Apparitions or hallucinations? After reading this blog, you tell me. Anyone even believe in ghosts? I can’t honestly say I do. I don’t think I ever saw a ghost, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not there. Right? I remember two of my mom’s older sisters saying they saw a ghost or ghosts when they were little kids. Something about an old house they lived in on 28th street being haunted. Apparently, several people once died in the house of some sort of disease or rare illness back in the early 1900’s, well before they and their parents ever moved in. The girls said they saw nurses and people who were sick. Yet they weren’t real people … they were pale or nebulous likenesses of the deceased. Must have been ordinary ghosts. Not poltergeists, kobolds or ghouls. I say that because they didn’t try to harm or scare anyone. They were just there, moving about the house. Perhaps spirits of those who never made it to the other side. Like I said, I don’t think I’ve ever personally seen or encountered a ghost. But a lot of people I’ve talked to over the years said they have.

*This was too creepy, the Nicole graphic, had to use it.

Sam says a realtor friend of his told him about a hundred thousand dollar home that was for sale on the market for thirty-five grand. For over twenty years, no one was ever able to live in the house. Not even the guy who built it brand new. Said there was once an old house sitting on the same lot. The house being in bad shape and no one having lived there in years, the new owner filed for a permit with the city and had it burned down. Legend has it a horrendous murder occurred in the old house. Some guy wigged out, chopped up his wife with an axe, offed all six of his children, then blew his brains out with a .357 mag. Needing a place to set up a lab and cook off a couple of hundred pounds of speed, Sam decided to take a look at the house. After all, for thirty-five grand, how could a person go wrong? Sam wasn’t afraid of ghosts. At 6′ 6 tall and 325 pounds, Sam wasn’t afraid of anything at all. While walking through the house, Sam and the real estate agent saw something weird. Floating from one room to another across a small hallway, a black sooty looking entity made a pass. That’s when Sam and the agent hit the door and Sam decided against buying the house after all.

My old girlfriend Jo-Ann claims she saw a ghost. Then again, she saw a lot of things when whacked out on speed. Her ghost came in the form of black cloak and hood wearing specter. Said he was standing behind me with three angels on my left side. Strangely enough, Jo-Ann was very religious when she wasn’t strung out on meth. A devout Pentecostal who sometimes spoke in tongues and believed in another apparition of sorts - the Holy Ghost. As druggies are frequently known for reporting fantastic visions, or meth monsters as we call them. I didn’t know if what Jo-Ann was telling me was true or if she was simply delusional after not having slept for days upon days. Even after staying awake several days on speed myself, I can’t just flat out say I ever saw something that really wasn’t there. Jo-Ann was adamant what she saw was a ghost or the angel of death. She wasn’t sure which. All I know is it freaked her out so bad that she decided to go home that day and didn’t come back for a week! I may never know if what she saw was a real ghost. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. All I know is I missed her company when she was gone.

My neighbor the queer says he saw a ghost. Said he was in his bed late one night reading by the light of the moon. Across the room there was an area between a chair and the closet door that was very, very dark. Reading Stephen King, he stared into the blackness where he saw a strange entity moving his way. Scared, he yelled out, “Who are you?” That’s when the specter raised his right hand and pointed out the window toward a dirt path leading into the woods, then suddenly-disappeared. Shawn, having walked the trail before, knew it led to a pond where he and his little brother had gone fishing. The next day he walked down the path looking all around. That’s when he discovered an old family homestead type graveyard - the old timely headstones overgrown and covered with ivy and tall weed brushing some of the overgrowth away, the last names on the markers were “Lake”. Shawn then went to the library and did some research and found that there was in fact a family that once lived in the old house with the last name Lake. He never saw the dark entity again and soon after, he and his family moved away.

There there’s the story Rudy told me about a female ghost wearing a white dress at Niles Canyon. She supposedly wrecked her ‘63 Corvette Stingray. You know the kind, the one known as a split window coupe. She was found dead lying in the middle of the highway around midnight on August the 13th. Legend has it, if you go out to that stretch of road between Niles Canyon and Fremont California on the night of the 13th, you’ll see the lady in white wandering across the way. Another story I recall hearing as a young teen, was about a place in Sapulpa, Oklahoma toward the edge of town everyone called cry baby bridge. They say a woman and her newborn baby died in a car accident when running off the bridge. And late at night when you cross the bridge, you can hear the baby crying underneath. Many a drunken and partying night, my friends and I drove out to cry baby bridge to see if we could hear the baby crying but never did. Maybe for me to see or hear a ghost just wasn’t meant to be.

Like I said, I’ve never seen a ghost. Or at least I don’t think I have any-way. But one night I did most definitely see something, or someone I should say, that could have been a ghost but I’m not 100% sure. It happened on a summer night when my brother and I were tripping on acid and stopped at a convenience store on 99. It was about to storm, the sky grew dark and the wind had started to blow. When all of a sudden an Indian chick came walking out of some tall grass with a small baby in her arms. It was dark and eerie and her old fashioned dress was blowing in the wind. Before I realized it, she came right up to my driver’s side door, bent forward and looked in. I hurriedly rolled up the window and hit the door lock and put the shifter in reverse. Scared out of my wits, I quickly and efficiently drove away. Could the woman I saw have been a ghost? Come to think of it, she did look awfully pale. For years I wondered about the Indian woman standing there with that little baby. Was she really there? Or was she a ghost? Or maybe I was just hallucinating on the LSD.

I’ve never tried to conjure up spirits, been to a séance, nor have I used a Ouija Board to try and obtain messages from the dead. I’ve never encountered a disembodied soul. No nebulous likenesses of family or friends I once knew who’d long since passed away. No visits from the netherworld from those who I have or have not known. I’m not telepathic nor am I clairvoyant. But that does not mean there aren’t persons who are. It’s just that part of my mind tells me ghosts and spirits of the dead do exist. I’m open minded and sensitive. And I do believe that disembodied entities and energies do somehow roam. After all, there are extrasensory phenomenon’s that cannot be scientifically explained. And if people believe in angels, aliens, demons and even more so … God, then why can’t there be such a thing as spirits or ghosts? Just felt like writing this short blog about the supernatural. If anyone has a true to life ghost story they’d like to tell, I’d like to hear it. I am Tripper! Better Days!