Halloween Hauntings

Since it is almost Halloween I thought maybe i would write about keepers and my ghostly experiences, whether they were real apparitions or excited imaginations or something else, something as yet unexplained, we do not nor will we ever know.

My first such experience was when my grandfather passed away, my dad's dad. He was a young man, only about 52 if I remember correctly. I was only about 8-10 years old. My grandpa was not a well educated man but he was smart. He was crude and many of the daughters in law were not very appreciative of his humor. Anyway, at the funeral the sons were sitting at the ends of the aisles and one of my uncles kind of lost it and my dad took him out back to get himself together and another uncle asked me to move to where the uncle had been sitting, why I have no idea. As I sat there i could clearly see the open casket, imagine my surprise when just like in the movies the spirit raises up out of the body~!!! sitting up, there is my grandpa looking all around the church. He seemed to take pleasure in the daughters in law who scorned him yet now were sobbing like crazy. As he looked around I just sat there not scared at all, watching him check it all out. I think he looked at me, kindly, and then he laid back down in his body. That was my first experience of that sort.

The next time was in college, my roommate and I were in our room on a Sunday night I believe and it was warm for that time of night. We were living off campus in a one room apartment with a common bathroom for the other three rooms of guys up there, all college students. It was supposed to be a three man room but it was just the two of us and I had the bunk bed while my roommate has a single bed. That night I was laying on my lower bunk reading a book and to my right was what we called a butterfly chair, a canvas chair that went over a metal frame. Well i rolled over to change positions and I saw a man sitting there in that chair not five feet away from me! I called my room mate whom i could see on his bed facing the wall, he said what and I asked him to look over here. Slowly he rolled over and he stared in my general direction. "What do you see?" I asked. "There's a guy sitting in the yellow chair...he's got a plaid shirt on...blue jeans and boots" """What about his face?" I asked. "I can't see it...just a shadow where his head ought to be", he replied. "Why?, What do you see ?" he asked. " I see the same thing, " I said. We both freaked out and he was gone! My roommate came over as we both stared at the chair, afraid to get too close to it. That night I moved to the top bunk and my rommie slept in the bottom bunk and we both had blankets pulled up to our chings. Two 19 year old guys scared, really scared. We rented that aprtment from the guy who owned the clothing store a few doors away. When we paid our next months rent we asked if anything odd or "creepy" happened up there in any of the aprtments. He said her heard a student from back in the 50's, a Korean war vet had hung himself in one of the rooms, but he didn't know which room. Our unexpected guest? Who knows.

Last but not least was in our first apartment after I got out of the navy. Our son was still in a crib but we knew it would be soon for him to have a bed as he was getting old enough. Well, on christmas Eve we were waiting for keepers brothers to show up, maybe we would go to Midnight mass, we weren't sure yet. We were on the couch watching tv and we both looked over at the junction of the two bedrooms and the kitchen and there was a little figure. Our first reaction was how did he get out of his crib? Oh no! he's climbed out!! Our life will change once again, our first child is roaming about! We got up to put him back in bed and he disappeared! We hurried to his room, turned on a light and there he slept, soundly, he hadn't been up after all. But if he hadn't been awake who or what did we see? Being Christmas we decided it was a little guardian angel and never looked back.

So there is our rendevouzs with ghosts, spirits, etc, except for the Ouija board experiences which I may or may not ever talk about again. How about you, any good scarey, creepy stories you can share? I know Halloween is a very scarey time for some survivors and I hope i haven't dredged up memories for them or they simply decided not to read this blog. To all of our visitors, peace and blessings

john michael