Posted on November 2, 2010 at 8:09 AM
Strange but True...
I realize I seem to binge on these ghost stories, then you won't hear another from me for a year, but that's just how it goes. Besides, these are not really ghost stories, but I'm not sure what to call them, or make of them. I just know they're true. I've told a few these tales, but they haven't gotten around, since they are so wyrd. But, since they don't have anything to do with The Little People, so far as I know, I ought to document them in order.
First, I used to drive Route 30, The old Lincoln Highway, a lot. It's a favorite winding mountainous road. Once while I was in Gettysburg with my best friend, she had a nightmare. It was on Route 30, and I had wrecked. She was very scared. I always said you'd have to be a fool to drive the road during a snow storm. Of course, I became that fool. It was a freak snow storm in March and the hills became a sheet of ice. I had totally lost all control of my car and was tearing down the mountain with my life flashing before my eyes. It's awfully cliche, but anybody that has had this happen to them knows that's the only description for it. I had reached something of a peace. I wasn't really scared of my certain death off the side of the mountain, when in my mind's eye, as that's the only way to describe it, as I didn't actually see this, but knew as sure as anything that my car was stopped by a big hand in a cloud. It was like The Ace of Cups, if you want the Truth. At the very same moment, my car not only miraculously stopped, but I had to turn the key to start it back up. I think it was God, and have been a hard core fatalist since.
Next, fast forward a few years... New Orleans. I have heard voices in my head while in New Orleans, literally SCREAMING at me. They seemed to come with those little rogue storms they have down there. The thing of it was those voices were right. I did not recognize them, nor do I pretend to know who they were or where they came from. Although I have spent a lot of time in New Orleans, besides just feelings, unfortunately I have no great personal ghost stories from there. Just this, which is wyrd as it gets. I was staying at an old manor on Lake Pontchartrain. While asleep, something bit me so hard to wake me. I jumped up, certain to find a snake in the bed. It was so real that I was convinced, then, that a snake must be hiding in the box springs. Nothing. It wasn't an insect. Nothing was there. Still, I had a hard time sleeping there, after that.
Finally, I must conclude with some familiar spirits. I never saw my grandfather, like I did my Grandma, although it could have been him that put his hand on my shoulder; but my cousin, who, as a boy, had inherited his old room, used to not only see him but chat with him. This I believe, as he came along after Grand Pap's passing, and Grand Pap would have wanted to know him. We've had a lot of tragedies in the family, unmentionables, that I can't discuss, but I can allude to what happened. A family member that I was as close to as anybody was, passed away. I hadn't been back to that house since it happened... years... My other aunt came to live there, and I was visiting with her last summer. It was August, very hot, upper eighties that day. I was outside, on the back porch, close as anything where it had happened, and it was so cold back there as to give me goosebumps up and down. I didn't stick around back there for long, I assure you. This relative of mine had been known to stir up some trouble back in his time, and I wouldn't want to tempt him.
