on my property. (Although, I have some doubts about our neighbor)–

So, here are a few nutty Halloween customs:

Pretty scary stuff, huh?

I’m going to check on that light again–don’t go away.

I hope I’m wrong, but I think it has moved just a little–only a little–toward the house. Let me look again…

OMG, it’s nearly passed the short row of cedar trees…just at the end of the walkway to the porch. Who could this be at this hour? It’s just a few seconds before midnight. I feel that I have to type fast to finish this…what’s that? I hear something on the front porch floor…sounds like footsteps.

I hear a voice. It’s almost a mumble and I hear saliva helping to slur the words…”You think messing with the dark is funny? Do you think we laugh when you pretend there’s nothing out there?”

The power is going out in the house. Mariam has locked the bedroom door. She’s having a nightmare. If she’s having a nightmare…then what’s on the porch…at my door?

I must finish this quickly….I….can’t……..

Do You Really Want To Go There?

Oct3

It’s early Autumn. The air is crisp. The broad leaves of the oaks and maples are sharp and bright in the sun. Against the darker conifers, the reds and yellows are more muted–less distinct and less joyful.

There is a lane. It seems to possess a faint voice calling for you to follow to wherever it leads. The fair-haired, blue-eyed woman beside you urges you to take a few steps into the forest. Her white hand suddenly is gripping your right forearm. Without words she is telling you to not take another step.

“We don’t know where this path leads,” she says with her eyes. You brush a red leaf from her soft hair. You look down the lane again. Something is urging you to explore–to follow the trail to its end. On your left, a woman with dark eyes and pale flesh takes your hand.

“Come,” she whispers in your ear. “We can’t keep them waiting.”

You look to your right. The fair one has a distressed look as she stares down the lane. Her hand trembles.

Turning your head, you see your car parked miles away. How can this be? You’ve only taken a few steps into the woods. A breeze picks up a few leaves and stirs them at your feet. The branches of the trees begin to weave and roll and shudder.

There is a tug at your right arm.

“Let’s go back,” the fair one says. “I don’t like this.”

“Let’s move on,” your pale lover says. “It’ll be good. I’ll see to that.”

You are unable to move. You stare into the distance and wonder where it will end and how far the walk will be. Will there be a pool of clear water? A bower of red and scarlet leaves? An old farmhouse? Does the backdoor–the screen door, bang in the wind? Is the spring rusty? Are the rooms empty?

Is there a house at all? If not, why the road? All roads lead to something in this forest.

You’re frozen with indecision. You want to go forward and you want to run back to the car.

What about your lovers? You look from left to right. There is no one there. Was anyone ever there? Are you awake? Is this a dream?

You look back at your car. It is not in sight–there is no car. Looking down, you see there is hardly a path. It’s all overgrown.

A woman’s voice calls to you. It’s a song–so very sad. You’ve heard this lament before. Nothing good can come of this, you’re thinking. Nothing good.

It’s never good when you’re alone–in the woods when the sun begins to set.

Elegy From The North Country

Oct1

The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day;

The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea;

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

-Thomas Gray

Well, if you’re travelin’ in the north country fair

Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline

Remember me to one who lives there

She once was a true love of mine.

Well, if you go when the snowflakes storm

When the rivers freeze and summer ends

Please see if she’s is wearing a coat so warm

To keep her from the howlin’ winds.

-Bob Dylan

Driving north from Saranac Lake to Malone, one notices that the country has a peculiar and distinctive appearance. Mostly covered by trees, there is a the occasional pond or lake–even a farmhouse or, as you progress northward, a cornfield may come into view.

Odd, is it not?

I’m driving to the county jail to tutor a few inmates in the correct methods to write an essay for a G.E.D. (now called, T.A.S.C.). I sit and listen to a thirty-three year old woman in prison orange (with matching orange CROCS), tell a tale of a life spent smuggling drugs, addictions, abuse and even witnessing a murder. Yes, I sit and listen. I hand her a golf pencil and a few sheets of paper. No staples, paper clips or pens that contain tiny springs are allowed. I keep myself from staring at the diamond stud in her nose. She wants her G.E.D. very badly. I seriously question what meager skills I can offer this poor misguided woman who, ten years younger than my daughter, has already lived a lifetime of grief and bad judgements. I feel helpless and not a little insignificant when I hear my voice explaining the meaning of a “Thesis Statement.”

But, I digress.

As I drive, the clouds are low and heavy. It has been raining steady all the previous night and day. The spectacular colors for which the North Country is so famous, are muted in the dull monotones of a late afternoon sun that is hidden beyond a layer of gray, slate and approaching darkness. Darkness comes early around these parts this time of year. Usually, in these weeks of approaching winter, the dusk begins around the end of the day. If the sun was shining, the shadows would be long. But, it’s a world without shadows–because the day is one of clouds. I am losing the npr station so I slip a CD of bluegrass into the player. The group is called the Welfare Liners. They sing a sad song.

I become aware of the date. It is September 30, 2015. In a few hours it will be October 1! That should come as no surprise since there are only thirty days in September (April, June and November). All my senses are now on alert. I have yet to plan my 2nd Annual Countdown To Halloween blog series. I will be weary and depressed when I get back home after the tutoring. How will I ever have the energy to write an interesting post that will live up to the standards that my readers have come to expect?

I worry about these things. But, something strange has happened in my subconscious. My lateral thinking skills kick in. Thoughts begin to fill my brain.

One terrifying thought concerns the date, October 1, 2015. Another, relates to recent events that have happened. I have stumbled on somethings so strange that I am fearful of revealing my discoveries. But, I shall:

Consider that a vast number of those attending the 50th high school reunion of O.F.A. have been stricken by a mysterious aliment, myself included. What did these people have in common? I have discovered the following: All were present for the dinner dance at the Treadway. Even the name, tread and way denotes caution. And, all listened to me make a short speech. Did the sound of my voice somehow carry with it a strange and mutant virus. Many of my friends have felt this has been the case for many years. Perhaps…just perhaps????
Many of those attending had undergone a process known as aging, something we all swore would not happen. So, why did it?
All of us have recently been exposed to a rare Blood Moon Eclipse. The next such astronomical event is not scheduled to occur until 2033. Is there anything strange about that year? May I be the first to offer the theory that in all likelihood, many of us may be deceased by that date! Statistically speaking, that is. Does this suggest a curse of some sort placed on those attendees? I’ll let you decide. This may sound shocking and unusual, but the facts are the facts.
And, now the date: October 1, 2015. If written out numerically in numbers, it would read 10/01/15. That makes 6 digits! Now, if you add the numbers together the sum of the total is 26, again, a 6! That makes two 6‘s. Using the same logic, if you take the total of 26 and divide it by 4, the number of Beatles (before Paul was killed in the car accident), then you are left with 6.5! Eliminating the decimal point, it is the very year of our graduation!
It gets stranger.
What about the 19 in 1965, you may ask. Well, simply add those two digits and the result is 10! If you then add my present age, 68, the number is 78! Now, subtract the reoccurring number 6 from this number and you get 72! The present age of Mick Jaggar. Sound familiar? Simply reverse that number and you arrive at 27, the age when Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain died! Further, if you add the 2 and the 7 the result is clear, 9. If you then subtract the estimated number of Rolling Stones who have OD’d (3), the inescapable number is 6!
And, know you have it! The dreaded number: 666, the Number of Satan!

My fingers tremble as I type these words. This is due to pure fear combined with the fact that the outside temperature is 37.8 F. That isn’t far from the temperature from this dining room where I am writing this. Hey, I’m always cold.

This, then is the first of an irregular blog post relating to Halloween. The posts that will follow will be something like I did last year, a collection of scary and frightful things. WARNING: The images I post may be too intense for those with gentle hearts and delicate natures. Guys like Chuck Carter, for example. But, be fore-warned. You may be exposed to pictures of ghosts (I will state here that these images are in no way intended to disrespect those individuals who are “life-challenged”. Some of my best friends are like this.) There may be depictions of female vampires or zombies with cleavage. I have viewed hundreds such images and I have selected only the most appropriate for general viewing. I apologize ahead of time for this. There may be graphic images of kittens dressed in goofy Halloween customs. There will surely be photos, graphic photos, of disfigured and hideous pumpkins.

But don’t expect too much too soon. I’m going to toss in a non-Halloween post on my ancestral castle in Ireland. (Sorry, but I wrote it as a back-up to having failed at my speech at the reunion.)

I welcome public comment on the posts. If you have something strange and frightening to share, please don’t hesitate, as long as it does not involve sleeping puppies.

And, speaking of curses–it is well-known that if a person reads a blog and fails to “like” said blog, well, I cannot be held responsible for the aftermath. The most dreadful action, they say, is to take no action. So, find the little button on my blog and click “FOLLOW”. That way, my posts will come to you as email, along with all the other important emails you get every day. (FYI–there a sale at Macy’s coming up!).

Sleep well, my friends. Keep you collars turned up against the chilly winds of Autumn and keep your loved ones near you at all times.

You never know…

The Haunted Well Of Avebury

May31

I heard about the haunted pub and the cursed well of Avebury while touring a church in Gloucestershire.

I was purchasing a CD of Traditional Country Songs (sung by a small chorus) at the gift shop of St. John the Baptist in Cirencester. I recognized many of the titles from my collection of Irish songs and I was curious as to how it would sound by a choral group. I paid my £12.00. I noticed from a lapel tag that the man behind the gift table was a chap named Jonathan.

“Don’t you think this is a beautiful space?” he asked.

“Well,” I said, “its beautiful enough and large enough to be an Abbey.”

“Have you seen the Green Man? We have a Green Man here…if you know where to look.”

Being a fan of Green Man legends and mythologies and I was surprised that I had missed the carving of a face with branches growing out of eye sockets, the nose and the eyes. Unless this figure was quite hidden or very tiny, I had overlooked a most fascinating detail.

Jonathan locked his cash box and literally leapt from his chair.

“Follow me,” he said. “I think you’ll find this interesting. I worked here a year before anyone mentioned the Green Man and pointed him out to me. Here. Just stand here and look up…straight up.”

I leaned back and picked out the figure on the ceiling in less than a minute. I told him that I found symbols of all kinds of great interest. I look for them on tombstones, along the walls of old churches and in the amazing scenes depicted in stained glass windows.

“Thank you so much,” I said. “I’d love to talk but my wife and I are one our way to visit the stone circles of Avebury so I’ll have to say thanks and good-bye to you, Jonathan. I appreciate you’re taking a few minutes to point the Green Man out to a couple of Yanks.”

“Avebury? You’re going to Avebury? That’s one of my favorite places. So much better than Stonehenge,” said Jonathan, “and you can walk among the stones. Can’t do that at Stonehenge…unless, of course you’re a Druid.”

“Well, they probably would make it difficult to allow me, as a foreign person, to be a Druid,” I said. “Again, I’d love to chat but we need to get on the road. Thanks so much…again.”

I walked toward the large dark wood doors. I was preparing to put on my sunglasses in the bright light when I heard Jonathan say something.

“There’s a haunted well in Avebury, did you know that?”

I stopped in mid step and spun around.

“A haunted well?” I said.

“Yes, and it’s inside a pub. Want to hear the story?”

There is no way that I could say “no” to this fellow. The promise of such a story had great potential.

“Yes, I would like to hear it, Jonathan. I most certainly would like to hear it.”

“Well, it has nothing to do with the stones of the neolithic circles,” he said. “this is how the story goes, at least as I’ve heard it.”

“During the Middle Ages, actually about the year 1500, the village of Avebury was ruled by a Lord of the Manor. Typical in those days. Apparently he had his rheumy old eyes on one of his prettiest milkmaids who worked at one of his farms. She was barely out of puberty. Some have written that she was about fourteen years old. Well, you don’t need a vivid or particularly dirty imagination to figure out what this Manor Lord did with this poor girl. She became pregnant. In those days, women who found themselves in such a situation were almost always blamed for their condition, and her “behavior” was frowned upon by the townspeople.

“The Lord of the Manor? He was untouchable, wasn’t he? No court of law would rule against him…he likely was the law. So, justice was carried out by the mob. They came one night to the girl’s farm and dragged her to the market square. In that square was a deep well. Her fate was sealed. They led her screaming to the edge of the hole and threw the poor soul in. The well has been measured at 87 feet to the water. Can you imagine the terror and the screams from the child as she fell those 87 feet, clutching vainly at the sharp rocks, trying to stop her fall with her bare feet and bleeding knees? After she hit the water, a silence descended on the crowd. The screams stopped. The silence from the bottom of the well was absolute. The torches couldn’t penetrate that deep so the men who looked down could only see inky blackness. And hear the total quiet. It chills my skin to tell you this. But, the well is still there. It’s now been covered by plastic and it is part of a table in the dining area of the pub…how’s that for a story?”

I was transfixed.

“Oh my God, how sad,” was all I could say.

Several hours later we were in the Car Park of Avebury. We walked around the stones. I watched a Druid-like ceremony at one of the standing stones. I kept looking across the field at the pub. It was white, and I think it had a thatched roof.

I simply had to look down the well.

“Let’s have a quick drink and a light sandwich here,” I said to Mariam. She had heard the story as I did and she was as anxious to see the well as I was.

It was crowded with tourists. I went from sitting room to dining room and looked for the well. Finally, I found it in the third dining area I entered. There was a woman sitting at the table sipping a white wine. I apologized and asked if she’d mind if I took a few photos. She said it was no problem.

I told her it was the price she paid to sit at a table built over a haunted well.

I approached the plexiglass cover. I leaned over and looked down. There were lights along the round wall that made small green-leaved and moss seemed to glow. I looked deeper and say the surface of water, 87 feet down. The light in the room lit the bottom of the well and I could see my own reflection in the still water.

I stared, waiting for a small pretty face to look up at me, but none appeared. But, I must admit that I felt a particular unease as I looked down. It was though I was expecting something or someone to speak to me. I could almost hear the girl’s voice. I could almost hear her screams.

But, what I seemed to sense, overwhelmingly, was sadness. Someone was crying inside my head. Someone, through no fault of her own, was violated and murdered. I almost began to cry but my wife pulled me away.

I assume her spirit wanders the village square, the dining room or the stone circles…looking for someone to protect her. I wondered. If I stayed overnight at the pub or a nearby B & B, and I happened to come face to face with a girl dead over six hundred years…what would I say? How could I find a way to break the chain that keeps her spirit linked to the well?

I know I couldn’t. If there is a just God, than He or She must have pity on her lost soul.

I walked back to the car park with a leaden heart.

I also wondered which local churchyard held the grave of our Lord of the Manor who damaged this young girl’s soul for over half a millennia. Is his soul resting in eternal peace? Or does he too wander the lanes and fields trying to find forgiveness?

He does, if there is true justice.

[The haunted pub is the small white building in the right portion of the photo just above the largest upright stone on the right]

All Souls’ Day

Nov1

The day after Halloween is All Saints’ Day (in the Catholic Church calendar). The next day is All Souls’ Day.

The soul. Many agree it is the mystical core of our being…our existence. This is the blank slate that gets stained and marked and written upon through our deeds in life. When our corporeal bodies are laid to rest…the soul ‘lives’ on. In some religions, it is what gets passed along in the reincarnation cycle. In Christian theologies, the soul is what gets looked at during the Last Judgement.

When I was in Catholic school, I was told that on All Souls’ Day, I could go into the church and, after saying a certain number of prayers, a soul would be released from Purgatory. I could do this all day…freeing souls to continue onto Heaven. The only catch was I had to get up and leave the church…then come back in to start over. A hassle for me in foul weather, but a good thing for the souls stuck in the line to Bliss.

Then, quite to my surprise, the Church demoted Purgatory. It wasn’t an item of belief anymore. (I still think I’m destined for the place…so I fall back on the indulgences of the past, also on the “out” list of the official Church teachings.) So, I let cars make turns in front of me to keep the flow of traffic going and to keep knocking off those million years I’m sure to spend paying for the sins of my youth.

But, the soul is also supposed to be the entity behind ghosts and hauntings. These souls are “caught” between this world and the next…according to theory, anyway. I tend to go along with this concept. Especially when I think of murder victims…who never saw it coming. That is why I think battlefields are probably quite haunted, indeed. A poor 17 year-old gets hit by a mini-ball in the temple and…one minute he’s thinking of his girlfriend…and the next he’s looking down on the carnage below.

The soul. I read that there was an experiment by a Doctor who put a terminally ill patient on a very accurate scale…and waited until this individual took his or her final breath of earth’s air. He found, much to his astonishment that the soul had mass (weight). For those of you interested in these things, the soul’s mass is 21 grams. (There was a movie made in the last few years with this title). For you non-metric types, think of 21 average sized paper clips. Heft those clips in your hand. That is the mass of whatever it is that has been called the “soul”.

All the collective human experiences of sins, good deeds, pain, tears, fear, loss, joy, love, knowledge, hate, and pity are in that tiny mass that feels like the paper clips in your palm.

I’m not a religious person and I am a skeptic when it comes to ghosts and apparitions. (But I love a good scary tale).

But, since science will never be able to explain certain things…then the power of belief must fill in the blanks.

The soul. I feel that something is within us. Something that knows the difference between evil and good, love and hate and the satisfaction of forgiveness.

I think the soul and the heart are the same. Not the heart of muscle and valves…but the heart that can be filled with joy and amazement…and the heart that can be broken by a single word.

The photograph below is one I found on several Internet sites. It is purported to be the “soul” of a deceased person taken at the moment of death. I cannot speak to its authenticity. I just thought you’d find it interesting if you’ve never seen it before.

Waiting For All Hallow’s Eve XV: “The Ghost Who Called My Name-A True Story”

Oct22

What I am about to tell you actually happened to me.

But, do I have the absolute right to say that a “ghost” called my name? No, I cannot. Declaring it an actual spirit from beyond the grave, requires scientific proof…and I cannot offer you any. But, I have no other word to describe the voice of the woman that night, the woman who called my name.

So many years ago…

I believe this happened on New Years Eve, as 1991 rolled over and became, in the moment past midnight, 1992. My wife and I decided to escape the noise of Manhattan and instead, spend a quiet holiday in a lovely little town in the center of New York State. It was to Cooperstown that we drove that cold day. We had booked a room for two nights in a quaint B&B on Chestnut Street. I will not reveal the name of the establishment. No, I cannot do that for two very good reasons: some inn-keepers would prefer not to have that kind of ‘stigma’ attached to their establishment. After all, there are travelers who would balk at the idea of spending a night in a house…with an unknown entity. The other reason is even more concrete. I simply do not remember the name of the place. So, let’s leave it at that. If you want to find this place, just drive along Chestnut Street and look for an old white Victorian-style home. It may be the very place where ‘she’ stood outside my door in the dark hours past midnight.

After checking in and putting our suitcase in the room at the top of the stairs, we chatted with the inn keeper for a few minutes. She was middle-aged and carried herself with grace and intelligence. Her husband was away for a few days. So was her daughter. It was just the three of us in the old white house.

We made the short walk to the main street and had dinner in a small restaurant.

The wind blew cold from the far reaches of Otsego Lake. (The outlet of the beautiful body of water, often called Glimmerglass, was a small creek that was to widen and become the great Susquehanna, the very river that flowed past my childhood home in Owego, NY.) At the mouth of the lake, you could toss a pebble across the water with the slightest effort.

We bar-hopped for several hours and watched the patrons prepare to welcome the New Year by donning those little cone-shaped hats. We decided that we would prefer to spend the midnight hour back in our room watching “It’s a Wonderful Life”, again.

Around 1:30 am, I tired of reading (my wife had already fallen asleep) and turned off the light. The window was open a crack to let the fresh and chill air in to the room.

I pulled the covers to my chin, closed my eyes and in a few minutes I was lost in a dream.

I sat up suddenly an hour or so later. Someone had knocked on our door which was an arms length away from my pillow. A woman called out: “Patrick. Patrick.”

“Yes?” I replied and I slid off the bed and approached the door. “Yes?”

“Patrick,” was all I heard. She had called me three times.

I began to worry. If the inn keeper was calling me at this hour, then clearly something was wrong. Perhaps a small fire had been detected and she wanted us to get out of the house.

I stood at the door.

“What is it?” I asked. “Yes, what is it?”

Silence.

I unlatched the door and opened it a crack…

There was no one there.

I opened the door wider and stuck my head into the hallway.

“Hello?” I called out.

Silence. There was no one in the hall. No one was near the stairs.

My wife was sitting up in bed.

“What did she want?” she asked.

“There’s nobody there,” I replied. “But you did hear her?”

“I heard a woman call your name several times.”

So, it wasn’t a dream. I was awake.

I fell back asleep. I would talk with the inn keeper in the morning.

~~~

At the breakfast table, someone else served us.

As we went through the parlor to get our coats for our walk to the main street, I noticed the inn keeper sitting at her desk.

“What did you want me for last night?” I asked.

“Pardon?” she said. “What do you mean?”

“You came to my door and called me…it must have been sometime after 1:30.”

“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t call you. I was fast asleep at that time.”

“Well,” I joked, “must have been the ghost.”

Her mood quickly changed. She looked away for a moment. Then she looked me in the eye.

“Well maybe and maybe I should tell you the story.”

“Story?”

“Yes, you see, shortly after we bought the house my daughter and I were raking the leaves and cleaning the lawn. My daughter asked me who the “lady with the grey hair tied in a bun” was.

“My daughter said she had just seen an elderly woman in a dark dress standing at the second floor window watching us. I told her that there was no one in the house except her father, and the two of us. We wouldn’t open the B&B until a month or two later. But my daughter insists she saw this woman. She described her just as I’ve told you…grey hair tied in a bun…the old-fashioned way. Later, my little girl and I went to the library to check out a few books. I took the opportunity to introduce myself as the new owner of the white house on Chestnut Street. I asked about who the previous owners were. She said she knew the house well. And then she said that one of the owners, many years ago, was a widow…elderly woman who always wore a black dress. I asked her if she could tell me anything else about her. She thought for a moment and said that she never met the woman because she died before she had become the librarian. But from things she picked up over the years, she could say one thing…she always, always wore her grey hair in a bun.”

I stared at the inn keeper.

“Guess, that was who called me last night, right?”

She smiled and said: “Certainly seems like it.”

Me? I can say only one thing for sure. I did not dream of the knock on the door and the voice calling my name.

So, I can tell you what it was not…it was not a dream. But I cannot tell you what it was or who it was.

Or, why a voice in a dark hall called my name.

Waiting For All Hallow’s Eve XIV: “Great Ghost Photography, Again”

Oct19

The camera captures an image. It’s nearly always a moment of joy, celebration and living. But every so often something creeps into the frame…something the photographer didn’t see through the view finder. And, the wonderful people in image almost never see what is happening behind them…in the bushes, windows, doorways, behind the tombstones or standing beside them.

In the older days of photography, the image was on film. The cameras were simple. Darkroom tricks could be used to ‘doctor’ the photo. The cameras often had the ability to create ‘double exposures’, an easy thing to do.

But, today, with digital photography almost universal, such creative effects can be photoshopped into the picture. Usually an expert can pick up a doctored photo quite easily. Even double exposures can be detected.

Still, some things show up on film that cannot be explained. The experts are baffled.

Personally, I am a skeptic…but I find these ‘spirit photographs’ fascinating in so many ways.

In the end, who knows with absolute certainty what is real and what is not? Some things cannot passed the ‘scientific method’ and be explained.

So, if you dare…take out some old photos and look them over. I mean, really look at them with a suspicious eye. Get a magnifying glass. What is in the window? A curtain? What blur is that beyond the large tombstone in the country churchyard?

Do you have a suspicious photo? Post it. I would love to see it.

Meanwhile, as we wait the coming full moon and the days of zombies and goblins and ghouls…ponder these photographs:

What’s going on here?

The dog once belonged to a military officer…when the dog was alive. These students never saw the dog when the portrait was taken.

Who is in the car? The photographer claims it was an empty junked auto.

The husband stands behind his wife. She’s still alive.

Waiting For All Hallow’s Eve XII: “More Spirit Photography”

Oct14

As promised, I have more photographs of spirits. Are they real? Faked? Do you believe?

These are taken from various places on the internet.

A photo attributed to Tom Petty. It was taken at Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris. The monument in front of the man is the new stone marking the grave of Jim Morrison. Jim is seen in the background in a “concert” pose.

This was taken by a mother of her child in a toddler seat. Who is in the background?

Here is a young girl crying. Did her brother die? Is she mourning his passing? Is that him sitting on the stairs?

Remember, these were taken and published long before Photoshop was invented. The real question here is this: did the camera pick up something that the photographer did not see?

Sweet dreams….

Waiting For All Hallow’s Eve XI: “Ouija–Game or Gateway?”

Oct12

It sells for about $20.00 on Amazon. Barnes & Nobel carries a Glow-in-the-Dark version. It’s a ‘parlor game for a lot of people. But, for many more, it’s something that should never be allowed in a God-fearing home.

The origins of a “talking board” type of game goes back to China…almost 1000 years ago. But it was not marketed as a board game until 1900. A woman named Paula Curran began using it as a divining tool around WWI.

There was a town in the mid-west somewhere they had a bon-fire to burn Ouija boards and copies of Harry Potter books. And this was in 2001!

Do you own a Ouija board?

Read the following testimony from a site on the Internet:

“I can see you through the window”

I was about 12 or 13 spending the night at a friend’s house, goofing around with the Ouija board with him & his sister and we were getting all sorts of gibberish plus words spelled out, just kind of scaring ourselves for fun not taking it very seriously when we got the message “I can see you through the window” and then “I can see you through his eyes” or something like that…there was just a small window in the basement room where we were, and just the back yard and woods past the driveway visible through that window…we asked it more questions and it said “I’m under the car” so we somehow got up the nerve to go out with a flashlight and peer under the car, where we saw a huge black stray cat which was hissing.

So, do you own a Ouija board? Where is it? Is it on the game shelf in your den, next to Monopoly and Scrabble? Is it gathering dust under your bed? Or…is it put away, in the attic, where the kids can’t find it. Where you won’t be tempted to open it and light a candle…and place your finger on the little moveable piece and ask questions…

Above all, don’t go looking for it at 2:45 am. So that at 2:57 am you’re ready to play.

And don’t begin asking your questions at 3:00 am. For it is widely known that is the ‘witching hour’ when the shadows of darkness descend over the earth.

Have you ever used a Ouija board? Have you had fun innocent experiences with it, or did you have an unpleasant encounter with someone from the ‘other side’ that made you feel…less than funny?

Please share any experiences you may have had in the Comment section of this post.

I’d love to hear your stories.

patrickjegan

Respect your ancestors, for you are the result of a thousand loves….

Category Archives: Paranormal