Early memory of the paranormal

Something took place in the night when I was very young. The event has never faded from my memory even after at least 70 years. I think it was my first encounter with the paranormal. At the time my bed was still in my parents room, so I could not have been more than 3 or 4 years old. I was moved in with my older brother by the time I was five, maybe before. The episode began with my being awakened by the voice of a little girl who stayed with her aunt and uncle next door. She called my name at least twice as it was this that woke me up I recall saying "What are you doing here?". It was the middle of the night and the girl would not be wondering around and even at my young age, I knew it. Then came the cryptic message, "Mary says to get up at Moon." As she said this she moved closer to my bed and then she just disappeared. My mother was awakened by the talking and wanted to know what was going on? I tried to tell her and she said I had just had a nightmare to go back to sleep. I was teased about it the next morning at breakfast, especially by my older brother who had his own bedroom. But my mother said, "He was talking about Donna Sue and even making up her answers". Whoa, no way was I talking for Donna and if this was a nightmare how did my mother hear two voices. This episode was so vivid that I have never forgotten it. Donna Sues mother remarried and Donna went back home to live. I even saw her wedding announcement, many years later, in the paper. I wonder sometimes why this episode has stayed with me. Dreams, if such it was, are usually forgotten quickly. Yet if this dream had any meaning, I'm totally in the dark as to what it might have been. I'm guessing this took place around 1942 or 43.

Ghost of a child

As I have mentioned before, my wife uses a different bedroom due to a leg problem that that requires attention at off hours during the night. Last night we turned in about midnight; she to the room we call the Noah room and I and our two schnauzers the master bedroom. This morning my wife told me about an episode she experienced last night in the Noah room. She said her leg was bothering her and she was in the process of getting up to take care of it (she had not as yet turned on the light which is on an end table beside the bed), She caught movement out of the corner of her eye. When she looked toward the movement she said she distinctly saw a child, of 3 or 4 years of age, with long light brown hair, and dressed in a long white gown move across the bedroom and out into the upstairs hall. She did not see the child's face as it was turned from her but she recognized the gown as the type that very young children were often dressed in (both sexes) during the 1800's and early 1900's. She knew she was not having a waking dream as she went about correcting her leg problem and then got up to go to the bathroom. The Noah room is never pitch black with the lights off as there are three windows, one of which fronts main street and its street light. She was uncertain whether the child was male or female because this type of night dress was common for both in that time period. There were young children in the household of the builder and original owner of this 1857 house. Perhaps the spector was one of them. This is not the first time my wife has witnessed a "ghost", so she knew pretty quickly what she had witnessed. People generally do not believe in ghosts until they, themselves, experience it. Knowing you are seeing something extraordinary can have a profound effect on a person. The strange thing is, you are not scared, like the cartoonists imply. Curious, yes, or questioning; but not scared. Interesting.

Sounds of footsteps return

This occurred just this morning. I was up and ready for the day first. I had already come downstairs and had taken the dogs out. I had put up the screen at the bottom of the stairs so the dogs could not go back upstairs. Sometimes they are a bit difficult to bring back downstairs. My wife taking longer had stayed upstairs. But when she was ready to come downstairs she said she distinctly heard me coming back up the stairs. As the rear stairs are rather narrow and she needs lots of room to navigate them, she said she waited for me to appear. The sounds of someone coming up the stairs ended at the turn in the stairwell. As I did not appear coming around the corner in the stairs; she said, "Are you coming on up or what?" She got no reply and then she heard me talking to the dogs in the kitchen and knew I was not on the stairs. She came on down and told me about the episode. She insisted it sounded exactly like someone coming up the stairs. As the gate was still up when she reached the bottom of the stairs it was rather obvious that neither I nor the dogs were on the stairs. That it was plain enough for my wife to ask whether or not I was ccming on up indicates to me that she heard something, but what?

Item rappears

A lot of people will think, "You just weren't looking there". But anything that obvious just was NOT overlooked. Yesterday I started work on an old 1839 four foot table or wall clock I picked up at an auction at a good price because it was in so many pieces. But the most important pieces appeared to still be there, scattered in the vast maul of the lower case. I looked the clock up on line. Luckily it was clearly marked as to maker and even had its instructions glued to be back, on the inside, of the cabinet. The works were totally brass and of a form that I was totally unfamiliar with. It was kind of like putting together a jig-saw puzzle with no picture to go by. It took a while but I finally got the works in their proper places with nothing apparently missing. Needless to sat when working on this clock it was necessary to remove the hands and face in order to get into the clockworks. When removing the hands I was very careful to place the hands in a protected area of my work table so they would be readily available when I replaced the clock face. As you have probably guessed, when I put the clock face back on the clock I discovered I had the hour hand but not the minute hand. As those hands were over 176 years old, I knew darn good and well I'd never find a replacement. I looked everywhere for that minute hand including under the work table That minute hand was simply gone. In order to try out the mechanical workings of the clock I resorted to a more modern minute hand that fit (kind of) so I could see if the mechanism would work. I wound the clock (which is run by very heavy weights) though unlike a grandfather clock, the weights are raised with a key rather than pulling a chain. I started the clock and to my utter amazement it ran. Once again I looked all around my work area for that minute hand with no luck. The temporary minute hand looked totally out of place, but it worked (kind of). Time to close the store so my wife and I closed up and went home. I left the old clock running. This morning, about 10am my wife and I reopened the store. I was very pleased to see the old clock still running though it was way slow. And to my utter amazement, laying directly in front of the clock, in absolutely plain, it cannot be missed, sight lay the missing minute hand. I was beyond surprised. Where had this minute hand come from? How on earth could it be here, in plain sight. No way did I overlook it. It was not there last night when we left. No one has a store key but my wife and I. Mice, goblins, ghosts? Where did that dang key come from? Anyone out there have any explanation?

Dogs toy at it again.

My wife relayed this story. It seems that yesterday evening, while my younger dog and I were watching TV (she was on my lap) my wife was playing on the computer with the older dog laying beside her chair. She said that suddenly a loud squeak occurred from the dining room. Keep in mind the dining room and computer room (library) are adjacent to each other and the den with the TV is opens immediately to the right of the library. She said both she and the older dog jumped. It was definitely the older dogs toy parrot that squeaked. Rowdy ran and looked around the corner of the doorway into the dining room, but advanced no further. I'm getting a bit hard of hearing so with the TV blasting rather loud, I and my pup didn't hear the commotion. Rowdy's stuffed parrot toy has to be pressed rather hard to activate the squeaker bulb; but nothing and no one was even close to the toy. My wife even got up and went to the dining room to check out the toy. No reason could be found for its sudden vocalization. That's twice, now, that that particular stuffed toy has squalled with no one or nothing near it. Both times the parrot was in the dining room. Really makes you wonder.

The customer that wasn't there.

I thought sure that I had entered this post; however, seeing it not, I must not have. Several days ago, toward the end of that last artic blast of snow, freezing rain and subzero temperatures, I had to run my wife's store alone. My wife has a serious leg problem and our house was surrounded by a frozen moat. In fact it was so bad that when I attempted to take our dogs out for necessary things I found myself flat out on my back and had no memory of falling. Only by crawling onto a mat was I even able to stand up and retreat back to the house. So, needless to say, my wife was going to stay home on this one and I had to run the store alone. Things went normally, we actually had a few more customers than I expected. By 5:00 pm I was pretty pooped. About a quarter to 5:00, considering the fact that we had had no customers for roughly a half hour or so, I started closing the store down. I shut off all display lights, brought in articles displayed outside including an open sign. Then I took care of the till and shut off the open sign in front. The last thing we do is shut off the large overhead lights. I had just gone to our second sales room and started to close a curtain that opens into a small workroom. Just as I started to pull the curtain closed I saw a rather large customer in a heavy dark overcoat come down the main aisle in the second salesroom directly towards me. I said, "Sorry sir, I thought everyone had left", and I closed the curtain and turned to face the customer. There was no one there. There was no one in that store but me. There is no way he could have walked past me in the two or three seconds it took to close that curtain. I admit I was tired; but I saw this fellow well enough and long enough to actually speak to him. Maybe I'm hallucinating. I hope not. But what did I see? I finished closing, turned off the lights, locked up and left. The next day my wife was able to make it to the store and luckily nothing more transpired.

Addition to "Haunted Dolls"

An addition to the "Haunted Dolls" story that I accidently left out. I mention that no unusual things have happened since the "wringer incident". But I had left out the "wringer incident", Refer back to the entry made on January 21st for that one. The wringer that appeared to "jump" off the high shelf and fall onto the floor. This 40 or 50 pound wringer was located directly across from the infamous dolls.