hauntedliving

I don’t remember much about my biological Dad.  Most of what I do remember is Daddy suffering from the brain cancer that took his life when I was just three years old.  Family members tell me he loved to pull jokes on people.  Laughter was an important part of life to Daddy; his own and others.  Some of his tricks and jokes took some planning like the joke he pulled with the help of my Grandfather.

One night, Daddy and Papa took a long pipe and went into the cemetery in Franklin, Georgia just before the midnight shift change at the local mill.  They laid the pipe down on the ground so it would run along the edge of a grave. This way one end would be behind a large headstone near the drive that cut through the cemetery.  Daddy and Papa hid with the other end of the pipe behind another large headstone.  It wasn’t long until they had their first victims. 

Two men were walking up the drive toward the mill. When they got close to the end of the pipe my Daddy moaned into the pipe.  The men stopped and looked at each other.  Next Daddy said in a dragging voice full of suffering “Oh, your walking on my bones”.  The men both screamed and ran like the devil was after them.  Daddy and Papa scared the wits out of five more people over the next twenty minutes until one brave soul almost walked on the pipe.  They decided to call it a night, hid the pipe in the woods, and took the back way out of the cemetery.

As they were walking along the road they met a man who asked if they were going into the cemetery. When they told him they were heading home he replied “Good, cause they is a haint in the graveyard and he got bones scattered from here to kingdom come.  He be in pain too”

There was talk for weeks about the talking ghost, until my Daddy’s next trick that is.

When I was twelve years old my cousins invited me to spend the night with them.  This was the first time I had ever been invited to stay overnight with them.  In the past I would go over and spend an hour or two with them but I always had to leave by supper time.

The cousins were both girls and close to my age.  Brenda was my age and Faye was two years older than me.  They lived about a half mile from our house so I rode my bike over to their house.  I got to their house about 3:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday.  I was so excited that I could not be still.  Brenda and Faye had already made plans for how we would occupy ourselves that night.  First we would have a séance, followed by a movie with popcorn and snacks, and then into bed where we would talk half the night away. 

I had no idea what a séance was at that young age.  When they explained to me that we would light a candle, hold hands in the near dark, and call on dead people to come join us I was none too happy.  Right before the séance a storm blew up.  While we sat in the dim room holding hands we could hear the thunder and lighting crashing down around the house.  The weather was the perfect setting for a séance.  Just as the cousins began to call upon a long dead relative to come back from the grave the front door burst open.  Cold rain and dead leaves flew into the room where three stunned girls sat in open mouth horror.  When a large dark shape entered the doorway we screamed as one. The shape stopped just inside the door and stomped its feet like a bull about to charge. When the shape asked us what was wrong we realized the monster was just Brenda and Faye’s Dad under a black raincoat.  We did not get much sleep that night for every noise and shadow was someone coming back from the dead.

Most of the time I use insect repellant like Off or Deepwoods when I am working outside.  I don’t put sunscreen on any part of my body except for my face.  Lately though I have noticed the skin on my arms and legs getting dry and sun damaged.  I decided right then and there that I needed to start using Sunscreen when working in the yard. 

A few days later I checked my list of projects that need to be done this spring.  One of the tasks was cleaning behind the barn.  Pine straw had built up next to the barn as well as an old hose pipe, fence posts, wire, and other odd junk.  I needed to rake the area and get rid of the junk.

I covered my legs, arms, face, and neck with Sunscreen.  I then grabbed a box of trash bags, my gloves, and the insect repellant.  Just as I was about to apply the insect repellant  it hit me that it might not be a good idea to use both. Would they interact with each other?  Could it cause a rash or even cause sunburn?  Can you use both at the same time? I debated for a while finally deciding not to risk using both at the same time.  Hoping that the Sunscreen would keep the bugs off, I took my supplies and went to the barn.

I had been working for about two minutes when I happened to look down at my legs.  At least fifty Deer Ticks were crawling up my legs while more were crawling onto my shoes.  I ran for the water hose but ticks have the ability to hang on even under water pressure.  I had to pick them off one at a time.  That is really hard to do when you are jumping around and yelling.  I even found those awful pests in my shoes.  Now I have to make a decision.  Do I wear Sunscreen and get covered in ticks and Redbugs or have skin like Leather but no bug bites or itching?   

The scream chilled me to my bones. I raced back around to the front of the house to find Danny flat on his back in the dirt.  “What happened” I asked.  Danny replied that something had hit him, knocking him off the front porch.  “It was a white ghost” Danny breathlessly said. Danny seemed to be fine so I helped him to his feet.  We had just walked back onto the dirt road when we heard a load banging sound coming from the house.  Fear gave flight to our feet as we ran the rest of the way to the road. 

We walked to three houses before we found one with lights on inside.  The owner let us use his phone to call Bird’s Dad, Mr. Ross.  Mr. Ross asked Danny where we were calling from and told Danny he would be on his way shortly.  About ten minutes later Mr. Ross pulled into the driveway.  We gratefully climbed inside the truck. 

While we were driving down the dirt road Danny told Mr. Ross that an evil ghost had knocked him off the porch of the old abandoned house.  Mr. Ross then asked why we had stopped at the house in the first place.  When we told him there had been a light in the old house he laughed. He then explained that an old mirror inside the house reflected headlights from the road making it appear that a light was on inside the house.  He told us he would slow down when we got close to the house so we could see the light.  When we got close to the house he slowed the truck to a crawl.  We could indeed see the light as well as a large, white goat happily munching grass in the front yard.  “Well there is your light and I believe that is your ghost Danny” Mr. Ross said.

On the way home that night Bird decided to take a short cut to my Uncle’s house.  This short cut was a dirt road that was more of a cow track than a road.  There was only one house on the road and it had been abandoned years earlier.  As we drove down the rutted dirt road we came to a small stream which Bird drove into.  Usually this little stream would only be about two inches deep but due to recent heavy rain the tiny stream was now about two feet deep with soft mud at the bottom. When Bird drove into the water the car bottomed out.  The car would not go forward or backward. 

After much discussion it was decided that Danny and I would walk back to the paved road and call Bird’s Dad who owned a truck. Bird was positive his Dad would be able to use his truck to pull the car out of the mud. 

Even though the paved road was only about a quarter mile from the car Danny and I were not happy about the walk.  Thankfully there was enough moonlight for us to see where the road was ahead of us. As we walked we noticed a light on the left side of the road. When we got closer we could see the light came from the abandoned house.  Danny got excited and thought someone had moved into the house. He ran to the front door and knocked expecting someone to answer the door.  The light instantly went out and silence followed.  I told Danny I would walk around the house to see if maybe there was a car parked out back.  Just as I turned to walk around the house Danny screamed.

I have not been updating my post like I wanted due to medical issues with our pets, my job, my husband’s medical issues and other reasons.  Now the medical issues are under control for Hubby and the pets are once again healthy.  I have established work hours, gotten more organized so I should be able to update my post around three times a week. I hope to update more than three but I will have to see how it goes.

I admit the money I make writing comes in handy but that is not my main reason for writing.  I love to write and I love to make people happy.  When I write there are no dirty dishes piled in the sink, no grass twelve inches high, and no bills begging to be paid.  There is only the world of imagination and memories. I write with a smile on my lips and I hope my blog brings a smile to yours also.

The other day when I checked to see if I had any comments to moderate I was surprised and pleased to see that I had 71 comments.  What I did not know was that all of them except for three were spam.  How in the world does one person find that many actors naked?  They have also put a lot of detail into writing very long pages of junk for some odd unexplained reason. It does not have any logic to it; just rambling gibberish.  I guess they do not know that all comments have to be approved prior to being posted on my blog or they could just be stupid. I am the only person to see the addresses of the porn sites and they do not impress me one bit.  This middle age Grandmother has no desire to see Hanna Montana without her clothing.  Nope, not even Pam Anderson nude is going to do it for me.  Now if you sent me one about Russell Crowe nude I may be tempted just a little bit.