SPEAKING OF WEIRD FINDS - LOOKING THROUGH EPHEMERA FILES, I FOUND MY 1982 "STORY ABOUT GHOSTS"
I'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS PAGE FOR YEARS - SO I ASKED DAVE BROWN TO HELP ME OUT
IT'S TRUE. I WRITE ABOUT GHOSTS A LOT. SOME PEOPLE PLAY WITH ELECTRIC TRAINS. I KNOW FRIENDS OF MINE, WHO STILL (BUT WON'T ADMIT IT) COLLECT HOCKEY AND BASEBALL CARDS. I DON'T MAKE FUN OF THEM, AND I CERTAINLY HAVEN'T TOLD THEM ABOUT MY OWN CLOSET, THAT IS FULL OF HOCKEY CARDS. MY WEAKNESS, IS THAT I ENJOY MY RESEARCH WORK, LOOKING AT THE HISTORY AND LEGACY OF GHOSTS. I HAVE HAD THE GOOD FORTUNE, OF MARRYING A GAL, WHO NOT ONLY BELIEVES IN GHOSTS, BUT HAS HAD NUMEROUS ENCOUNTERS SINCE CHILDHOOD. JUST AS I HAVE. SO I NEVER HAVE TO FEAR BEING RIDICULED BY FAMILY, AT LEAST. FOR ME, AT LEAST IN PRINT, MY RELATIONSHIP WITH THE PARANORMAL, OFFICIALLY BEGAN, IN PRINT, BACK IN THE EARLY SPRING OF 1982. I'VE HAD REASON TO RE-VISIT THAT OCCASION TODAY, FOR PURPOSES OF THIS BLOG. HOPE YOU WILL FIND SOME OF IT INTERESTING. IF YOU FIND ALL OF IT INTERESTING, THEN YOU'LL LIKE SOME OF THE WORK TO FOLLOW.
SO I ASKED MY DECEASED BOOK BUDDY, DAVE BROWN, IF HE COUJLD SPARE ME SOME EARTHLY TIME. I HAVE BEEN DOING THIS "TALKING TO DEAD PEOPLE" THING, SINCE HE PASSED AWAY BEFORE THE TURN OF THE PRESENT CENTURY. HE DOESN'T REACT QUICKLY, BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ANY URGENCY ON THE OTHER SIDE, TO GET TO WORK. IF THERE'S A BOOK I CAN'T FIND, OR A DOCUMENT THAT'S MISSING FROM A FILE DRAWER, I CASUALLY ASK MR. BROWN, IF HE MIGHT BE ABLE TO SHOW ME WHERE I DEPOSITED IT OTHERWISE. NO KIDDING. THE LONGEST DAVE HAS EVER TAKEN TO FIND WHAT I NEED, WAS ABOUT TWO WEEKS. I THINK THAT WAS BECAUSE I'D BEEN MISSING HIS SUBTLE SIGNS. AS I NOTED BEFORE, WHETHER OR NOT THE SPIRIT-KIND ARE HELPING ME OR NOT, I'M RESULTS ORIENTED. IF I HAPPEN TO FIND WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR, FRANKLY, I DON'T CARE HOW MY BOOK OR DOCUMENT CATCHES MY ATTENTION, AS LONG AS IT DOES EVENTUALLY ARRIVE ON THE SCENE. SOMETIMES THIS WILL EVEN INVOLVE THE COLLAPSE OF A PILE OF BOOKS, OR LANDSLIDE OF DOCUMENTS OFF MY DESK. OOPS, THERE IT IS! IF DAVE WASN'T RESPONSIBLE, I CAN ACCEPT THAT. IF HE WAS THE BOOK FINDER IN FACT, WELL THEN, "GOD BLESS THE OLD BIBLIOPHILE," WHO USED TO SPEND TIME AT OUR HOUSE. SO TO GET TO THE POINT, I ASKED IF DAVE COULD HELP ME FIND A NEWSPAPER FEATURE I WROTE, IRONICALLY, ON GHOSTS, WAY BACK IN APRIL 1982. I'VE WRITTEN ABOUT THIS FEATURE SEVERAL TIMES ALREADY THIS WINTER SEASON, WHILE DISCUSSING SOME OLD HAUNTS. I JUST HAVEN'T HAD THE ORIGINAL NEWSPAPER. SO I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE PRUDENT, TO FIND THE ISSUE, AND BORROW SOME OF THE RESEARCH MATERIAL THAT WENT INTO THE MULTI-PAGE FEATURE ARTICLE. SO HERE IS HOW THESE THINGS MANIFEST, AND HAVE BEEN MANIFESTING FOR YEARS AND YEARS. LIKE I WROTE EARLIER, I SWEAR BY RESULTS, AND I KEEP GETTING THEM. DAVE, THE CLERK GHOST? I DON'T THINK SO. I JUST THINK HE'S NOT FINISHED WITH OUR WORLD JUST YET.
ALL YESTERDAY, I BEGAN THINKING ABOUT DOING A BLOG, ABOUT A COLLECTION OF EARLY 1900'S MINUTES BOOKS, FROM AN ODDFELLOW'S LODGE, IN TORONTO. I MAY HAVE EVEN WRITTEN A SMALL PIECE ABOUT THEM THIS WEEK, REFERRING TO THE IMPORTANCE OF THESE RECORDS, BECAUSE OF OBSERVATIONS THAT ARE OFTEN INCLUDED WITHIN. IN THESE FOUR BOOKS, PURCHASED FROM A LOCAL AUCTION, THERE ARE HISTORIC REFERENCES TO ECONOMICS IN TORONTO 1915 TO 1930), INFLUENZA OUTBREAKS IN THE CITY, THE DEATH OF MEMBERS, AND TIDBITS OF SOCIAL HISTORY, REGARDING ODDFELLOW SOCIALS. THERE'S ALSO QUITE A LOT TO BE GARNERED ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE BUILDINGS THEY OCCUPIED DURIN THIS TIME. I KNEW THEY WERE STORED ON A SHELF BY MY LIVINGROOM CHAIR, AND I WAS GETTING THE URGE TO SEEK THEM OUT...BUT I HAVE MANY ITEMS AHEAD OF THE BOOKS, TO USE FOR STORY DEVELOPMENT. I WENT TO BED LAST NIGHT, THINKING ABOUT THOSE BOOKS, AND FIRST THING THIS MORNING, WHILE BRUSHING MY TEETH, I WAS ONCE AGAIN GETTING THE MESSAGE. "LOOK AT THE MINUTE BOOKS." SO AFTER FEEDING OUR LIVESTOCK, "THE CATS," I DECIDED TO HAVE A LOOK AT THE BECKONING BOOKS. SHORT VERSION. THERE WAS MY FULL PAGE FEATURE ON GHOSTS, FOLDED INSIDE THE FIRST BOOK ON THE PILE. I DON'T GET A SPOOKY FEELING WHEN SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPENS. I JUST THANK DAVE, AND FEEL PRETTY GOOD THAT I'VE BEEN REPATRIATED WITH WHATEVER I WAS LOOKING FOR. SO THE ELUSIVE GHOST STORY WAS IN MY HANDS. NOW THE JOB WAS FOR SON ROBERT, TO TAKE SOME PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE PAGE FOR POSTERITY, IN CASE I LOSE IT ONCE AGAIN. WHICH BY THE WAY, IS GENERALLY THE CASE WITH A FILING SYSTEM LIKE MINE. SUZANNE SAID TO ME, SMILING EAR TO EAR, "YOU WOULD BE LOST WITHOUT DAVE, WOULDN'T YOU?"
THE PAGE INCLUDES A REMARKABLY WELL EXECUTED PHOTOGRAPH, BY MY ARTIST-COLLEAGUE, AT THE TIME, HAROLD WRIGHT, AND WAS A STAGED PHOTO SHOOT, ON A LONG EXPOSURE, OF A YOUNG GIRL WALKING ACROSS A DINING ROOM, BEHIND A LARGE TABLE. HAROLD'S PICTURE GOT A LOT MORE ATTENTION THAN MY ARTICLE, AND I HAVE TO ADMIT, IT WAS A COMPELLING IMAGE; AND IN FACT, EVEN THOSE WHO RESEARCH AND DOCUMENT GHOSTS, SUGGESTED THAT IT COULD BE USED TO ILLUSTRATE MANY FIRST-HAND ENCOUNTERS, OF THOSE WHO HAVE COME FACE TO FACE WITH RESIDENT SPIRITS. FOR EVERY COMMENT I GOT ABOUT THE ARTICLE, WE GOT TEN ABOUT THE QUALITY AND DYNAMIC OF THE PHOTOGRAPH. MOST BELIEVED IT WAS THE REAL THING....AND I REALIZE IT WASN'T IDENTIFIED IN THE CUTLINE AS A STAGED PHOTO. OH WELL. BUT BOY WAS IT A GREAT COMPANION PIECE TO MY RESEARCH. THE SECOND PHOTO, WAS OF MY ATTIC WINDOW AT THE MCGIBBON HOUSE, ON THE THIRD FLOOR OF THE FORMER DOCTOR'S HOUSE, WHERE I USED TO WRITE NIGHTLY, FROM THE WINTER OF 1977 UNTIL 1979. IT LOOKED OVER THE PRESENT MEMORIAL PARK BANDSHELL, ON BRACEBRIDGE'S MANITOBA STREET, AND IT WAS WHEN I FIRST GOT TO KNOW THE RESIDENT GHOSTS THAT USED TO WANDER ITS AGED HALLS. THE BUILDING WAS TORN DOWN TO MAKE WAY FOR A NEW OFFICE FACILITY.
THERE'S A SHORT PIECE, THAT I INCLUDED AS PART OF THE FEATURE, THAT A FRIEND WHO WORKED IN A SHOP, DOWNSTAIRS IN THE MCGIBBON HOUSE, RELATED TO ME, WHEN SHE HEARD I WAS DOING THE GHOST ARTICLE. I CHANGED HER NAME TO "ELIZABETH," BECAUSE, AT THAT TIME, IF YOU CLAIMED TO HAVE SEEN A GHOST, YOU WERE A NUT-BALL PLAIN AND SIMPLE. NOT BEING CONCERNED MYSELF, I WENT AHEAD WITH THIS FEATURE, EVEN THOUGH THE PAPER'S MANAGER WORRIED, I WAS GOING TO COST THE HERALD-GAZETTE SOME ADVERTISERS. SO MY DEAL WITH HIM, BASICALLY FOR MY JOB, WAS THAT IF WE LOST OUR ADS, OR READERS, I WOULD WANDER OFF INTO THE SUNSET. IF THE NEWSTAND SALES WERE UP THAT WEEK, THEN I WANTED A RAISE. NEWSTAND SALES WERE EXCELLENT, AND AS IT USUALLY TURNED OUT, I DIDN'T GET THE RAISE. BUT WITHOUT QUESTION, AT THAT TIME, RUNNING A FULL PAGE SPREAD LIKE THIS, WAS RISKY BUSINESS. BUT THEY TOOK A CHANCE THEN, AND ON MANY OTHER PIECES I WROTE DURING THE NEXT EIGHT YEARS OF OUR SOMEWHAT TURBULENT RELATIONSHIP. I'M A BIG "FREEDOM OF THE PRESS" ADVOCATE, AND OUR STAFF WRITERS, WHO WERE EXCELLENT AT WHAT THEY DID, LOVED TO PUSH THE PROVERBIAL ENVELOPE. THERE WAS NO STATUS QUO STUFF WHEN WE RAN THE HERALD-GAZETTE, EXCEPT THE "OUR YESTERDAYS," COLUMN, WRITTEN BY LONG-TIME EDITOR, ROBERT BOYER. WHEN BOB WOULD LOOK OVER MY COPY, WAXED AND ROLLED ONTO THE "FLATS" (WHICH WERE SENT TO THE PRINTER), HE'D CHEW THE END OF HIS CIGAR LIKE IT WAS A WAD OF GUM, AND SNORT A LITTLE, BUT NEVER ONCE DID THE MAN DISCOURAGE ME FROM TRYING NEW THINGS....WITH THE PAPER HIS FAMILY HAD FOUNDED. I LIKED THAT ABOUT BOB. DESPITE BEING OLD SCHOOL ABOUT THE NEWSPAPER BUSINESS, IN HIS HOME COMMUNITY, HE DIDN'T TRY TO STOP THE CLOCK, OR WISH IN ANY WAY, TO OPERATE IN A STATUS QUO SITUATION. HE JUST DIDN'T WANT ME SCREWING WITH HIS WEEKLY COLUMN. WHEN I WENT TO WORK WITH BOB, AS AN ASSISTANT EDITOR OF THE MUSKOKA SUN, IT WAS THE BEST TIME OF MY YOUNG WRITING CAREER, BECAUSE BOB JUST WANTED ME TO WRITE, AND WRITE AND WRITE. IF I HAD PUT BYLINES ON EVERY STORY I WROTE, FOR THOSE MONSTER ISSUES, I WOULD HAVE HAD TWENTY TO THIRTY LARGE ARTICLES EVERY WEEK. I WANTED EXPOSURE, AND BOB GAVE ME A LOT OF WHITE SPACE BETWEEN THE ADS, TO FILL AT MY DISCRETION.
GETTING BACK TO THE STORY TOLD TO ME BY ELIZABETH. IT DIDN'T HAPPEN IN MUSKOKA, BUT IT WAS THE FIRST TIME THE STORY HAD BEEN PUBLISHED. BY THE WAY, BECAUSE OF THIS FEATURE ARTICLE, I WAS APPROACHED BY JOHN ROBERT COLOMBO, ONE OF CANADA'S BEST KNOWN GHOST SLEUTHS, AND HE OFFERED ME A CHANCE TO BE A SMALL PART OF HIS NEXT BOOK OF GHOST STORIES. HE EVEN SUGGESTED I SHOULD WRITE A BOOK OF MUSKOKA GHOST STORIES, AT SOME POINT, AND I HAVE, FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, DONE JUST THAT, BUT KEPT IT ON-LINE VIA THESE BLOGS....RATHER THAN KILLING TREES TO PUT OUT A BOOK INSTEAD. JOHN EVEN WROTE THE OPENING COLUMN, FOR A SERIES OF GHOST STORIES I WROTE, IN THE LATE 1990'S, FOR THE MUSKOKA SUN, WHICH CARRIED OVER 22 WEEKS THAT YEAR. MY ONGOING WORK AS A HOBBY GHOST SLEUTH, WAS DEFINITELY ADVANCED BY THE GOOD MR. COLOMBO, AND THE SUCCESS OF THE FEATURE ARTICLE, ILLUSTRATED ABOVE. IT WAS MY FIRST SERIOUS FORAY INTO THE SPIRIT WORLD, YOU MIGHT SAY, AND IT CARRIES ON THE SAME TODAY. SO HERE ARE A FEW SNIPITS OF EDITORIAL MATERIAL, FROM THAT SPRING ISSUE, OF THE BRACEBRIDGE HERALD-GAZETTE.
THE RECOLLECTION OF "THE ROOM"
April 7th, 1982 - "In a recent interview with The Herald-Gazette, a young Bracebridge woman, talked openly about a ghostly encounter she had experienced, as a young girl, living in the Lanark County area of rural Ontario. Elizabeth, not her real name, has worked in Bracebridge for several years, and resides near the Village of Port Carling. She maintains the following story is true as she experienced IT, while living in an older home in Lanark County with her parents.
"Growing up in our household, it was quite normal to accept the presence of a ghost or spirit. It was not unusual to hear our mother tell the air, after our inner kitchen door would slam against the wall, 'If you are friendly, come away in....if not, out you get!' Elizabeth tells of her early experiences.
"My brother and sister always tried to out-scare the other, and always succeeded in scaring themselves instead. The house was the first stonehouse to be built in Lanark County. Its sturdy walls kept back the cold winds that winter would throw at her. On the back was an old fashioned summer kitchen, made entirely of wood and glass, very much neglected over the years. The last tenant appeared to have used it for storage, even though it was cooler in the summer for cooking, or so we thought. It was always intriguing to discover something new in it. The first couple of weeks after we had moved in, we explored the room above the back kitchen. The stairs were unusually well designed; a half spiral staircase that made definite creaks when we walked on them. Creaks we heard many times, working their way down, and into the back kitchen, while we were nowhere near.
"It was always a very definite creaking; very deliberate. There was no wind to blame for the noises. I had, on numerous occasions, felt a strong presence in the room I nicknamed the 'studio.' There were personal belongings and photographs packed tightly away behind the aperture in the wall. Both my brother and sister thought it very amusing that I didn't like it in there. Somehow, I had always felt as if I was intruding. It was as if I knew that the room was occupied. To me, to have looked through the dusty old boxes, was an invasion of privacy that I wanted no part of. I guess I felt deep down, that if I respected the privacy of the past, it would respect mine."
BELIEVING IN GHOSTS, A MATTER OF HISTORY
"Ever since the dawn of mankind, people have believed in ghosts. The fear of the unknown, the certainty that there was something, somewhere out there, bigger than life, beyond its pale, and more powerful than anything walking the earth, has persisted throughout the ages," wrote Catherine Buxton, author of "Haunted Houses," published in 1971. "What exactly is a ghost? In terms of psychic research, a ghost appears to be a surviving emotional memory of someone who had died traumatically, and usually, tragically, but is unaware of his / her death. Ghosts then, in the overwhelming majority, do not realize that they are dead. Those who do know they are dead are confused as to where they are, or why they feel not quite as they used to feel. When death occurs unexpectedly or unacceptedly, or when a person has lived in a place for a very long time, acquiring certain routine habits and becoming very attached to a premises, sudden, unexpected death comes as a shock. Unwilling to part with the physical world, such human personalities then continue to stay on, in the very spot where their tragedy, or their emotional attachment, had existed prior to physical death," notes Huxton.
Thousands upon thousands of books have been written on the supernatural. Ghosts have inspired writers from literally, the "dawn of mankind," as Huxton continues. "Ghosts do not appear on command, and even spending the night in a haunted house might produce nothing more than a stiff neck or the sniffles. Then again, one might walk into a haunted house unaware of that fact, and might have an experience quite unexpectedly. Such is the thrill, and the uncertainty of following a ghost - one can never be sure what might transpire."
Author Victoria Branden, in her book, "Understanding Ghosts," published in 1980, noted that "For the last hundred years or so, people have refused to take the subject of ghosts very seriously. The supernatural has been relegated to the occultists and crackpots, although a small group of parapsychologists, has striven doggedly to approach it scientifically and unsuperstitiously." Researcher Eileen Sonin writes, "There are several different ways that a ghost makes its presence known, and I think I have experienced most of them." Sonin, author of the 1969 book, "Ghosts I Have Known," suggests that "I have seen a ghost, heard a ghost, and touched a ghost, even smelt a ghost. It is a quite well-known phenomenon that sometimes when a spirit is near, the place is filled with an over-powering perfume. Sometimes almost sickly sweet, at other times it is a beautiful scent of flowers."
Sonin includes a story about a house she lived in near Kensington Street in London, England, with her husband. The small cottage-like building was to be only a temporary residence, until final arrangements were made for a new house, they were intending to purchase. One room of the house, which she maintains seemed pleasant in appearance, made her feel unhappy and distressed upon entering. "I subconsciously tended to avoid it (room). It was so sad. Even if you were in a really jolly mood when you entered, five minutes later, you would feel deeply distressed and unhappy. No matter how hard you tried to shake it off, misery settled like a cloud around you. The only other feature of the cottage, that somewhere close by, was a child who cried continuously. It really upset me. I tried to find out where the crying was coming from, but could never pinpoint it in any of the neighboring houses."
The intensity of Sonin's unhappiness increased. She and her husband decided to vacate the house and seek accommodations elsewhere. Upon telling the real estate agent, who had been looking after the cottage, the Sonins learned more about the house. The former owners of the house had had a little girl aged three. The parents used to leave the tiny girl alone for long hours and she would cry alone in the house for hours on end. "She was a sweet little thing he told me. One day she managed to climb to the window ledge of the upstairs sitting room. Her father, driving into the garage, saw her and called to her to climb down. Laughingly, she waved to him, over balanced and fell out of the window, onto the paved courtyard below. Her skull was fractured and she died instantly. The crying child, I murmurred to myself, and he nodded." The agent told them that other tenants of the house had heard the crying as well, and had felt the discomfort the cottage bred.
According to Susy Smith, author of "Ghosts Around The House," there are four different types of ghosts. One type of ghost, she explains, is a "deceased human serving notice; the second is an hallucination - plain and simple; the third is an out of body experience, bilocation, being in two places at once; and the fourth is the veridical after image, poltergeist or telekonesis." "Poltergeists are certainly the most unpleasant of all psychic phenomena. They suggest to the serious student of the occult that even on the other side, there are some kinds of malevolent entities, who seem to delight in persecuting, and at times injuring innocent unfortunates. There seems to be no reason for the childish rapping and the stupid throwing of all kinds of objects," suggests Victoria Branden, author of "Understanding Ghosts." "There is no doubt about it, ghosts are arbitrary, difficult, confusing, and befuddling. They are also very interesting," writes ghost researcher, Susy Smith.
In the words of Shakespeare, through the mouth of his character Hamlet, saying of his dead father; "And we fools of nature, so horridly to shake our disposition, with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? To which I answer: Why is this? Because it actually happened to me. Wherefore? We do not know. What should we do? Keep an open mind."
Thanks for joining with me today, for a little fireside chat about....ghosts. See you again soon.
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