Talking to Ghosts
Yes, it is true. I have spoken with a ghost. It wasn't a long intellectual conversation in which we were trying to solve the world’s or the paranormal world's problems. It wasn't Great-Grandfather calling over from the other side to tell me where the family hoard of Confederate money was buried either. In fact, it was fairly perfunctory exchange of information, but it was real, and with witnesses.
At the time, I was living in Smithfield, Virginia. In retrospect, I shouldn't be surprised that I ended up talking to a ghost in that town. It seemed that everyone there had a ghost story. After I moved there, I had a house warming party at the small house I was living in on Underwood Lane. As one of the guests arrived, she paused after passing the threshold, seemed to sniff the air, and then remarked, "You don't have ghost, do you?" I was a bit taken aback, but told her that I didn't think so. She confirmed that response with a smile and nod of her head. While I lived in town, I would hear the occasional ghost story and not think much about it, other than for my own amusement.
My own contact with a ghost came several years later. I was in a play at the Smithfield Little Theater. For those of you that are familiar with the area, this was at the old theater building (The Cotton Gin Theater) down on Commerce Street along the Pagan River. Not to be mistaken for the new flashy digs up on the hill where SLT is now. At the time, the theater building was a hundred plus year old converted tobacco/cotton warehouse that probably seated not more than a hundred or so people. When I arrived on the scene, the regulars were so excited because they had recently added an addition off the back of the building so they could now claim to have a "back stage" instead of just a "back wall." And of course the place was haunted. Or, at least, that is what everyone told me. Not that I believed any of it. There was one particularly active spirit that everyone like to tell me about. It was the ghost of a woman who had been in the Theater Company before she was killed in a firery car accident on the James River Bridge. I never saw her ghost. Though her portrait was in the lobby, so if I would have seen her ghost, I would have probably recognized her. It was a neat old theater, but it could be creepy.
My ghost made his appearance during a rehearsal of the play Dracula. Yes, no kidding, it was Dracula. The bill board for the show is probably on the wall somewhere in the new theater building. Next time you are over there, look for it. The show was fun, it was a small cast and our special effects guy was having a blast with dry ice generators and fishing line flying bats. I had fun too. I got to drive a stake into Dracula's heart (a well-positioned sandbag) while he screamed bloody murder! The people playing Renfield and Cybil stole the show. My big thrill was that I had to grow a beard for my part.
Back to the ghost, we had finished up rehearsal one night and had gone through the process of closing up the theater. This was important, because all the "house" light switches were out in the lobby and once the lights went out in that place, it was so dark you might just as well be one hundred feet down in a cave. So, the protocol before closing the lobby doors and turning off the lights was to shout into the theater to make sure you weren't going to stand someone in the back of the building with no lights.
I distinctly remember that particular night. Most of the cast and crew had left, and four of us were gathered in the lobby. We talked for a few minutes, and once we were sure that everyone had gone, I opened the lobby door and gave the shout about turning of the lights.
"Wait a minute, I’m still here," shouted back a male sounding voice.
The four of us looked at each other and shrugged as if we all thought that everyone had gone. Then we waited, and waited, and waited probably another twenty minutes or so. Then someone, I think it was the director, observed that it was taking a long time for whomever it was to come out to the lobby. So one of the four of us, it wasn’t me, called back into the theater area from the lobby, but got no answer. We walked in theater and called, again no answer. Then we searched the place. There was no one there. I mean no one. It wasn’t that big of a place. Then we accounted for everyone that was at the rehearsal that night, those who had left and those who had stayed. It was a small cast and crew, and we were the only ones left. There should not have been anyone else in that building but the four of us. The three Smithfield natives immediately concluded had been a ghost and seemed nonplused by the whole thing. That was a bit of a surprise to me, as I was big time creeped out. I mean, really, we had just been talking to a ghost! Well, to this day I am creeped out. In my rational engineer/scientific mind (in which aliens might exist), ghosts do not exist. And even if they do they are bound to stay on their side of their side of the great divide so we can’t know they exist. Over the years it has been very hard for me to convince myself that this was all real. But it was, and I was there.
I have sometimes wondered if this weren’t someone’s idea of a practical joke. Lord knows, there were, and I imagine still are, plenty of jokers in the Smithfield Little Theater Troupe. But if it was a practical joke, then why has the joker never come forward? What good is a practical joke unless you claim your prize to the embarrassment of your victims? Ask anyone who has been on a snipe hunt. A joke of this manner is only fully consummated with its disclosure. Nope, it was a ghost. I am convinced of that today, as much as I was thirty years ago when it happened.
Now, the only problem with talking to a ghost is that once you have spoken to one you have to admit that ghosts exist. And if one ghost exists, then most likely many ghosts exist. And if there are many ghosts, odds are you will run into another one sooner or later. Which to me has meant, that every dark hallway is a little longer, every dank basement a little deeper, and every old building is a little too quiet, because I know they are there, waiting to interject themselves into our lives. I have heard them before.
But, so far so good, to date, I have not heard from, spoken to, or even seen a shadow of another ghost. Not that I go looking for them like some idiotic TV reality show people do. I am not a ghostly coward, mind you. I have been in plenty of places that would pass as suitable ghost habitats. Recently, on several occasions and in the dark of night, I walked through, the one hundred and fifty year old cemetery at The University of The South. The place is full of Bishops, Priest, Professors, and even a Confederate General. Plenty of opportunity for ghost sightings there. So it isn’t as if I have been avoiding them.
I have gone years without thinking about this event. I hadn't really thought about it until recently. But just when my memory of it all seems to fade, just when I don't seem to have a care in the world, and just when I start to get comfortable when the lights grow dim, that voice still speaks to me from the past,
“Wait a minute, I’m still here.”
Ward
If you got this far on my blog, you might also be interested in my fun filled Science Fiction Adventure Novel, The Toad King
http://www.amazon.com/Toad-King-Soldi...
At the time, I was living in Smithfield, Virginia. In retrospect, I shouldn't be surprised that I ended up talking to a ghost in that town. It seemed that everyone there had a ghost story. After I moved there, I had a house warming party at the small house I was living in on Underwood Lane. As one of the guests arrived, she paused after passing the threshold, seemed to sniff the air, and then remarked, "You don't have ghost, do you?" I was a bit taken aback, but told her that I didn't think so. She confirmed that response with a smile and nod of her head. While I lived in town, I would hear the occasional ghost story and not think much about it, other than for my own amusement.
My own contact with a ghost came several years later. I was in a play at the Smithfield Little Theater. For those of you that are familiar with the area, this was at the old theater building (The Cotton Gin Theater) down on Commerce Street along the Pagan River. Not to be mistaken for the new flashy digs up on the hill where SLT is now. At the time, the theater building was a hundred plus year old converted tobacco/cotton warehouse that probably seated not more than a hundred or so people. When I arrived on the scene, the regulars were so excited because they had recently added an addition off the back of the building so they could now claim to have a "back stage" instead of just a "back wall." And of course the place was haunted. Or, at least, that is what everyone told me. Not that I believed any of it. There was one particularly active spirit that everyone like to tell me about. It was the ghost of a woman who had been in the Theater Company before she was killed in a firery car accident on the James River Bridge. I never saw her ghost. Though her portrait was in the lobby, so if I would have seen her ghost, I would have probably recognized her. It was a neat old theater, but it could be creepy.
My ghost made his appearance during a rehearsal of the play Dracula. Yes, no kidding, it was Dracula. The bill board for the show is probably on the wall somewhere in the new theater building. Next time you are over there, look for it. The show was fun, it was a small cast and our special effects guy was having a blast with dry ice generators and fishing line flying bats. I had fun too. I got to drive a stake into Dracula's heart (a well-positioned sandbag) while he screamed bloody murder! The people playing Renfield and Cybil stole the show. My big thrill was that I had to grow a beard for my part.
Back to the ghost, we had finished up rehearsal one night and had gone through the process of closing up the theater. This was important, because all the "house" light switches were out in the lobby and once the lights went out in that place, it was so dark you might just as well be one hundred feet down in a cave. So, the protocol before closing the lobby doors and turning off the lights was to shout into the theater to make sure you weren't going to stand someone in the back of the building with no lights.
I distinctly remember that particular night. Most of the cast and crew had left, and four of us were gathered in the lobby. We talked for a few minutes, and once we were sure that everyone had gone, I opened the lobby door and gave the shout about turning of the lights.
"Wait a minute, I’m still here," shouted back a male sounding voice.
The four of us looked at each other and shrugged as if we all thought that everyone had gone. Then we waited, and waited, and waited probably another twenty minutes or so. Then someone, I think it was the director, observed that it was taking a long time for whomever it was to come out to the lobby. So one of the four of us, it wasn’t me, called back into the theater area from the lobby, but got no answer. We walked in theater and called, again no answer. Then we searched the place. There was no one there. I mean no one. It wasn’t that big of a place. Then we accounted for everyone that was at the rehearsal that night, those who had left and those who had stayed. It was a small cast and crew, and we were the only ones left. There should not have been anyone else in that building but the four of us. The three Smithfield natives immediately concluded had been a ghost and seemed nonplused by the whole thing. That was a bit of a surprise to me, as I was big time creeped out. I mean, really, we had just been talking to a ghost! Well, to this day I am creeped out. In my rational engineer/scientific mind (in which aliens might exist), ghosts do not exist. And even if they do they are bound to stay on their side of their side of the great divide so we can’t know they exist. Over the years it has been very hard for me to convince myself that this was all real. But it was, and I was there.
I have sometimes wondered if this weren’t someone’s idea of a practical joke. Lord knows, there were, and I imagine still are, plenty of jokers in the Smithfield Little Theater Troupe. But if it was a practical joke, then why has the joker never come forward? What good is a practical joke unless you claim your prize to the embarrassment of your victims? Ask anyone who has been on a snipe hunt. A joke of this manner is only fully consummated with its disclosure. Nope, it was a ghost. I am convinced of that today, as much as I was thirty years ago when it happened.
Now, the only problem with talking to a ghost is that once you have spoken to one you have to admit that ghosts exist. And if one ghost exists, then most likely many ghosts exist. And if there are many ghosts, odds are you will run into another one sooner or later. Which to me has meant, that every dark hallway is a little longer, every dank basement a little deeper, and every old building is a little too quiet, because I know they are there, waiting to interject themselves into our lives. I have heard them before.
But, so far so good, to date, I have not heard from, spoken to, or even seen a shadow of another ghost. Not that I go looking for them like some idiotic TV reality show people do. I am not a ghostly coward, mind you. I have been in plenty of places that would pass as suitable ghost habitats. Recently, on several occasions and in the dark of night, I walked through, the one hundred and fifty year old cemetery at The University of The South. The place is full of Bishops, Priest, Professors, and even a Confederate General. Plenty of opportunity for ghost sightings there. So it isn’t as if I have been avoiding them.
I have gone years without thinking about this event. I hadn't really thought about it until recently. But just when my memory of it all seems to fade, just when I don't seem to have a care in the world, and just when I start to get comfortable when the lights grow dim, that voice still speaks to me from the past,
“Wait a minute, I’m still here.”
Ward
If you got this far on my blog, you might also be interested in my fun filled Science Fiction Adventure Novel, The Toad King
http://www.amazon.com/Toad-King-Soldi...
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