Living with Spook

Somewhere, sometime, I was told that the farm house we grew up in had originally been a summer kitchen for the Kepford house. It was moved and added to when the township road was put in to connect the county roads. But, however it was truly built, it was just a very old farmhouse, with no easy way to trace it's history. I never heard of any deaths in the house. But, from the time we moved in, there were indications that something was going on. We named the problem Spook. I'll never be sure if Spook was an explanation for some normal abnormalities, or it if was the right name for what was going on.

Spook liked to flush the toilet when no one was anywhere near the bathroom. Spook liked to pull the plug on electrical things. The T.V. was plugged into an outlet that was flush flat on the floor. The wall clock was in the other side of that plug. Spook never pulled the plug on the T.V. But, he often pulled the clock plug. Even after Mom switched sides, it was only the clock that would come out of the floor plug. Not fall off the wall, come UP out of the plug. Even when we were all there watching T.V. Spook also liked to pull plugs on heavy items like the stove. But, he never pulled the plug on the fridge or ruined our frozen food. Spook was just ornery. Spook liked the T.V. show "GunSmoke" If we were late getting in from chores, Mom said Spook would turn on the set. She could turn it off, but it came right back on. For GunSmoke. Remember, this was long before remote controls. The T.V. itself hadn't been aroung all that long. We only got three channels. If we were there watching something else, we could see the dial move and then we would be watching GunSmoke. There were the usual ghostly steps in empty rooms too. And, water turned on and left running. We got so used to blaming Spook for any misplaced item, I'm not sure anymore just what he moved and what we told each other he moved. After Uncle Glen and the coffee pot, we just grew up accepting things like that. It wasn't scary and Spook was just part of our lives. I don't believe our Father believed there wasn't some reasonable explanation for everything, but, he could never deny it was happening. Our Mother was much more accepting of having a real ghost. But, Mom had been raised on ghost stories. She told me of hearing stories about a ghost who turned into a wisp of smoke and moved through keyholes. She always wished she'd writen those stories down.

Years later my first husband and I went to Germany when he was in the Army. The Germans are also believers. I began to believe Spook had gone with me. We didn't have a T.V., but Spook messed with my radio. And the lights. And, I actually saw things move. Then my German Landlady, who lived downstairs, came to me with the complaint that since I'd moved in, they had a ghost in the house. (This was conveyed by her daughter who spoke English) And, we all heard crying in the night. When a new house or building was constructed in our village, a live evergreen was placed in the top of the chimney, before the roof was inclosed. I was told this was to keep out evil. Another thing I learned about their ways concerned the local cemetary which was walled. The consecrated ground of the cemetary was never expanded. Ground was at a premium. When a new grave was needed, the oldest was dug up and the bones went to the local brick yard. (Which could be seen from my back window, by the way) The bones were ground up and used in the bricks. So it didn't seem odd to the villagers to have a few souls who were not happy. This kind of thing wasn't what I grew up with, and it did make me nervous. Expecially the crying in the dark.

Then I had the most convincing experience of my life. G, my husband, was a soldier who got to join a Country band. He was the drummer for "The Dudes" Sometimes I would join him when the other wives were going to be there too. We were driving home after a gig in France. The road was hilly and wooded and very winding. We'd become seperated from the other cars in the band headed home. I was late in my pregnancy and I was tired and very uncomfortable. I had the seat leaned back a bit and my eyes were closed. Suddenly I felt a hard slap my left cheek. My eyes popped open and on the road in front of me was a stone wall. I screamed and G came alert. The road turned left and the stone wall was the side of a small tunnel under a railroad track. (I can still see it perfectly) Once through, G was angry with me. He wanted to know why I yelled. He denied dozing off, though I was sure he had. I yelled back asking why he'd slapped me. I was very confused. Of course he denied slapping me too. We argued and he stopped the car. My face still burned and I wanted the car light on. In the light, we could see finger prints on my left cheek. I realized that he could not have slapped the left side of my face from the drivers seat. Those prints were from someone who faced me. In a Volkswagon Bug on an empty road. I am positive (G denies it ever happened) that G dozed off and if I hadn't been slapped........we would have died that night against the stone wall.