I love to hear/see ghost stories, although if it is before bedtime I will have to watch a comedy directly afterward so that I'm not freaked the F out while trying to sleep. I love to watch "Ghost Hunters" and "Paranormal State" and all of that stuff - I get way much more out of that than watching people from New Jersey fucking people and being trash. So last night I was at Kim's and we were watching the movie "Rushmore" and when that was over "Celebrity Ghost Stories" was on the Bio channel.
The strangest events of last night were not on the "Celebrity Ghost Stories" show but they do involve the show. Things like these, bizarre coincidences, happen to me all of the time.........
In the movie "Rushmore" there was an Asian girl named Margaret Yang. I joked to Kim that all Asian girls' American names are Margaret, then coming up with only one.....Margaret Cho.
Featured on "Celebrity Ghost Stories" after the movie were; Marilyn Manson, Daryl Hannah, some dancing with the stars dancer, the Blink 182 drummer's wife (not sure how that makes her a celeb), Rebecca DeMornay, and none other than.......you guessed it........Margaret Freaking Cho! What the hell? When is the last time I have ever even seen Asian comic Margaret Cho? What are the odds?
Later during the show, in the midst of Rebecca DeMornay's bit, they cut to a commercial break. The second commercial was about asthma medication, and I mentioned how appropriate that was because of the scene in "Hand That Rocks the Cradle" where Rebecca DeMornay takes the wife's inhaler from the drawer. When I left to go home, Kim must have been checking out what was on next.......She texted me and told me "Hand That Rocks the Cradle" is on! Seriously, when is the last time that movie was on TV? Weird.
So yes, I love ghost stories. Part of my fascination comes from first-hand experiences. Beyond the stories of Grampa Julio (posted earlier in this blog), I have 2 other ghostly encounters to share.
The first is somewhat mild, but a kick-ass story. There is a road in the Harrisburg area (Red Land-ish area) with a legend attached to it. Perhaps it is just an urban legend. Perhaps it is for realz. As the road grades downhill, it comes to a "T" - there is an old story that a school bus once was unable to stop at the "T" and instead took a violent spill down a forested hill, killing several children. The legend has a ghost story attached with it, and one Halloween, some friends and I took to the streets to see if this story was true. With me were Eric Benner (the driver), Meg Hamilton, and Ali Souter.....we had been with Jamie Banzhoff, but I don't think she came with us on this adventure.
Benner knew where to find this place. He did what the legend said to do.....when you approach the "T" on this downward slope, you are to put the car in neutral. One would think that you then drift down the hill in neutral on a downward slope.....but not here. We instead rolled backwards up the slope! The story goes that ghosts of the dead children will push your car uphill to save you from suffering the same fate they did!
So we did it, it happened, it was freaky yet extremely awesome at the same time. Now, here's the part that's even more freaky. As we drove away from the scene and we were still reeling with excitement mixed with a touch of fear, we saw a vehicle driving around.....AN EMPTY SCHOOL BUS! I don't remember what night of the week it was, but I do know that it was very late at night at a time and in an area that school buses have no reason to frequent. Looking back, though, I think that maybe it would be more freaky if there were actually kids in the school bus! But that's not all.......right after we saw the school bus, a song came on the radio.....a song from 1987, while we were in the year 2000 or so.....a song by White Lion called "When the Children Cry." Oh man, was that a freaky occurrence!
Ghost story #2 is much more frightening because it happened to me all alone and unexpectedly. I had no way to brace myself for it and I had no urban legend card to play in order to shake it off.
This happened during the last summer. My parents were away on vacation. I was supposed to water the plants. One Sunday night after dropping my kids off at their mommy's house, I decided that I would water the plants, and while doing that chore I would just like to be alone in the house and I would stay the night. I still had my job in management at the newspaper place then, so I had to be awake by midnight. So I was in bed around 9 or 10 in order to get a couple hours of sleep. Keep in mind I was sleeping in the same bed that I sleep in every other week; when I have my kids, we sleep at my parents' house.
Over the summer, I had a terrible cough. After a while I took cold meds; it didn't go away. I theorized that it was perhaps Taco Bell withdrawal, so I ate Taco Bell; it didn't go away. Eventually it would be determined that it was some form of asthma. But before that, I developed another theory about my cough.....that ghosts were trying to strangle me. This is how that theory developed.
I did not have this coughing thing yet. But while I was sleeping that night, it started. I woke up coughing uncontrollably from out of the blue and I was having a hard time catching my breath. It literally felt like someone was trying to strangle me. After I was finally able to catch my breath, I ran downstairs, got a drink of water, and crawled back into bed, ready to sleep for the hour and a half or so that I had remaining. Just as I closed my eyes, I heard a very loud knocking sound....it wasn't coming from the front door but even if it had who the hell would be knocking at my parents' front door around 10:30 or 11:00 at night? It wasn't coming from inside the house. It sounded like someone was knocking on the wall of the room I was in! That really freaked me out, but I tried to justify it to myself....maybe it was just one of those house noises that older homes make, maybe it was some noise from further away from the house, or maybe it was just my imagination.
But right after that, I had another coughing fit that lasted about 10 minutes - same deal, felt like I was being strangled. As I finally settled back down, I laid down again to catch the minimal amount of Z's that I could, and THE KNOCKING SOUND BEGAN AGAIN. I was in that state where your body just becomes petrified. I couldn't move and I couldn't make a sound. I laid there still and silent and listened hard to see if I would hear it again. I didn't. But when I finally regained the motion of my body, I got the F out of there and went back to my house to sleep for maybe a half hour before I had to go to work!
I don't know if it was a ghost or not, but I can't think of anything else that it could have been to make that same loud knocking noise against the house twice in that span of time, unless maybe it really was just my imagination. I know I did not see any ghosts, therefore I have no evidence, but I also know I wasn't going to investigate the situation to see if I would see them! My coughing fits lasted for well over a month after that and no loud knocking noises followed me anywhere and I have yet to experience any other occurrences like that at my parents' house, but I also have not been there alone (nor will I be!). I ultimately was given a couple different inhalers by my doctor, and my coughing fits went away and have not yet returned. Perhaps the medicine worked? Perhaps the ghosts decided to leave me alone?
Either way, I sure as hell hope that neither that cough nor the ghosts return to visit me.
