Do you believe in ghosts? Things that go bump

Al Batt, Tales from Exit 22

Published Wednesday, September 16, 2009

“I just saw Lars Johnson,” my mother said.

“The Lars Johnson who died last week?” I asked, smiling at my melancholic cleverness.

“He was driving his old brown Ford. He had his hat on crooked and a cigarette in his hand,” stated my mother.

I didn’t know what to say, so I said something incredibly ingenious like, “Huh?”

My mother smiled and said, “I know it wasn’t Lars, but it looked exactly like him.”

I could picture Lars. His hat at a jaunty angle and smoke rising from the filterless cigarette held in nicotine-stained fingers. I heard Rod Serling’s voice in my head, “There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.”

Was it a ghost of Lars?

I have had frequent encounters with will-o’ the-wisps on nights as dark as the back end of a black cow. Our homestead is a marsh thinly disguised as a farm. Will-o’-the-wisps are lambent flames moving over marshland. These flickering lights result from the spontaneous ignition of gases produced by the disintegration of dead plant or animal matter or may be phosphorescence. The wisps flitted about my childhood and retreated when I approached them. A neighbor referred to them as “corpse candles,” suggesting that they were the souls of the departed.

My siblings told me about an ancient farmhouse they lived in as small children. The steps creaked as though someone were walking upstairs. My brother and sister had enough courage to investigate, but never saw anyone. It was a peculiarity of an old home built during the time when each house had a personality.

As high school seniors, my friends and I visited a farm where unsolved murders had taken place. No one had lived in the old farmhouse since the crime had occurred. My enthusiasm for wondering what was behind the door of that house lagged. Nearing the house brought about an eerie feeling. It was a moving experience. I moved back to the car. Searching for ghosts has been a temptation I have successfully resisted.

Do you believe in ghosts? Have you ever seen one? Was it a sight that would make a brave man gasp? Has an unseen spirit grabbed you? Have you experienced a strange smell that didn’t involve your sister’s cooking? Some people believe that ghosts are nothing more than memories of loved ones or an overactive conscience or imagination. The closest I’ve come to seeing a ghost is seeing ghostly images on a bad TV. I do believe that people who say they have seen some inexplicable manifestation have really done so.

I was visiting with family members at a gathering. The discussion was lively and varied. I asked one relative, who was in her late nineties, if she had ever seen a ghost.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ve seen lots of them.”

“You have?” I asked.

“Sure,” she replied. “We milked them for a few years.”

Milked them? Her well-used ears had thought I had asked about goats.

Some folks tend to believe in things. My neighbor Crandall said, “I believe in Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Skunk Ape, Yeti, Abominable Snowman, Loch Ness Monster, Chupracabra, Hogzilla, vampires, UFOs, werewolves, that there is a dead alien in a jar at Roswell, that crop circles are the handiwork of aliens, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, that the Vikings will win a Super Bowl, ghosts, and I believe I’ll have another doughnut.”

I’ve noticed that the popularity of cell phones that take pictures, camcorders and digital cameras has meant fewer sightings of those things that Crandall believes in — except the doughnuts.

My ancestors said this prayer, “From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord deliver us.”

So did my mother see a ghost? I don’t know.

I visited my father in the hospital. Dad was extremely close to his brother Robert, who had been dead for many years. My father was unresponsive, lying in bed with his eyes closed.

“Robert?” my father said suddenly — his first utterance in days.

My father smiled and then he died.

Robert was not a ghost that I could see and I doubt it was the meds that caused my father to say what he did.

I’m not sure that I believe in ghosts, but I am glad there was someone like Uncle Robert to greet Dad on the other side.

Hartland resident Al Batt’s column appears every Wednesday and Sunday.

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