Many years ago I befriended a couple that I worked with at a copy center. They were fabulous and frumpy and typical for the type i bond with. She was heavy set, vocal, and an avid reader. He was short, thin, and resembled John Lennon crossed with Richard Gere. Elizabeth and Rob.
I've searched for them, but have had no luck in their location.
We went together one night to see Shakepeare in the Park..I don't remember which play....Twelfth nIght maybe, but i don't remember a bit of it...I think it was so darned muggy and difficult to hear.
We then went to Rob's house....For the people i grew up with they'd know which house it is..It is on Park Street almost at the intersection of McDuff Ave....It is a large brick home, looks to be 3 storied with dormer windows across the top floor.
His mother greeted us warmly and mingled with our trio discussing the evening and making me feel at ease in their home. The house was not ornate, but contained a few relics or odd bits of interest to me. One such trinket was a human skull, behind a paned glass cabinet door. I believe I asked about it, but can't remember who or why or whatever. Something seemingly uneventful happened, maybe a thump or chill, truly nothing worthy of much analysis, and Rob's mom joked that it might have been their ghosts....
Ghosts!? oh my!!!! one of the only bits of otherworldly phenomena that captures my fascination.....I had only recently become more interested in hearing others' accounts of these experiences and would occassionally catch something on our then still very conservative television programming or the radio....I told them of having listened to Rock 105 a few Halloweens back when they, Lex and and woman, maybe Rose, maybe Rose and Terry, were in an "undisclosed location in Riverside" and were having all sorts of odd experiences....The 2 I recall were the air becoming suddenly chilled and the disembodied voice of a young girl.
My hosts began giggling and disclosed that THEY were the "undisclosed" location being broadcast that Pagan Holiday. I felt warm and tingly at this odd coincidence.....and they went further to tell of other experiences and research that had been done on their home.
Rob's mother had married Alan, the homeowner. Both he and Rob's mother were architects, Alan of buildings, she of landscape. The 3rd floor of their home was where their offices were housed. It was an attic, but a very structured attic, very floor-like....beautiful stairs leveling to a landing of wood floors with enclosed offices on either side. When Rob was meeting his soon to be step-father for the first time, he stood in the doorway of Alan's office looking around and shooting the breeze. He told me that as he stood conversing, he turned to look around at the office across the floor and caught the sight of a young girl in clothing from a different decade. He said that as she retreated back into the room he asked Alan if she was his granddaughter. Alan smiled and informed Rob that he did not have any grandchildren and that it was the ghost of a girl residing in the home.
My thrilled chill was growing greater and I longed to hear more.
The mother told me they'd used a Ouija board once and received word that there was the spirit of a maid in the home who'd met her demise tumbling down the staircase...I believe Rob's mother told me that she had experienced the feeling of the maid falling through her once as she sat on the stairs.
Rob also told me of phantom smells at 4 in the morning. Bacon and eggs cooking in the kitchen with nobody awake in the home....My favorite of his recollections is when his house key had gone missing. Now I too suffer greatly from this condition, entire collections of janitor/landlord loads of keys on a ring completely vanished, but I am the ghost responsible for that absent mindedness.
He had searched everywhere, for days and days and accepted that his housekey was gone and that he'd have to own up to his irresponsibility. He sat lounging one afternoon in a skinny almost porch-like tv room. Nothing on the walls above him, no shelves or ledges or anything that would allow for the placement or forgetful dropping of a key. Rob sat with his arms outstretched, palms facing up, across the back of the couch. The key dropped into his right hand....He said he felt it plop down, and I like to imagine that he just kind of sat there, not immediately looking because he knew what had happened was not anything within the confines of our text-book schooling on reality.
He said that it seemed as if the ghosts enjoyed playing very innocent tricks on them at times.
They had contacted paranormal investigators who came to the home and gave a beautiful overveiw of what was going on.
The structure and been a boarding house during th 40's. Many engergies coming and going and the house to them had been warm and full of comfort. The spirits chose to remain there for that reason. The ghost of the girl was that of the homeowner's granddaughter. Her room had been what was now Rob's mother's office. Years later, as i would recount this story to people interested in listening, i surmised that the smells of breakfast were risidual engeries from preparing food early enough in the morning for your paying guests. Nothing horrific, nothing evil, just people who found comfort wishing to remain enveloped in that sensation even in their afterlife.
I believe i will be found in England, probably at my grandmother's home, not inside, maybe on the skinny dark wood porch that had lots and lots of windows, and in her back garden, running my ethereal fingers over the sweetly scented roses my grandfather was skilled in growing.