[theoddz]

Well, I didn't think I'd be posting in a thread like this. I really haven't had much to post about these sorts of things, even though I grew up in and hail from what is probably recognized as one of the most haunted cities in the United States.....Savannah, Georgia.

Last night was Halloween. In the past years, it's become a bit of a tradition between my Pop, my stepmother and myself that we'd meet down at the casino for dinner and a night of gambling, as an alternative to staying at home and handing out candy to the trick or treaters. Well, as most of you (may or may not) know, my stepmother had a massive stroke in September and Pop has had to make the difficult choice of having to have her placed in a local care facility because he cannot take care of her himself at home. So, last night, Pop and I met at the casino for our evening meal. Just him and me. I want to say that, over the past years that I've lived in Las Vegas and been able to spend more time with my father and stepmother, I've come to know them both, as people, much better. I'm a lot like my Pop in many ways, introverted and pretty shy in my ways, keeping a lot of my thoughts and emotions to myself, so it's just been in these past few years that I've really come to get to know my father as a person. He's quite a guy!!

So, to get on with my story.....

Mother and Pop divorced when I was 12, going on 13. Pop moved out of our big house and eventually bought a small house in one of the old established neighborhoods in midtown Savannah. I researched his house a bit and found that it had been built in 1922. It was a simple frame house, only 1 story, with 2 bedrooms and one original bathroom. It had a tin roof, of all things, and you could hear the rain plinking against the tin on quiet rainy nights/days. Pop had another private bathroom added to his study, which was off of his bedroom, after living in the house for a year or so. My sister and I would visit him regularly, but mostly me, because my sister took the divorce much harder than I did.

After I was discharged from the Marine Corps, I lived with my father for 2 years in that house, while I worked at a local television station. I was living my "party years" and was having a great time working and spending many of my evenings at the local gay bars. My father hadn't retired yet and was still working for the US Dept. of Agriculture as a research scientist and he had his own social life and professional activities that he kept busy with. On Saturday nights, he'd play poker with the Chinese Club and would be gone until the wee hours of the morning. I'd hit the bars. Although I loved to party, the main reason I'd head to the bars every Saturday night, in particular, was mainly because I felt very uncomfortable in Pop's house at night, particularly when he wasn't there. During these years, Pop had a big, loveable black Labrador Retriever named Nani, but I called her by her nickname, "Booger". She was well trained, friendly, smart as all get out, and just loved to spend time with our family. She also felt and saw "things" in that house. I witnessed her, on many occasions, stalk things that weren't visible (to me), bark at "nothing" and sit and tremble in front of unseen things.

Last night, at dinner, the dinner conversation with Pop rolled around to memories of Booger and that house in Ardsley Park. After all these years, I told Pop about how uncomfortable I'd felt in that house when he wasn't around, and how I watched Booger's reactions to things that were unseen. I finally just came out and asked Dad if he had ever felt uncomfortable in that house, or if he'd ever seen or felt anything unusual. I expected him to say "no", so you can imagine how shocked I was when he stopped eating, put his fork down gently, then looked up and said, "Yes, I have. I was awakened out of a dead sleep one night to see a figure standing beside my bed." He went on to say that the figure then disappeared, right in front of him, as he started to get up. He thought he had had one of those vivid dreams, as they call them, but decided that he had probably seen something paranormal.

Even thinking about that house now kind of gives me the creeps. I know there was something in there, but I don't know what it was. I think Pop saw it and I'm sure Booger saw it many times. I just know that I felt it, because that's how I experience these things.....I feel them. One of my friends, who is a self-described Medium, says that the reason I have never seen anything is because I don't want to see them. She's right. I don't want to see anything, so I shut down and don't open myself to visual manifestations.

Maybe, one of these days, I'll happen to see something in the hospital where I work. I hear the stories all the time about others' experiences, such as call lights going off in empty rooms, disembodied voices and "shadow people". It's all so creepy. I keep telling myself that I cannot really be a "spiritual" believer about my faith without believing in the existence of other kinds of spirits. I haven't reconciled this thought yet.

Anyway, that's my Halloween ghost story.

~Theo~