Page 20 - October 2019

PERSPECTIVES

“I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost”

Paul Fanning, DTM

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year” goes I can honestly say “it was a dark and stormy

the song. But wait—that song’s a bit premature for night” that caused my skepticism to change to
the month of October. Let’s try another favorite, acceptance. I believe it was an evening that my
“On the first day of Halloween my ghoul gave to parents and brother were at his school for some
me…” Ah, that’s better! Now you get the gist of function. My bedroom was on the second floor of

my reflection this month. this old house. There was this wonderful narrow
Growing up in a small town in Northern staircase that I could whiz down to enter the
California, our house had been built in 1855. dining room and go to other parts of the house.
The town of Dutch Flat had been classified as The attic was always spooky to me, a place I didn’t

a “ghost town” in the 1940’s with a handful of like to enter at night and beneath the kitchen
permanent residents. There were tales of a house floor was an entrance to the cellar that had been
in the next town by the lake that had two spirits bordered up sometime in the 1890’s. (After the
in residence—one friendly who liked to visit with house owner “disappeared”) But I digress. Back

the live party goers, and another who was not so to my story. Racing down the steps and opening
friendly who had taken her own life there. Our the door into the dining room, I caught out of
town had its own ghoulies and ghosties, several the corner of my eye someone sitting in a chair
old timers related their encounters with spirits in the bay window. Just an impression, almost a

in the old trading post, the fraternal halls and ghostly vision of the past. I muttered hello and
especially near the Odd Fellows and Imperial entered the kitchen when it hit me-and hit me
Order of Red Men cemeteries dating back to 1853. like a ton of bricks. Fact number one-there was a
Me? I was a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic. man sitting in a rocking chair in our bay window.

Being of Cornish and Irish background, it is Fact two—there was an old trunk decorating the
my heritage to believe in the unseen, to be aware bay window-no chair. Fact three-I was home
of the spirits and their communications to us-that alone, and I didn’t know who this was. I quickly
is if you believe in such things. Dyed-in-the-wool turned around and exited the kitchen to look at

I say. Maybe a little “Bah, Humbug” attitude to the window and saw. . . a trunk, no chair, no man.
boot. And then my entire belief was questioned, Was I dreaming? Did my mind make it up? Am
along with my sanity and eyesight. I crazy? (Don’t answer that one!) Thus, when my
I was in high school when it happened, and parents came home, I was sitting there, looking

20 ONE COMMUNITY