Its not even Halloween, but it doesn’t matter. There is no time like the present for a great ghost story. Count me among those that have seen ghosts. In fact, I’ve seen several in my life thus far. No only have I seen them, one once whispered to me, while their body was up against mine. Most of the time, they are simply pretty bright in appearance, and perfectly quiet - soundless. While they surely give you pause and make you look twice, I can honestly say I have not found them to be scary. If we can send emails, watch movies on little screens, and send hundreds of persons over the ocean in a jetliner, why can’t there be ghosts ? I don’t suppose that all who lived before still linger here among us. But for some reason, some do, and that is a mystery that I can not explain. Yet they are here, and they are among us. I don’t believe that I am either lucky or unlucky to have seen them. I don’t think I’m special or different because I have seen them. I merely think that I am very observant, and very perceptive. I take a practical, hopeful view. Ghosts could be guides. They could be guardian angels. They could be symbols. Or, perhaps they merely can’t “depart” that old home, that old farm, that old hotel that meant so much to them. In any case, I try not to overthink it, because I am not qualified to give the answer.
In the business of running a firewood firm, I meet all kinds of folks. I’ve met college kids on up to folks in their 80’s. I’ve served CEO’s, physicians, teachers, artists, bankers, attorneys, musicians, chefs, judges, engineers, tradespersons, business owners, architects, you name it. I’ve met their family members in some cases, their neighbors, their visiting in-laws, and happily in many cases, I’ve met their pets. I’ve met thousands of persons while conducting the business of Toasty’s Firewood. Those are the people that continue to live and breathe among us. Now I’ll tell you about the ghost we saw one night.
A few seasons go, my younger son and I headed west into the next county to visit one of our steady timber suppliers. This supplier, like all of our suppliers, was a character. He told me the story once of how he was once married, while overseeing a few dozen hunting dogs on this property. He was, and is, a steady presence at his nearby hunt club. Apparently he once held many of his pal’s hunting dogs on his land. His wife told him something to the effect, “it’s me or the dogs.” He then very dryly moved into the next sentence, “and so I soon found myself helping her pack up a few weeks later, I really wanted to keep the hunting dogs.” It was a hysterical way to put it, and he was so mechanical and transactional in his retelling of it. Like many of our suppliers, he works elsewhere and sells timber on the side.
At any rate, I texted this supplier “we’re headed over shortly to get some timber.” We were not far from his home, but we overshot his road, which is easy to do. It was a particularly dark, and particularly cold, late Fall night. We were probably a mile or so away from his home. We slowed down to do a careful country u-turn, where a road was on our left. As we slowly spun around that tight turn, we observed something or someone quite out of place. All of a sudden, a bright ghost, that of an adult man, stood quietly looking at us. What struck my son and I was how this ghost was dressed. He was dressed in biking gear, as in road biking gear, not motorcycle gear. The clothing was for warmer weather, like spring or summer, as he wore short-sleeves and shorts. He had a white bike helmet on his head. He stood there, in a stunned daze, as if he didn’t know what had happened to him. He held next to him a mangled road bike. Not to be too gory, but he had blood on his face and on his white shirt. My son and I concluded that in all likelihood, the man had expired on this very road, or near to it, having been hit by a vehicle.
We gave this ghost a curious glare, as he in turn gave us a curious glare. The face wasn’t terribly clear, because he was no longer among the living. But it was an expired man, no doubt about it. We pulled away, having completed our u-turn. Feeling a little spooked, my son and I said “no one would be dressed in warm weather clothing, out on a road bike, on a very cold and dark night, out in the country.” In a few minutes we arrived at the supplier’s home. We texted him again, to advise him that we’d arrived, and we’ll get underway. He said “not a problem, he’s headed back from the hunt club” (where he’d often source timber) and he’d see us shortly.
The supplier arrived at his home approx. 15 minutes later. He walked up to the large wood pile and we exchanged the usual pleasantries. What he said next confirmed what we thought we saw just a little earlier. He said how he had driven down (that same road that we were on) and “over to the side, I saw a guy, very bright and very out of place, just standing there holding a bike.” He continued “he looked really unusual, and certainly out of place.” I then told him, “would you believe it if I told you that my son and I saw exactly what you are describing, just a bit ago?” He was stunned when I said that. I then said something along the lines of “well, clearly, that man was no longer of this world, and perhaps he died in a bike
wreck on that road.”
A few weeks later, my son and I went down that same road, to “check and see.” This time we did it by daylight on a beautiful, sunny, breezy day. We stopped at that intersection where we had seen the ghost. We careful tucked the truck over to the side, hazard lights flashing. We began to look around. Just a few feet from where we had seen the ghost, one of those “In Memoriam…” signs stood. It listed the name of a man, and the date of his death. Presumably, this sign was the marker for the ghost we had seen.
“Don’t be afraid of the dark,” says the lyrics of a great old Robert Cray song. I would suggest the same. There are ghosts among us. How many, I have no idea. I like to think they are harmless, as curious about us as we might be about them. Life goes on, life is for the living. If you see a ghost, don’t let fear overtake you. In my experience, they don’t mean to scare you.
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