I went to a pool party at a friends house yesterday, and it was the first time I had been to her home. A couple of us were standing around laughing and chatting and waiting for everyone to arrive when the woman who’s house it is, Robin, says, “Oh, I don’t know if you are sensistive to it, but this house is haunted.” Robin tells us that they have named the ghost carl, and that he appears to be wearing a trenchcoat and a fedora like Dick Tracy or a noir detective. Her son has seen him, and another friend of hers after using the bathroom came out and told her that it was just polite to warn guests that a ghost might be watching them pee. Robin said she laughed when her friend said this and gave the warning from then on. Her grandson can also see the ghost and will sometimes not want to go into the bathroom because Carl is in there. I peed a couple of times, but did not experience the ghostly peeping tom, possibly because we were drinking quite a bit.
This brought up the question of whether we believe in ghosts. I am a believer in ghosts in a couple of different ways. One I believe that sometimes what happened in a location was so horrifying that it leaves an imprint of the high emotion that happened there ie: hospitals, asylums, prisons and crime scenes. I also in intelligent haunting, where a ghost has retained some piece of it’s personality and nature that can be communicated to the living. I do not pretend to know how that works, but I have experienced “ghosts” that were able to communicate.
When I was a little girl we lived in this house in Heath, Ohio. It was a cute little ranch in a nice area, but I always had odd things happen to me. At night if the closet door was left open a “person” who looked like they were made of TV static would walk out of the closet and come to my bed. I would pull my cover over my head, and if I looked out the face would be right above my face just inches away. In this same house there were the white people in the basement who would call my name in the voice of my mom or grandma, and if they were not at home or hadn’t called me then I knew I should go play in the basement. When I would look down the stairs I would see three or four white faces peeking around the corner of the stairs at me.
Many, many years later my mom would tall me that the previous owner of the house died tragically in an industrial accident. After his death his widow went insane in her grief and painted all of the walls and cabinets in the house black. When my grandparents moved in they had to paint everything back to white, which apparently wasn’t easy. I feel like a lot of the crazy things I experienced there were the manifestation of the widow’s grief and rage.
I have been listening to a really fun paranormal podcast Ghosted with Roz Drezfalez where Roz, an LA based drag queen, brings on guests to tell their ghost stories and strange run-ins with the paranormal. Stand out episodes are Kyle Ayers, Selene Luna, David Oman, Rain Phoenix and Casandra Peterson (Elvira). Roz has his own fun and interesting tales and honestly the show is just delightful.
I have not seen or heard a ghost since becoming an adult, but I can sometimes feel them. I honestly wish I had retained some of the sensitivity I had as a child. Can you see, hear, sense, smell or taste (Yep it is a thing) ghosts? Do you believe? Do you have a good ghost story?
Betsy Snow White Bibliophile 