A Preamble Tale

Our family has been Ontario's Algonquin Park campers for many years. Since our boys were in their early teens, we have canoed on many of the fabulously scenic park lakes..... but our favorites have always been Canoe Lake, Tea Lake and Rock Lake. As an ongoing researcher somewhat obsessed with the alleged drowning death of Canadian artist Tom Thomson, I have spent my vacations close to Canoe Lake (for study) where his body was found in the early summer of 1917. I believe it was murder. I will deal with this down the road in my blog collection.
One evening at Rock Lake, as my wife and son Andrew were sitting down at the campground's beachfront, adjacent to the famous Booth Trail, they watched in the low light of autumn dusk, a man walk through the shoreline area, down onto the beach, stop momentarily, and then walk into the water. He hadn't taken many steps into the lake when he simply vanished. A ghost? An apparition? A message to the living from someone who has passed? Who can say?
It was only a short time before this holiday weekend for us, that a gent had perished in a canoe mishap a short distance from this camping area, being found on the other side of the bay several days after he went missing. Could it have been the image of the chap repeating the events of that fateful night. This is an example of the kind of encounters our family has had, and never discounted, over the past twenty five years. We don't over analyze these events and we certainly aren't frightened when something similar happens in our day to day activities. We are open-minded to such interactions but we don't make any attempt to draw spirits into our domain, or hope to make any particular connections with the other side. If it happens, well, it happens, and we appreciate the opportunity to experience something a tad outside simple explanation.
Our many parallel encounters certainly won't make the next thriller movie out of Hollywood and I don't believe there's one story here that would be the spark for an author to embellish into fiction. These are just honest, non-sensational recollections of personal experiences with unknown entities that may abut or prutrude a tad into the true definition of paranormal. Yet the fact of their commonplace may validate your own encounters that you may or may not have dismissed as something unworthy of after-thought. Then this is for you......not stories to frighten.....rather accounts to enlighten. Please read on!

The author's old haunt
I graduated York University in 1977 with a degree in Canadian history, and was eager to latch onto any historical project that would employee an obsessive guy like me. In that same year and wishing to stay around Bracebridge for awhile, I commenced planning for the soon to be established Bracebridge Historical Society, with the idea of saving a late 1800's octagonal estate overlooking the cataract of the Bracebridge Falls, called Woodchester Villa....or as it was best known, "The Bird House," the family name of homeowner and woolen mill founder Henry Bird. Working to create the historical society gave me the opportunity to work alongside Canadian author Wayland Drew, (Superior: The Haunted Shore), who at the time was teaching at Bracebridge and Muskoka Lakes Secondary School. Of the many talented writers I have had association with over the past 30 years, it was Wayland who pushed me hardest and the furthest to carry on with new writing challenges. I would have given up years ago if not for his encouragment. For a wannabe writer/historian fresh out of university. without a clue what the profession actually meant in suffering and prosperity, Wayland Drew was the perfect mentor at the most vulnerable time.
Jamming everything I could in to my post graduate enterprises, my family began Old Mill Antiques, a small gift and collectable business located on upper Manitoba Street, across from scenic Memorial Park.
The early century (early 1900's) three story brick home, on upper Manitoba Street (north) had been built earlier in the century for Dr. Peter McGibbon (former M.P. for Muskoka). It was a beautiful family home and medical office, with a carriage house tucked in behind the attractive but overgrown gardens, with several large maples on the property, the remnants of Mrs. McGibbon's flare for landscaping. When our family moved into the house, the building had been transformed into a number of apartments above a commercial bottom floor. We took over the bottom section which included enough room for a good sized shop and an apartment in the back. A plus of course to a fledgling writer /old book collector, was that there was a back staircase which led to a huge attic. The narrow, creaky stairs one level up connected with a locked door to a second story apartment rented to a young couple we seldom saw or heard. The large front window of the attic looked down on Memorial Park and in the winter it afforded an amazing vantage point, to watch citizens and school kids trundling through the newly fallen snow from the night before. It was an amazingly bright room despite the fact it only had one window. The only other was one on the upper level of the staircase which was too small to offer much light to enter the large rectangular room.
I set up a small office desk in front of the front window and that's where I spent many nights holed-up, working well into the morning hours, pounding out short stories and historical essays, and my early work as a starving poet. You could not have asked for a more inspirational place to write and I went through many typewriter ribbons during that prolific period, which probably has not been equalled since.
Despite the reality it was a positive, inspirational place to work, there was however, a strange and unsettling aura prevailing in the room that became more pronounced at certain times of the day. Frequently it was in the late afternoon as the winter sun was growing weaker that a curious melancholy came over the space, which I attributed to the subtle change of illumination. Then in the hours after midnight, I could feel very much isolated and cold, as if I was looking at the world below as one would watch the settling of a recently agitaged snow globe. I would never have thought initially, the mood of the long attic room had anything to do with the paranormal. It was just a room that seemed to be sensibly disconnected from all else, which for writing was the perfect distance from actuality for the watcher above, recording his home town's actions and reactions. The attic had a moodiness that changed rapidly and I always believed it was, in all cases, related to the brightness factor. In the evening by lamplight, it had a welcoming, warm feeling about it but during the day, depending on the time, it could prove to be dank and forboding, despite the initial appearances of being light and cheerful upon entry. There was a presence in the room most of the time and there was always a noticeable characteristic of unresolved history, an aroma, sounds, voices from somewhere that I always discounted because it was an old house with some aches and pains in its roof and walls.
I can remember a number of times feeling a cold chill of air and pondering to myself whether it was the failings of an old house or a ghost passing by, yet not dwelling on the paranormal for more than a momentary consideration. I've never been scared of ghosts so it wasn't a bad feeling or one that made me feel in any way uneasy. My work at the typewriter was progressing well and judging by the volume of finished projects, it had been the most accomodating location I'd ever worked in......and strange aura or not, this attic above the town was suited to my historical overviews. In fact, the first unofficial meeting of the Bracebridge Historical Society was held in the attic early in 1978.....and while only several members bothered to show up, it was the engaging spark of a new movement in the community straddling the 45th parallel of lattitude.
When the young couple in the apartment below found a better suited rental unit across town, it afforded me another level of the house to explore. At that time there were quite a few rental options in town so it did take quite awhile to find a use for the single bedroom unit. In fact my parents eventually took it over and we were able to expand the shop into another big room in the lower portin of the home. At that time I kept the back portion which offered a kitchen, bathroom and small bedroom. Plus I still had access to the attic. With this second floor apartment unoccupied, I used to leave the back door abutting the narrow staircase open, with the bathroom light on to help me navigate up and down late at night. I had navigated it several times in the dark by railing but had nearly fallen a couple of times; having the light made the climb much safer.
When I came down the stairs for the last time, usually just past midnight, I would stop off at the second floor apartment to switch off the bathroom light. I'd been doing this for about a half year and although your eyes had to adjust to the now dark staircase, the light below did illuminate at least three quarters of the decline. On one winter evening I followed an identical protocol. It was after midnight, and I had just turned off the main attic light on the wall, at the off-kilter doorway leading to the staircase landing. This was precarious because of the poor light. You might say I had to walk toward the light from this point! I walked slowly down the steps, being able to see reasonably well from the upward glow of the bathroom light on the second floor. When I arrived at the second floor, and having just turned off that light, I took the same small steps, very slowly out onto the landing for the final flight of stairs which led to my kitchen. The kitchen light illuminated about ten of twenty remaining stairs.
When I made my way onto the small platform of the second floor, no more than one step through the doorway, I had walked from total blackness into a cloud of brilliant white light. It felt like an immersion into a cold mist and there was a distinct musty aroma connected to whatever it was I had witnessed..... and I dare say, fully experienced. I stopped immediately for fear that I would not make the next step, and fall down the remaining section of winding stairway. It was a sensation like none other in my life. It lasted only a few seconds but its passing left a lifttime impression. I remember standing there stunned by what had just passed over me, too unnerved to do anything but hold onto the door-frame in case whatever it was came back. My eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness once again, and I decided to move down the staircase slowly. When I got to the base I sat down on the bottom step in total awe of an experience I was pretty sure was supernatural. As I sat there in shock, there was a substantial gust of cold wind that blew down on my back, strong enough to move my hair..... and penetrating enough for me to feel the chill through my thick winter sweater. Considering it was a frigid winter night, and in this old house the hot air was pushing up from the clanging oil furnace in the basement, pulsing through the many vents in the lower units, there wasn't much chance cold air was going to push down those stairs at my back. It would have created an in-house thunderstorm with this collision of the hot and cold. I stood, slowly turned and looked back up the staircase, and I was trembling at the very idea I had met up face to face, body to body with a ghost.....one that had apparently taken the liberty of returning to tap me on the shoulder to reinforce the significance of the impromtu meeting.
I never spoke a word of this to my parents the next day. The subject never came up and rather than being called a "nutter" I just decided to leave the matter alone. I still went up to the attic at night and worked but if I was anticipating another cloud walk, it wasn't about to happen. What did occur to validate my experience came several days later while I was working in our antique shop. A group of well dressed older people came into the store and were thrilled by the fact they could get into the house and look at some of the rooms....which I initially thought was just a group of architecturally keen sightseers. It was a fascinating house afterall with many built in cupboards and a tiny office-libary that at one time looked out over the sprawling gardens. When one of the vistors started explaining to the other where certain pieces of furniture had been, when she used to call in at the house as a child, I knew there was a little more depth to the visit. When I got a chance to visit with the group for a moment, one of the ladies explained that a family member who had once lived in this house, had only recently passed away, and they had just moments earlier come from the memorial service at the funeral home next door. As it turned out,.....and I never said one word about experiencing anything, they pinpointed the death to within minutes of my experience on the back staircase. At that moment, yup, I felt a cold chill run up my spine...., not because there was ghost in the room but because it was pretty obvious I had inadvertently, on that particular winter night, participated in one of those final jaunts of the spirit-kind through what it recalled of the material world. It wasn't a fearful situation and no harm was done to the witness but just the same, it was then thusly validated.... "I saw what I saw." But in fact, I'd known this only moments after sitting on that bottom stair and recollecting in detail what would make such a cold, misty illumination in a nearly blacked-out staircase of an old and lived-in house? A ghost might? What do you think?
This story was originally published in one of John Robert Columbo's books on paranormal encounters in Canada, back in the mid 1990's.
I have thought about this many times since but now I adamently believe the sensation of that mist-on-the-staircase did have a parallel with another supernatural....unexplained encounter in my life, which I recorded earlier in this blog-collection. It was curiously similar to the sensory experience I had in the company of my guardian angel (real or the fabrication of a fevered wee lad)....the one strangely met as a child, while living in an apartment complex in Burlington, Ontario. Whether I was actually in the company of an angel or it was an illness-generated experience, possibly a fever induced dream,...... regardless of the preamble, I so poignantly remember the cool nirvana....the almost floating sensation, of being in company with my heavenly messenger. It was as much the same aura. A feeling being evoked of peace and contentment. I wasn't nervous within.....but rather beyond and without its presence. I only became unsettled when analyzing what had occurred. Being amidst the vapor was kind of neat.....nothing that would frighten anything or anyone. But as soon as I reminded myself that such things could be considered "ghosts," well, that fanned the flames of imagination.
The McGibbon house was haunted. There were so many events that we just took the interventions in stride, and talked kindly to the occupiers. If it was indeed the McGibbons, then it was haunted by the finest citizens of the old town because they were revered by all....their work on behalf of the community was legendary. As a doctor at the new Red Cross Memorial Hospital, Dr. McGibbon was a key component to its survival through amazingly difficult years of under-staffing and under-funding. He had served with the 122nd Muskoka Battalion before its transformation into another regiment during the First World War, and Mrs. McGibbon was involved in many community groups helping improve life and social/cultural enhancements at home. During the period Peter McGibbon was the Federal Member of Parliament, it is said that Sir Arthur Meighen would often escape the controversies of The Hill, as member of the Opposition (and short lived Prime Minister), and stay with the McGibbons in this same house which afforded me so many prolific writing days up in that apparently quite haunted attic. I have heard the story several times from those who knew the McGibbons, that when their young daughter, and only child, became ill..... and after some time succumbed, her father, a well travelled and experienced doctor, fell into a deep depression because he could not save her life. It is said he never fully recovered from her death. What I believe adamently is that there were many strong emotions having prevailed in that house over the decades, from intense and strong-willed residents and patients, and it had carried over as a prevailing patina or aura that you felt upon entering through the front door. It didn't make you feel as if you should turn and run out...... yet it subtly made you aware this was an historical, storied residence harboring many important family and community milestones, like another house I was involved in at the same time, known of course as the Bird House, but officially as Woodchester Villa and Museum.....a story I would like to relate later in this collection of blogs on Muskoka ghosts and haunts.
When my parents and I decided to close up the antique shop, simply because of job offers that had unexpectedly arrived for my father, at a lumber company in Parry Sound, Ontario, and for me at the Muskoka Lakes-Georgian Bay Beacon (newspaper), in the Muskoka hamlet of MacTier, I took over their second floor apartment (the one with the spooky back door onto the stairs), turning over downstairs to a health food shop that kept me in fresh bread and wonderful cheese for years. In this tiny apartment which still offered an amazing view onto the park across the street, my cat "Animal" and I had many paranormal encounters. At certain times of the evening which may have been two or three times, spaced an hour or so apart, Animal would run to the doorway leading from the kitchen to the tiny hall that led to both the bathroom and the back stairs....my favorite spot for meeting up with curious wayward vapors. The cat would sit on the floor and look up at the door frame as if he saw something at the top. It was always the same place and for a long time I assumed it was a mouse moving around inside the wall. When it persisted, I just had a hunch there was something more to this nightly event, and prepared to take a photograph of the doorway the very next time it happened. I had my camera's motorwind juiced up and lots of film. I lowered the lights in the connecting livingroom but the hallway itself was dark.
Right on the button, Animal awoke from a sound sleep on the sofa, and wound up sitting in his usual place, on the linoleum floor looking up at the door frame or possibly the corner wall. I set myself up carefully so as not to disturb cat or entity but "Animal" was too intent on meeting the intruder, to worry about me clanging camera equipment. I started firing off flash enhanced shots on the approach and took all different angles of what I perceived to be the cat's subject area of focus. After I'd spent 24 shots, I stopped and stared awhile myself and watched the cat slowly turn away, trot off and jump back up on the couch to resume its nap. It was always just that matter of fact.....and it happened frequently. I hoped to have got some photo-evidence of action in that doorway, and just what, if anything, the cat was watching on those brief but timely vigils.
When my newspaper colleague developed the negatives, he printed a number of images off one particular frame that showed a definite white mist exactly where the cat was watching. I had several of these printed up (I have them somewhere in my archives but can't find them at this moment) and asked him, as a professional photographer, to determine if the white mist could be a lens flaw, or light flare caused by any number of light bounce-back scenarios. He assured me that what appeared as a whisp of smoke was not a flare, a flaw or a manifestation of the darkroom development. It appeared for all intents and purposes that I had got a legitimate image of something that was invisible to me but quite attractive to Animal the cat. And of course what makes this a tad more interesting, is that it was occuring nightly within a few feet of where I had experienced first hand, the wee white mist of a departed former resident. Was I nuts? Possibly. It did make living in the old house quite interesting.
The former McGibbon house offered a plethora of paranormal encounters and events over my years spent there from 1977 to 1983 give or take a few months. All the residents at one time or other had strange encounters and although they were slightly more reserved about proclaiming the estate to be haunted, it was obvious the house had some entertaining and a few annoying quirks for all the residents. There were hundreds of occasion when I'd here footsteps right up to my door and hear the door handle rattle. When I'd go to see who had arrived, there would be nothing but air and a view of the carpet covered stairs....which was interesting in itself considering the footsteps always seemed to sound as if they were on bare wood as they probably were in the early days of the house.
It was not uncommon to hear your name being called and frequently I'd run over to my neighbor's door on the same second floor level, to ask what she wanted. "I didn't call you," she'd reply. "It must have been the ghost." It's funny how after awhile, what would make good copy in a book about ghosts, like this blog-site, becomes quite commonplace. There were so many sounds, door rapping, window knocking, things being hidden and moved, dark shadows moving in the lower hall and sundry other footfalls and door knob rattling that we just considered and weighed for posterity, the most aggressive intrusions...... and well, pretty much blew-off the rest as the character sounds of an old house getting older. Still, the most relevant point of all, to each person who dwelled there, was that it was a friendly, welcoming abode that meant no harm to anyone. I would have stayed there in perpetuity except that with a new bride and a family on the way, more space and a quieter neighborhood was deemed more appropriate. I can never forget the goodwill bestowed upon me by this former doctor's house/office in uptown Bracebridge....long since torn down in favor of a new office building and apartments. I've often wondered whether or not the paranormal occupants stayed on in the new digs or left with the rubble of a once grand estate.
I owe much of my early accomplishments in writing and the study of regional history in Bracebridge and Muskoka, to those early years cradled by this inspiring homestead, which gave me an insightful yet practical vantage point to watch the comings and goings of the old hometown. I can remember on one occasion, shortly before I moved to my wife's apartment a few blocks away, standing in the late spring evening on the front walk, looking up at the attic window where I had once worked late on enticing, warm evenings as this......and I could have sworn on a Bible, I saw the silhouette of a person in that exact same position....just as I would have been viewed by any pedestrian passing by the house. Yet there was no one in that attic. No writer. No poet. No resident. Possibly it was my own spirit staying behind in kindness, committed to a cherished place on earth. Maybe it was just a wee fluster of an over-active imagination. Still, after all these years, I can not pass the site of this grand old estate built by the McGibbons, and not think kindly of the good old days spent in its comforting embrace, writing about my hometown well into the wee hours of yet another night well spent.

My first encounter with the other side - Angel of Mercy, Angel with a Mission
My life partner Suzanne and I frequently reminisce about our respective childhoods. We agree our play-days were pretty good as childhood goes, and we both enjoyed any opportunity afforded us, to disappear deeply into the haunted woodlands for an untold number of adventures of the fantastic. She grew up in the community of Windermere, on the shore of beautiful Lake Rosseau, here in the picturesque heartland of the District of Muskoka. The Stripp family operated the Windermere Marina, in the mid sixties to mid 1970's, and owned both a house in the village and a cottage a short distance away. She had a splendid childhood amidst some of the most beautiful forest lands in the entire region, particularly at the cottage tucked beneath towering evergreens. When we compare notes about the paranormal, she has frequently told me about the times, near the peak of hillside rising from the lakeshore, when she could hear a faint, pleasant music, as if the orchestrated fairykind were somehow responsible. It was farm pasture on one side and pinery on the other, and despite the proximity to other cottages, the music couldn't be heard even a few steps away from the particular site. There was no radio in the vicinity, and it was unlikely any of the cows grazing were responsible for the joyful melody. Suffice to say, she allowed the fairies their revel, and to this day believes it wasn't a case of an over-active imagination. For her it was a very real experience. If you related this same story in Ireland, Scotland or England, initially, and by today's standards of non-belief in many of the old legends, it might be suggested you were thusly quite mad as a child......while at the same time agreeing that some of their own family members had also, decades back, reckoned similarly with these creatures of shadowy forest-lands. If you've ever had a similar experience, of hearing for example, voices and or someone calling your name, when in fact nobody is within earshot anyway, then you will appreciate how hearing music in the midst of a thicket, is just as confounding to the rational mind. Books on paranormal experiences are loaded with similar references.....hearing something that apparently doesn't have a normal, understood source.....are these the voices of the wee folk, the deceased, or the strange harmony of an over-active imagination.
Take for example, voices that have been heard by many passersby, generating from within the woodlands that rise above a fast water section of the Muskoka River, known as Balsam Chutes, near Port Sydney, where many folks and neighbors claim to have heard cries and words spoken but have never come upon the source. The local lore suggests that there are native gravesites on the property, holding the remains of men who challenged the rapids as proof of bravery, only to have perished trying. This is the grandest, widest measure of hearsay, yet the same could be said of my wife's claim to have heard music in the midst of a rather dense woodland. I have been on the spot of the alleged challenge of the rapids, and supposedly the grave sites, and I can add my name to those who have claimed to have heard voices. Whether it is the powerful thrust and wash of the water over the rocks, creating a strong undertow which has claimed many lives in the past, or the wind rushing through the evergreens along the shore, it is an eerie location, that does play on the mind..... most likely because of the folks, even in recent history, who have perished in the deadly current. It's one of few places that almost seems to repel a percentage of hikers, canoeists and sightseers, who quickly sense it to be dark and oppressive, while to the photographer being a most beautiful cascade of water into the black, reflecting pool at the bend in the watercourse.
I have spent many years enjoying the woodlands of Muskoka and Algonquin Park, and there are few places that make me feel as an intruder. I did have a similar feeling once however, while visiting the rapids below the Tea Lake Dam in Algonquin Park, where Canadian landscape artist, Tom Thomson used to fish. I was at the park to get some actuality for a series of articles I was writing about Thomson and his mysterious death while canoeing on nearby Canoe Lake, in July 1917. I am a lifetime subscriber to the murder theory, versus alleged accidental drowning to explain his sudden and tragic death. The drowning scenario was initiated by a provincial coroner that same July, suggesting simply.....a long-long way from foul play..... that the slightly tipsy artist fell out of his canoe while urinating, hitting his temple against the gunnel on the way down into the water. While no biographer or art historian will deny Thomson liked his spirits, it wasn't his usual launching beverage in preparation for a long paddle with numerous portages. To urinate mid-lake in daylight, with a lot of folks around at the time, seems quite unlikely.
While wandering the picturesque shoreline of the river at the Tea Lake Dam, and listening to the constant wash of water over the rocks, it seemed as if I had company though nobody was at my side. My wife and children were up on the dam site at that point. It was as if I was standing beside Thomson, as he was throwing out his line into one of the dark pools between the rocks. Every now and again, just when I'd swear this time someone was coming up behind me, there was nothing but forest and wildflowers wavering in the light breeze. Not even a deer. Or racoon. Considering that I have been researching the Tom Thomson mystery for well more than a decade, and having always felt Thomson's spirit was willing to give a helping hand to encourage more research, I guess it wasn't all that surprising to feel his company then.....considering dozens of other coincidences that occurred during this time period. Suzanne used to say that, "Tom must want you to identify his killer." Later in this blog collection I will let you in on the plethora of coincidental events that occured during the most intensive periods of research into the death of Tom Thomson, that don't by themselves validate paranormal intervention but sure make you ponder just what the other side does for kicks. I've often kidded my contemporaries, friends and writing associates that if we talk about Thomson, his work, life, demise, I will guarantee that they too will experience some of the same coincidences I've enjoyed these many years. And it does appear, and I've told this to more accomplished Thomson researchers and writers than me.......that he wants a resolution to the story of his misadventure; that it be known and re-written in future biographies, he was murdered and..... we should do what is necessary to vindicate and correct misinformation about his ability as a canoeist.....which by most of his mates was competent canoemanship.......putting to rest the theory he was stupid enough to relieve himself in mid-lake when he was only minutes from shore. As much his challenge to those paying attention, is to reveal without doubt, the name of his murderer. Which has been somewhat established and will be detailed later on in this blog site.
Angel or Something Out of the Ordinary - A Dream? A Fantasy? Why has it stayed with me all these years?
An impromtu meeting with an angel! It was my own first experience with the so called "other side," or "heaven" as we have come to think of it in a variety of forms and dimensions, depending on your expectation or tutored anticipation of what is "heavenly" and "divine" of believed afterlife. While my parents have never suggested I was a sickly kid, I did manage to catch most of what was coming down the pike, and there were very few creature discomforts of childhood illness that I didn't have before my first teenage zit. In one particularly bad bout of unnamed sickness, I suffered weeks with a cough so bad it made me vomit during each lung wrenching jag. I used to sleep upright in a big chair with a plastic pail at my side because sure enough, once I started to cough it was going to end badly. The doctor who saw me through the ordeal didn't call it whooping cough although I heard my mother wonder aloud several times that it probably was....'cause it sure sounded like a "whoop" whenever I tied into another breath-chasing cough. I didn't know what that meant other than they talked about it with a serious tone, and I didn't like the tone of the whispered suggestion, "what if it is actually whooping cough?" That sort of left me hanging in the balance, wondering if my life-expectancy was in the "if" zone......listening attentively to my own cough, to determine in first-person if there was indeed a "whooping" sound just before the end-of-cycle wretching into the yellow pail.
I could only sleep for about 15 or so minutes without interruption and I know that with fever and disgust for food, I was getting pretty weak and wondering what was to become of me, as I felt the force of coughing was literally turning me inside out. One night after about a week of this hacking and vomiting, my mother was tending a nasty bout of fever, and I had to keep an ice pack on my forehead and one weighted down on my chest. It was in the wee hours of that same night, I suppose at a time when the fever likely abated, when I had an encounter with a heavenly messenger. It happened thusly. The location of said experience was a three level apartment building in the City of Burlington, Ontario, my first home turf. A great place for any kid to live. A big bright backyard with a magnificent cherry tree in the middle, a ravine and babbling creek thriving just below the apartment parking lot. It was a clean and secure building run by a kindly family. It wasn't haunted I can tell you that with confidence. As for angelic visitations. I'm not sure but here's my story anyway.
I know it was a dream. There's no doubt in my mind because in my condition I couldn't have walked down two flights of stairs in the multi level apartment building, (the way I was confined to this chair), and then while coughing myself into oblivion, navigated another section to the laundry room where the strange encounter took place. At the time I was probably six or seven years of age and didn't leave the apartment without express permission from my mother. In this dream I am wandering down the marble hallway, and without going down any stairs whatsoever except in the final steps of this fantasy encounter. I wind up at the door to the laundry room, open it, and climb down the ten or so stairs to what was basement level but only slightly below ground floor. I can remember it all so clearly even though it was so many decades ago.
When I stopped at the bottom, and looked back toward the door that had closed slowly behind me, I was absolutely consumed by the vision of an angel hovering above a table to the right of the stairs. I was as spellbound as the burl of a maple is hard, and I stood silently gazing at this magnificently glowing winged creature, with such a beautiful face and kindly expression, so brilliantly white and soft in appearance, looking down at me as if I had been on time for my pre-arranged appointment. When I tell this to people I know, the automatically think, "the kid was delusional, that's all....his fever was breaking....it was a dream, nothing else!" I can't say I blame them. But it wasn't the vision as much as the feeling that has preserved the significance of the meeting for the better part of 53 years of otherwise rational behaviour. There was such an invasive feeling of peace and safety in her presence, and it very much felt as if I was also floating and hovering as was my angel companion. And while one would have expected from the encounter, some sage advice from angel to witness, not a single word was spoken....not one advisory from God. Yet I was full of the message of its shining goodwill, and in all these years I have been able, at will, to recreate the image of the heavenly visitor, and the lightness and sheer power of her aura which haloed around her head. It was as if I was parachuting down to earth, being unconcerned at that moment whether the chute had actually been deployed or not. It didn't matter. There was no choice but to give this creature my full attention. I have read a multitude of books on angels and mortal encounters with these divine creatures, and they very much parallel my own experiences during that brief evening - early morning visitation.
When Suzanne, one day, pestered me to provide a more accurate word to describe what it was like to be in an angel's company, I thought for several moments, ruling out many inadequate descriptive words, until final deciding it was more like "ecstasy" than say "happiness" or "contentment," for example...or at least it was my perception of the moment. I pretty much had the full range of sensations expected from a mere mortal, who finds oneself plunked unceremoniously.... the selected guest of heavenly company. For the time I was in the angel's presence, there was no discussion but many mindful messages received. It was the true and honest beginning for me, for a liftetime believing in the existence of the "other side,"......the truth about heaven you might say having been wrought into belief by a guardian angel about to spare my life.......although admittedly my understanding of the afterlife may not be the same as those who have studied its existence by references in the bible, and discussions at the church representing their faith.
In the last moments of my encounter, I recall so clearly the peaked senses in my body, feeling warmth yet a comfortable chill, as if sky-diving through a canopy of clouds. I believe it was an introduction to my guardian angel and it has been a frequently recalled experience at times through life when I have become disenchanted and frustrated, pondering what the point was, of marching on toward more of the same. It doesn't take more than a few seconds to relive the same sensations, of safety and inspiration, a touch of nirvana in the embrace of a most glorious trust and enlightenment. And the task and drudgery of survival becomes more palatable. I have always felt fortunate to have been able to draw upon this alleged visitation, and never once has it let me down over the largest part of an active lifetime.
I wasn't scared to be in her presence but at the same time, it did remind me of stories my parents had told me about death and transformation to the realm of heaven. Was it my time? Was this my guide to heaven, sent upon news I would succumb to my ailment? If so, it was only momentary. In support of the delusional theory, I woke up later that same evening, sweating buckets, being tended by my mother Merle, who I overheard whispering to my father Ed, "I think his fever has finally broken." It's the only other thing I remember about that night, other than of course, being in the company of an angel. Obviously I survived my nasty bout with the flu or something similar, and it was the first and last time I've dreamed about being in company of an angel. Keeping in mind, I really didn't have too much information about the work and follow-through of angels on the job, in order to make a "what I knew before and what I know now" distinction about paranormal visitations. The only angel image I'd ever seen to that point was on a Christmas card my parents received.....nothing at all that would have helped me dream up such a compelling vision of heaven on earth. If it was only a dream, it was an academy award winning dream. If it was a heavenly intervention, then I must have been precariously balanced on the rounded, slippery point between survival and succumbing....and this beautiful and gentle creature appeared to let me know, by sensation alone, that Heaven wasn't quite ready for me yet. And no, as some of my family members have wondered, I have never in my mortal days, experienced anything, anywhere that could compete with the power and invasive qualities of my guardian angel. I have never witnessed any shade of white being as brilliant as the gown and wings she was gloriously attired. For a dream it was a powerful, life enhancing experience....one that has held me in good stead ever since. The recognition it was a dream and not an in-person, "mortal to spirit-kind event", doesn't diminish the impact one bit. When I'm asked whether I believe in heaven, or generally the after-life, well, I've got enough information to answer affirmative but it has nothing at all to do with what my religious faith, and a host of ministers over the years have tutored me to believe.
Despite feeling dreadfully ill and exhausted from the ordeal, the dream was a most pleasing escape from what prevailed on the wee body even when asleep. It is I believe rare to remember a dream over decades and in my case it is coming close to fifty years. It was a doozy. It's one thing to be able to recall the dream itself but quite another to remember so vividly, with such sensory awareness, what the dream felt like....what the witness experienced beyond the vision of an angel. Such that today I can sit here and so clearly recall the feeling of being suspended in the air, amidst the mist-like, cool, illuminated from within, cloud-like sensation of the atmosphere yet the warm and comforting aura of what I can only explain as eternal guardianship. And coincidentally, my fever broke. There isn't a single sensation however, that can't be related to a caring mother with a cold compress, in a compassionate chairside vigil. I've always thought it was a kind of partnership that got me through this childhood ailment anyway. I don't expect I'll ever resolve this vision any further along than I have related now, and I fully expect on my deathbed to mercifully recall it again.....and if this time I'm not to be spared, I will understand of course.......at least I will go along hand in hand, comforted by the knowledge there's a wonderfully soothing and joyful enlightenment yet to come.
Now how has this alleged connection with heaven and a guardian angel influenced all of the other paranormal experiences over nearly half a century? If anything, my dreamland encounter has influenced me against making rash judgements about anything that is not immediately identifiable or justifiable. Some critics might argue that having had an early experience with what could be called supernatural, would tilt the balance such that anything falling into the mysterious and unexplained, would be validated as paranormal in my mind. As a career historian and fairly accomplished researcher, adament about the critical approach to understanding any event(s) in history, I simply couldn't live with even trace ignorance muddying perception. I am always challenging presumed fact. In my home ballywick I'm famous as a "disturber of historic fact," because I have disproven numerous long-held, widely accepted records, that contained fundamental errors and broad stroke, misinformed generalizations. If I get to the stage of any research, when I am prepared to go public with my findings, believe me, I'm ready for the fall-out. That means being able to defend the position taken, and support the new and often contrary facts revealed. Admittedly, there are folks in these parts who wish I would stop correcting what they believe to be the truth of already written community history. So folks, when I pass on a tale about a haunting or spirited encounter, I've already beaten it up and then some, to make sure what was experienced, witnessed and thusly researched is as accurate as possible in the re-telling. I wouldn't publish this personal collection of stories if I wasn't satisfied with their accuracy according to the time and place of specific encounters and experiences. I have cross referenced many of my own recollections with the paranormal experiences of others throughout the world.....and there are many common threads holding our observations together. My encounters are quite common in fact which doesn't mean they're above being contested......and proven matters of mind over matter. Telling them in this blog site....I'm really....at best, putting my own spin on stories lived quite honestly by others on this planet in the past (what I thought were extraordinary were not).....which by the number of well documented, parallel human encounters with divine intervention, gives some validation to the possibility angels do exist, and voices from beyond do call out to us when we need a serious, resounding reminder about something important or other. Not really scary stuff at all. But interesting. The memory I have of a guardian angel is precious to me.....as I think it was intended to be!
In this collection of stories we place ourselves at the centre, and we refrain from re-telling experiences with the paranormal which have happened to others. We might on occasion, visit an old haunt when invited but our pursuit is to provide "actuality," as we have come upon curious supernatural conditions and circumstances. From childhood, I have trundled through life quite open-minded about the existence of strange entities and things that go bump in the night....or scoot across the sky in the blink of an eye. Still, I haven't left any abode, any safe haven from my former digs up on Alice Street, in Bracebridge, to our present home here at Birch Hollow, in Gravenhurst, looking for the paranormal to "give it to me." I've not once sat by the hearth in any of my wonderful former homesteads in the District of Muskoka, expecting to be haunted by a deceased house-mate, or scared half to death by what Ebeneezer Scrooge witnessed of Jacob Marley's Christmas Eve rant and rave, courtesy the legendary Charles Dickens, in his book, "A Christmas Carol." If however, something odd did occur, I was eager to capture as much of the event as possible, versus running and hiding from a mysterious vapor....which on a few occasions was the result of an ember from the fire landing on a nearby rug. I was curious as a child and that has only intensified over the decades. Yet I don't get up in the morning, grab up a notepad, and anxiously await the first weird thing of the day. Well, around here, with a houseful of musician, poets country philosophers and pets, there's always weird stuff going on but it would be quite wrong to attach the word paranormal. "Ab-normal," yes. Just not out of the ordinary.
My first paranormal episode in my new hometown of Bracebridge, wasn't all that strange when it occurred but for a number of days after, the event gained substantially more substance and intrigue. We lived in a third floor apartment on Alice Street, owned by Hilda and Wayne Weber, nice folks who lived in the small brick home next door. The bricks of the building were scavenged from the torn down former public school on McMurray Street, which was replaced by a new two story building with a gymnasium. Most people in the building were friends and it wasn't uncommon on weekends in particular, for apartment doors to be wide open, and a trail of residents wandering in and out of each other's units, some participating in card parties, others watching ball games, a few just discussing the current events and work related stuff over a few pints of cold ale.
So it wasn't uncommon to have folks rap on the door and then walk into the apartment. We lived like weird but interesting relatives all protected under the same roof. My parents weren't really "joiners" as such but even they got into the commune type spirit of things. I was probably about 13 or 14 years of age, and my parents this particular evening were playing cards in the apartment directly below ours on the third floor. With the door open I could hear them and everyone else in their respective get-togethers, and I didn't bother to close the door when I finally decided to go to bed around 11 p.m.
I was pretty much out when, for what ever reason, I opened my eyes and saw a man standing in the doorway. Illuminated from behind, I knew from the physical stature that it wasn't either of my parents or anyone else I recognized from the building. It was the form of a small, older man, slightly hunched over and after standing in the doorway for a few seconds, I watched him take several steps toward the bed, then turning to look out the window, and then slowly turning and walking back out the door....casting one look back as he exited. He definitely saw me curled up on the bed although he didn't see me move....I was mildly aghast at someone going to the extent of walking into a bedroom when nobody appeared to be home. I think at first I thought it may be someone looking to steal something so I just remained as still in the dark as I could. When he approached and looked out the window, I did see his face clearly in the dim illumination coming from the door, and the halo of streetlight which shone through the window at night. I knew the man as a neighbor in the apartment on the same floor but I had never seen him without a family member helping him walk. This gent was walking just fine and without a cane. As he walked out the door, I waited a few moments, thinking that I would hear his footfall out the apartment door. When I didn't hear a clear exit, I jumped out of bed and headed into the living room, and to the kitchen, and then out to the third floor landing where I expected to see him trail into his apartment or be standing where I could get a better look. The gentleman wasn't all that scarey afterall, and I'd spoken with him many times in the past, during impromtu meetings in the hallway. But now, as I expected to see the man in the light of the staircase there was not a trace. Nary a sound. Not a silhouette, a scent of another mortal, the whosh of wind when a door closes and the curtains move in reaction.
As it was someone I knew from the three story apartment complex, it was still pretty much a typical event up at the Alice Street residence. Nothing to get alarmed about. If it was our kindly old neighbor, well, he must have just assumed the wide open door was an invitation to visit.....no harm done really. But when I told my mother Merle the story the next morning she looked at me as if I was an alien intruder. "What did the man look like," she asked? When I said it was the neighbor in the back apartment on the stair side, her chin nearly hit the arborite table top. "Teddy," as she used to call me. "That man hasn't lived here for six months, so how could he have been in our apartment," she said, suggesting that I may have been having one of those vivid dreams.....like the one about an angel. By the way, as a point of reference, I have never spoken to my parents about my guardian angel experience, and I don't think I would have mentioned the visit from our elderly apartment mate if I'd known it would inspire ongoing parental doubts....which of course lingered whenever I told a story that touched on the fantastic. When several days later, our landlady was telling my mother about the same gentleman's sudden demise at the home of a daughter, the same night I saw him in my bedroom, well sir, it's the first time my mother introduced the possibility (to the landlady only), "Teddy may just of had a visit with a ghost." Imagine my surprise to then find out that this same deceased bloke had once occupied our apartment, before moving to one at the rear overlooking the hillside gardens. Gads, is it possible,..... as they say happens to the newly deceased, when the departing spirit visits the places it once occupied in its human form? Was he simply looking out of a window he had enjoyed in life, his spirit dusting everso lightly upon the mortal world of once.
As a kid always a taker for new adventures, this was a milestone in my short life. I didn't know much about paranormal anything but I knew quite distinctly what I had seen in that doorway of my bedroom. To me, it wasn't a ghost. It was a man. An elderly man who studied the room, walked over to get a glimpse out of the window, then turned and walked away.....casting a final look back, which I guess from a spirit's perspective, was the grand finale, a contentment to fulfill these final earthly visitations.
Although I wasn't responsible for cross-analyzing the event, and breaking down each detail to confirm whether or not it was a paranormal experience, or just a shallow dream about an unidentified intruder, the accompanying details were enough for me....the man was dead at the time he was standing over my bed. There's not much more to say, the only doubt being whether I could have mistaken him for another resident....except for the fact that he was the only small statured, older gentleman among the ten families residing in the building at the time. I did see his face clear enough to judge age and identity. And I did chase behind and wind up on the landing in bare feet so I do know I was fully awake. I remained up watching a late movie until my parents arrived back home, thinking it best to avoid another impromtu visit at bedside.
I have had numerous alleged paranormal experiences since, that also involved the spirit-kind reclaiming some of its past, in my impromtu, "I can't believe it's happening again" presence, and you will read about these in several upcoming editorial submissions. When I think back to the visitation from the old chap, I can tell you honestly that the only time I felt a tad nervous was when my mother jokingly referred to my "ghostly visitor," assuming as well that it couldn't have been anyone else in the building, and the reality, "dead men tell no tales" If he was deceased at the time of his alleged visit, it certainly meant he had to come via ghost-kind. I didn't feel any panic being in its presence. Of course that was before the word "ghost" and "death" were bandied about. It was as if he had no idea I was in that bed watching. There was no eye contact whatsoever, despite the fact I studied him up and down because I wanted to know why he had taken liberty of walking so far through our apartment. When he turned back through that door, with one wee look back, he vanished into thin air with great speed. I should have been able to catch a glimpse of him before he got to his apartment door.....oh, that's right,....he didn't even live in the building at that time. Had he been amongst the living, having to step down two flights of stairs on a crippled leg, I'd surely have caught a full view of the interloper somewhere in that building. There was nothing but a memory of what had occurred. But it was a very real experience and another that has imprinted for life. Ghost sighting or not, this was a memorable event.
The only other incident while living at the Weber apartment, was a most peculiar event that occurred late one hot summer evening while I was coming home with two neighborhood chums. We had just left the wooden stoop of the corner store, where we had been enjoying a cold bottle of pop as we did just about every summer night back then, when we all got the impression something or someone was coming after us. We could all hear a distinct heavy footfall but nobody was behind when we stopped to look back. Now you know kids? Know how they can take a small event and make it huge and threatening to the planet? Well, as a post mortem to this encounter, we tried our best to minimize it and put real-life into the mix versus judging it solely on the handiwork of the supernatural.
It was just after 10 p.m. I believe, and it was so hot and humid that no amount of cold pop could do anything more than offer a few moments of relief. When we first heard the footfall we stopped and looked back into the area the sound seemed to be coming from, and there was a lamplight on the corner of Toronto Street that should have clearly exposed our pursuer, if as we were hearing there was one at all! When the footsteps got faster and louder we stopped trying to research the situation, and opted instead for a subtle bid to gain a little distance, at first with a gentle trot up the street toward our apartment on Alice Street. Looking back occasionally, there was nothing coming yet the sound of shoes hitting the tarmac from behind was more than just slightly worrisome. We were rapscalions and had more than a few enemies so being chased wasn't all that unusual. But we couldn't see a thing. When we finally rounded the corner on Alice Street, the footfall was right behind us, and at any moment we expected a hand to catch one of us on the shoulder, or to be tripped-up by our assailant. There was no voice, nobody yelling commands which we were used to....like "Wait till I get my hands on you....." or something like that. Whenever we did look back there was nothing but thin dark air. Who belonged to the racing feet behind us. We just didn't think we should take a chance stopping. So we ran faster and the footfall kept pace. It was taking on a great deal more urgency because there was no identification about the type of danger we might be in, should the pursuer finally catch-up. Once again, with quick glances back into a well illuminated intersection with Alice Street, there was no body connected to the sound of running feet.
Damned near dead of exhaustion, the three of us hit the lawn of our apartment with what could only have been several metres of distance between the good guys and our challenger. Who other than someone with ill intent, would want to hunt us down in this fashion? It was payback for some misdeed earlier in the day, the week, the month. When we hit the front door, almost at once as a threesome, it was a mutual fumbling tug on the door handle in the quest for safe haven.....but nobody under the drastic circumstances could have sensibly pre-arranged the one outstretched hand to pull open the door; so we arrived as an out of breath, half-falling, staggering scrum under the front canopy, all grasping for the door at the same moment. We miscued, smashed ourselves with the heavy outside door, and momentarily surrendered to the fact at least one of us wasn't going to make it through the doorway in time. We turned to meet our attacker face to face. But there was no one there. Not a person, a dog, or an image of anything at all. Yet all three of us heard the footfall right up to the cement pad of the building's porch. Just as suddenly as it had begun, while we were standing outside the corner store, for once minding our own business, it ended without exclamation. Out of breath yes! An answer, there was none.
I can hear it now just as clearly as it had been on that crazy summer night. Whatever had decided to take chase was not of this world. We had a number of theories about it being the footfall of former chums we had known, who had succumbed to sickness and tragic circumstances over the years of our residency on Hunt's Hill, on Bracebridge's east side. We never came up with anything better than educated guesses and we never once suggested to our "day to day" mates that we'd been chased by a ghost. I can tell you here and now that whatever chased us on that night, was something fantastic....something stranger than fiction and it was what it was......a frightening encounter! We survived. In retrospect, maybe we should have stopped and contronted the pursuer but at the point we knew we were being chased, and knowing our list of enemies was about fourteen feet long, the risk of getting blindsided on a darkened street, seemed somewhat unhealthy as compared to a speedy retreat over what was a short distance. Considering we had many mortal pursuers each day of our lives, we were of near Olympian stature when it came to exit capability.
While it wasn't one of those supernatural encounters that can occupy the better part of a chapter in a book on ghosts, it was an event that has led up to many other experiences with somewhat more substance and dynamic. It was another example of paranormal encounters coming quite unanticiapted. I've tried many times to disprove these incidents having any attachment with the paranormal or supernatural, and at the end they've all been banked under the category "unexplained mysteries" to be reviewed at another time. Welcome to "another time," folks! Maybe you've got some insight to share about the "invisible pursuer" and the "curious bedroom visitor." Stay tuned, there's more actuality to follow.

Not So Spooky Encounters

Not so spooky encounters with those who have passed
One such instance of a possible spirit encounter that comes immediately to mind, involved my father-in-law on the eve of his passing.
My wife had been at the hospital in Bracebridge, Ontario for most of the sunny day in October, awaiting what was inevitable. Her father was slowly succumbing to a serious heart condition and it was a matter of hours before he was released from this mortal coil. I was looking after our young lads here at our Gravenhurst home, sitting out on the deck looking over the beautiful woodlands we call The Bog. We were talking about their grandfather's circumstance when all of a sudden a small brass bell (which had once hung on the verandah of the family cottage on Lake Rosseau), rang everso lightly. We all heard the faint ping of brass but there was no one standing close by or any chance it was accidentally hit. I have no recollection why I said it aloud or why I related it to the ring of a bell but I whispered immediately to the boys, "Your grandfather has just died." In less than five minutes the phone rang and it was Suzanne calling to let us know her dad had passed. Coincidence? The work of the spirit world? A message from the deceased? Or just the tieing together of what we find convenient, wishful truths at that precise moment. It makes it a tidy bit of legend when we credit such things with paranormal intervention, when in fact it could have been a bug bouncing off the bell, at around the time my father-in-law succumbed. Still, keeping this story in mind as you read on, you will find many other stories that happen in a similar unanticipated, unexpected, quite impromtu way that seems a tad more than mere coincidence. Do these things happen to us because we're open to possibility? I think the messages are received, as John Edward, the well known medium has maintained, when we validate that those who have passed can communicate with the living. We have always been receptive but we don't spend our time questing out spirits from their eternal peace. They find us when they feel so inclined. And we pay attention, let me tell you.
It may just be a word, a sensation, aroma in a room, a reaction to a piece of music or a scene outdoors that often reminds us of days with loved ones now passed. Usually we are reminded of some incident that occurred, vividly recalling the time and place, and we often pause and ponder whether there is a subtle message within. Was it just a sentimental moment? Or did someone on the other side feel compelled to remind us of a commitment we once made, or a promise yet to be fulfilled. As one example, I was sitting in the yard one afternoon in the fall of 2007, when all of a sudden I said to Suzanne "Witch Hazel." "I have no idea why this came to my mind......does it ring a bell with you?" She didn't have an immediate answer but the more we thought about it, many suggestions were made about where this would have come up in our respective lives. While there was no conclusion it did make us talk about the old days of Suzanne's family in the Ufford and Windermere area of Muskoka.....dating back as far as the 1870's family homestead. Was it a mission inspired by the other side to link us with some important detail we needed to know? We have no idea to this day but every now and again the plant name will pop up as if to remind us to keep up the quest.
I probably validate the spirit-kind more than most people I suppose, and I frequently will make some one-way chatter with old chums of mine, when I'm suddenly reminded of their unretiring characters. If I'm looking for an old book I need for some research project, I may seek the help of my old book collecting buddy, David Brown, ( I wrote his biography following his death in the mid 1990's), and on many, many occasions, possibly a few days later, I will eventually find the book I was looking for. Rather than making adament claims that "No of course, Brownie couldn't possibly have helped me from the spirit-world," I just take the book and thank Dave as if he was fully responsible. Reminds me of the old anecdote about the woman who complained to a friend that her mentally stressed son thought he was a chicken, and when the friend said that she should tell him bluntly he was to cease the nonsense, the mother replied, "I would but we need the eggs." If Dave Brown can help me find a book I need, because that was his specialty amongst the living, well folks, I'm going to chatter away and take what breaks are afforded me. That's pretty much the slant of this series of blogs on ghosts and spirit-kind I have encountered. It's not to convince you that ghosts exist but rather to explain why we, the Curries, have been able to walk so freely, happily and communicative amongst them for all these years. We're not mediums and we've never been to a seance. We do read a lot of books about ghosts and the paranormal but I couldn't even quote you one line that convinced me of ghost/paranormal existence.
Much of it goes back to having parents that refused to quash expectation, and who nurtured free thought and unrestricted privilege to challenge anything we felt was mired in doubt, inaccuracy and complacency from counter-point. Suzanne's parents and mine never once discouraged us from full investigation, and in fact, gave us the moral courage to take giant steps where others chose modest proportion, and caution every step of the way. We celebrated fantasy as we embraced freedom, and it made us cunning investigators, who might well have squeezed through the small door that opened to Alice's Wonderland, or snuck in line to get the first enchanted step along the yellow brick road (ahead of Dorothy) on the way toward Oz. And if we had come upon the midnight revel of the wee fairies in these enchanted Muskoka woodlands, we would have instinctively and by knowledge known, to watch only in silence, respectful of the full rights and privilege of legend and lore.
My favorite author, Washington Irving, once wrote that he was disappointed that science was dissecting all the fantasy from the world, into only what could be precisely identified, documented and thusly and finally attributed to the life of individual species. Irving thought that it would be a terrible corruption to those traditions and fantasies, if mankind was to give up on things like fairies and the existence of other enchanted wee beasties that emerge occasionally from the mist of such haunted places as dark, historic woodlands; from beneath rickety old bridges, and deep caverns in the rock grandeur of moss covered hillsides. Science, he thought, should not be the only source for information, and it certainly must not be the initiative to abandon expectation and fantasy, or believe for one moment that there are no such things as phantom sailing ships on the Hudson River, or a headless horseman who seeks the noggins of unsuspecting weak-willed mortals. He thought enchantments had their place in this world, and I have taken his advisory to heart all these years, and have never been disappointed in the immersion and fantasy, I have been privileged to experience......by being open to possibility, and believing as an eternal child, that the universe is a very fascinating, dynamic place afforded to mortals in which to dwell.