Tag: Ghosts

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Ghosts Are Everywhere, by Nicholas

Now, I don’t believe in ghosts. But I know that my life is full of them. I don’t mean ghosts who go around rearranging the furniture in my house or turning lights off or on. And I don’t mean ghosts that are just faint memories of past people and places. Remembering is part of it but remembering is just a mental act of recall. I mean a sense of the presence of someone or something that is not here. I mean a sense of place when you’re not in that place and haven’t been for a long, long time.

Memories can be triggers. So can sounds, especially music, and flavors and smells. The scent of patchouli always immediately takes me back to Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park in 1968. It’s a sensation, not a thought, of the past. Certain Grateful Dead songs do it, like Black Peter and Sugaree, give me more than a musical memory. Expecting to Fly by Buffalo Springfield, almost anything by the Moody Blues re-create places like funky living rooms in San Francisco flats I have lived in. I associate songs by Steve Miller with climbing Mt. Tamalpais north of San Francisco. I have no idea why. They probably ran through my mind when I was doing that.

Joni Mitchell songs are also very evocative for me. I recall walking down a street one sunny morning hearing Night in the City wafting from someone’s open window. The image has stuck with me. Sometimes when I’m in San Francisco, I walk down that same block as I did decades ago. Yes, the song is still there.

I will be in San Francisco in a few weeks. That city is full of ghosts everywhere. I am still most attached to the two cities where I know the most ghosts: Cleveland where I grew up and San Francisco where I also grew up. Denver holds few ghosts for me and the least attachments though I have lived here a long time.

Hometowns imprint themselves on your memory bank much like first impressions are said to happen with ducklings. The first things seen become the mother of all further impressions, a standard by which all experience is ranked. I guess our creative imaginations are then a blank screen ready to receive whatever pictures show up.

When I go back to my hometown, I see ghosts. The city is a fraction of the size it was when I was a kid. The crowds are mostly gone and with them, the once bustling city. Rapid transit trains that I rode as rattling, noisy and packed are now brand new, quiet and rarely packed. But I see the ghosts.

And when I really want to be with the ghosts, I go to one of the grand old cemeteries that hold members of my family and my ancestors. Those ghosts aren’t going anywhere. I can count on them staying put.

Actually, ghosts don’t move around much. In San Francisco, everybody moves frequently but the ghosts stick around. At the AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park there are lots of ghosts. One has only to sit still and they show up. That used to be true of other places around the city but many of those—like the Trocadero disco—are gone and have become ghosts themselves. Even Castro Street has lots of ghosts on it as baby strollers have peculiarly replaced men in plaid flannel shirts.

Ghosts are fun. My ghosts are anyway. They love to dance—many of them are crazy about ABBA and, of course, Diana Ross.

When I was a kid, my father loved to tell stories about when he was a kid and his grandfather knew a bunch of old army veterans from the Civil War. Dad sat and listened as these old guys told their war stories. More than remembering and telling, they, and my dad through them, relived those experiences at each retelling. Now, I know what he felt.

© 23 April 2017

About the Author

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.

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Ghosts, by Ray S

One day I read a book quite by a happy coincidence. A very wise literary mentor directed my attention to an author’s works that I would find not only well written but outstanding gay fiction and with wonderful character development.

As a child I was a slow reader as they called us in grade school. Reading was rarely fun and generally regarded a tedious chore. I wonder now that I ever got through sixteen years of reading assignments.

Update to that encounter in the library. My quest for a good erotic read had been answered. There were five or six volumes by the recommended author. Not being too adventurous I selected a slim book as an introduction to the make believe world of escapism.

My recent departure from sixty years of closeted double life required a great deal of catching up. There’s no time to waste; it’s not like you were sixteen and too dumb to know who you might be. Now that you’re at the threshold of full-blown “geom.”, it seems there is too little time and too many friends to meet.

The small book was more than a “good read” and having returned it, I went back to the well for a greater challenge. Bravely I picked up a 600 page book entitled How Long Has this Been Going On? by Ethan Mordden. For someone who was scared of any book longer than my third-grade Peter and Peggy, this choice was probably foolhardy.

Suffice it to say that my initial exposure to my author’s writing spurred me on to unknown stories and pleasures. Turns out that this volume was divided into related but not continuous stories. No chapters. Eventually I was tempted to make a family tree of the many characters just to keep up with each other’s life stories. As the saying goes, I couldn’t put the book down; my reading Renaissance had begun.

One day I finished How Long… and set it aside to return it to the library. Procrastination set in and the book kept company with some others—mostly unfinished.

The longer it stayed here at my reading chair, the longer I kept seeing all of those wonderful heroes and heroines in my quiet moments or my dreams. Something was unfinished. I can’t say they were all ghosts; ghosts are usually in another world, maybe even what we call dead.

I loved those beautiful men and women. They are alive to me and like Alice I just needed to step through the looking glass to be with all of them.

I’ve lived through the late 40s and 50s, the war protests, the fight for equal rights, AIDs, Stonewall, Harvey Milk, the wars, and up to Gay Pride March in NYC 1991.

These were stories of real people you could vicariously become and share their experiences, devoted friendships, passionate homoerotic encounters and love that we all have somewhere down deep for each other.

This is a ghost story, if you will, that I need to share with you, as you do each week with me. And I am in the process of re-reading How Long Has this Been Going On? It is more rewarding the second time, like coming home again or being there with my un-ghostly companions.

© 24 April 2017

About the Author

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Ghosts: Aaron Burr, Patrick Swayze, etc. by Louis Brown

Aaron Burr’s mother was Esther Edwards (my great, great XXXX Aunt)

Aaron Burr Jr. (February 6, 1756 – September 14, 1836) was an American politician. He was the third vice president of the United States (1801–1805), serving during President Thomas Jefferson’s first term. Burr served as a Continental Army officer in the Revolutionary War, after which he became a successful lawyer and politician. He was elected twice to the New York State Assembly (1784–1785, 1798–1799),[1] was appointed New York state attorney general (1789–1791), was chosen as a United States senator (1791–1797) from the state of New York, and reached the apex of his career as vice president.

Born Gore Vidal = Eugene Louis Vidal October 3, 1925 West Point, New York, U.S.
Died July 31, 2012 (aged 86) Hollywood Hills, California, U.S. Nationality American
Other names Eugene Luther Vidal, Jr.
Education Phillips Exeter Academy
Occupation Writer, novelist, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, actor
Known for The City and the Pillar (1948) Julian (1964) Myra Breckinridge (1968) Burr (1973) Lincoln (1984)
Political party Democratic

Movement Postmodernism Ghost is a 1990 American romantic fantasy thriller film starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Goldwyn, and Rick Aviles. It was written by Bruce Joel Rubin and directed by Jerry Zucker.[3] Of course, poor Patrick Swayze is dead.
Born Patrick Wayne Swayze August 18, 1952 Houston, Texas, U.S.
Died September 14, 2009 (aged 57) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Cause of death Pancreatic cancer
Resting place Ashes scattered in New Mexico ranch
Nationality American
Alma mater Coastal Carolina University
Occupation * Actor * dancer * singer-songwriter
Years active 1979–2009
Spouse(s) Lisa Niemi (m. 1975; his death 2009)

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I, Louis L. Brown, qualify as being a ghost since, in a bicycle accident 3 years ago, after I was taken via ambulance to the ICU at Denver Health Center, technically I died, according to the woman doctor, Dr. Johnson, who described what happened to me since personally I do not recall any of the trauma I suffered. I was bicycling in Wheat Ridge, near 52nd Avenue and Chase Street, and to judge by the bending and denting of my bicycle chain guard, I must have been hit by a car or truck or some vehicle.

Dr. Johnson said she did not personally save me, it was a medical technician. While in the ICU, I did not have the energy to ask to meet and thank the medical technician. I was there 3 weeks then I was transferred to Presbyterian Medical

Center in Denver, and, from there, I was transferred to Briarwood Rehab Center for another three weeks. The second half of my stay at Briarwood was quite pleasant and the food was very good. During the first half of my stay there I was fed through a stomach tube. I did not really adjust to that, so I barfed a a lot. Boo!

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Another interesting “ghost” for me is my deceased brother Thomas D. Brown who, for 2 years while he was attending Queens College (in New York City), reacted to the War in Vietnam by applying for status as conscientious objector. At the end of the 2 years, the military denied his claim to be a conscientious objector but gave him a I-Y status (like I have). If necessary, I would have applied for status as a conscientious objector, but things did not go that way in my case. A lot of draft eligible men resettled in Canada. Eventually Thomas D. Brown died of lung cancer. He smoked too many cigarettes.

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Another interesting ghost for me is my other younger brother, Charles F. Brown who worked as a manager in the 42nd Street Library in Manhattan. Like both of my parents, he was also against the War in Vietnam. He had an exceptionally beautiful Italian boyfriend, Pat Marra; they lived in the Bronx. Pat looked like a DaVinci painting. His hands were a work of art. Charlie died from drinking too many whiskey sours and Manhattans and Martini’s, etc. Pat Marra died from an overdose of cocaine.

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My parents, DeWitt Brown and Elinor Brown were also interesting characters who are no longer alive, but I will save them for another prompt in the future.

© 24 April 2017

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

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Ghosts, by Lewis Thompson

Ghosts are not the spirits of the dead hanging around to haunt us. They are creations of our own feelings of guilt. Regret is the only ghost we have to fear.

© 24 April 2017

About the Author

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

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Reputation by Will Stanton

I really was in the mood to prepare something more unusual and more interesting than just a run-of-the-mill story; but for a long time, the suggested topic “Reputation” did not inspire me. Naturally at first, I tried to think of a person whose reputation is remarkable. One came to mind, but I already have written about him.

On the other side of the coin and as occurs far too often, reputations are inflated, misleading, or even false. Quite often, a person’s reputation largely is the result of his “blowing his own horn,” in a sense, marketing himself. In contrast, those of us who, by nature or breeding, learned not to impose our own impressions of ourselves upon others suffer a lack of recognition and reward. Our accomplishments even may be met with skepticism because they are not widely known. My not settling upon any particular person, good or bad, I abandoned the thought of writing about a person.

Of course, the idea of reputation may apply to whole organizations, such as the I.R.S. or political organizations such as those financially supported by the Koch brothers, but I did not wish to upset my stomach and rejected them as a subject. Then, it occurred to me that reputation, good or bad, can apply to locations as well.

That’s when I decided to prepare something a little more amusing, writing about the abandoned Moonville railroad tunnel and all the wild rumors about it. Over the years, I have taken several rail-fan friends there to see it. The idea to write about it was sparked when I was doing a Google-search for railroad history near my home-town, and I stumbled upon an astonishing number of videos and websites devoted to supposed ghostly apparitions associated with the tunnel. This widespread reputation keeps growing. All one needs to do is talk to any person residing in the general area of the tunnel or just look on Google or YouTube for stories, pictures, and videos.

The ironic, but not surprising, reputation of the Moonville tunnel has nothing to do with reality or the utilitarian purpose of its construction but, rather, the generations of people who have imposed their fantasies upon the tunnel. Apparently, a large portion of the human population is prone to eagerly embrace such fantasies and escalate their spread.

Here is the factual history of the tunnel. Early in the nineteenth century, people living and working in southern Ohio decided that they needed a railroad to ship coal and iron, to take goods and produce to market, and to more conveniently move passengers. The construction of the Marietta and Ohio Railroad began in 1845. By 1856, the line had reached into the wilds of the isolated Zaleski Forest, named after a Polish count who had been persuaded to invest in the railroad with the hope of profiting from the coal reserves lying in the area. Vinton County remains as the most heavily forested and least populated county in Ohio. More memorable for me is the fact that the area surrounding Moonville is rather desolate, gloomy, inhospitable, and can be reached only by circuitous gravel roads through the forest. That alone can contribute to a person’s developing strange feelings about Moonville.

The tiny village of Moonville was built to house railroad-construction workers, miners, and those forging artillery pieces at nearby Hope Furnace for the Union army. The village consisted of a small row of clapboard houses, a general store, saloon, a saw mill along Raccoon Creek, and a cemetery atop the high ridge just to the east. At its peak in 1876, Moonville housed only around one hundred people. By 1947, the last family left, and the remaining structures crumbled into nothing. Only a few sandstone foundation stones remain.

It was that high ridge that obstructed the railroad without its having to be diverted in a large loop along Raccoon Creek to the other side. So, a tunnel was dug out and lined with brick. Above each portal, protruding bricks proudly spelled the name “Moonville.”

By 1887, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had crossed into Ohio, and they bought the Marietta and Cincinnati, using it as the main southwestern line from Washington to Cincinnati and St. Louis. In the later 20th century, in addition to freight-train traffic, Amtrak leased the rights to run passenger trains on the line. The one time in the early ’80s that I decided to go to Athens by train turned out to be the very last run of the Amtrak “Shenandoah” on the southwest line and through the Moonville Tunnel.

 The final owner, CSX Corporation, tired of maintaining that mainline through the low and isolated Zaleski Forest and cleaning up train wrecks such as the coal train that I saw tipped over right at the eastern portal. They abandoned the line by 1988 and pulled up the track, ties, and the short bridge near the west portal. I was surprised that CSX, out of any over-concern about potential injury and liability, did not close the tunnel by blowing up the portals. Instead, a portion of the line has been turned from rails into trails, allowing people to hike through the tunnel.

Because of Moonville’s isolated and unusual setting, tales of hauntings around the tunnel began as early as the 1890s. I suppose that it’s human nature to imagine experiencing paranormal phenomena and to weave tales about what they supposedly saw. Usually, such tales surround tragic events and deaths. There certainly were some incidents over 150 years, although such things can happen anywhere. It’s just that Moonville Tunnel makes for such an appropriate setting.

During the 19th century, the job of railroad brakeman was one of the most dangerous jobs known. Sure enough in 1859, a brakeman fell off a train near Moonville and was run over.

Over the years, local people often avoided the winding roads and made a habit of walking the rails, taking a shortcut through the tunnel, or hopping freights for a more direct route to Moonville. In 1866, a ten-year-old girl was walking on the small bridge near the west portal and was hit by a train. In 1876, thirteen-year-old Henry Sharkey hopped a freight, tried to jump off near Moonville, and was run over. In 1880, James Hood road a freight train from Athens to Moonville, jumped off, but smacked his head on a post. Mrs. Patrick Shay was trying to cross that same bridge in 1905 and was killed by a locomotive. Allen Albaugh hopped a freight in 1907 and fell off near the tunnel. Coal-miner Rastus Dexter took a shortcut through the tunnel in 1920 but did not make it to the other end. As recently as 1986, a girl scout on a hike tried to beat a train across the bridge.

There were a few other kinds of deaths, too. David Keeton was murdered along side the tracks in 1886, and another man was murdered in the Moonville Tavern in 1936.

But it was the 1880 head-on train crash that has sparked the most tales over the years. The tales spun around this incident grew to the point that someone even wrote a folk ballad about it. Starting with westbound train No. 99 in 1895 and for generations afterwards, locals told tales of a ghostly railroad man with a lantern trying to stop approaching trains near the tunnel. Rumor has it that this occurred so often that engineers were instructed to ignore such visions in the area of Moonville.

What amazes and amuses me is that the current generation of teenagers, college students, and locals, have not only perpetuated the tales surrounding Moonville Tunnel but actually have increased their number. Clusters of kids make the long trek through the Zaleski Forest to experience, what they hope to be, ghostly encounters. So called “ghost clubs” have sprung up, and whole groups come out to the tunnel, sometimes even at night, bringing their cameras and sound equipment. Often, they do convince themselves that they have witnessed something strange. A college student swore in 1993 that he actually saw a swinging lantern in the tunnel. Then these young ghost-hunters, fascinated with their experiences, upload their stories, pictures, and videos onto the web.

The unfortunate result of all this attention to the Moonville Tunnel and its reputation is that many kids have felt the urge to spray-paint graffiti throughout the tunnel and over the bricks forming the name on each portal. Fortunately, the cemetery on the hill above the tunnel has been left alone. Mother Nature has not been so crass as the kids have been, but she has contributed to the decay of the area around the tunnel. Within a few short years, new trees and shrubs have crowded in on either side of the railroad right-of-way, and soil has crumbled down upon the path.

Moonville is a perfect example of reputation based upon people’s perception and imagination rather than more prosaic facts. It also is a good example of how such a reputation can grow and spread. Once this happens, people are less interested in hearing facts, especially when the facts are far less exciting than the myths. After all, the Moonville myths are so much more fun.


© 9 October 2014

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.