- Jul 12, 2024
Note 1: Halloween in July? Kinda, sorta. I asked for folks to share their personal ghost stories as I prepare for my debut novel / ghost story to launch this fall. It only seems apt that I should share some of my favorites, right as they come in. This one’s a sweet tale from sister writer and book coach Monica Cox, who “helps communications professionals honor their creative dreams, apply their skills to fiction, and finish their novels.” You can find out more about her by clicking the green button here:
YUP, SOUNDS LIKE GRANDPA ~ A Ghostly Tale by Monica Cox
One summer when my kids were little (think 5 and 2), we went to visit extended family in Rhode Island. One of my aunts lived in my grandparents’ old house (my grandparents long since passed), and so we stayed with her there. They lived on a lake, and my sister and I often went to stay with them for a few weeks every summer when we were growing up.
One night during our visit, my aunt and the kids went to bed early. My husband and I settled into the same furniture my grandparents had since I was probably my kids' ages to relax and watch a little TV before bed. The only TV still had a turn dial on it. We clicked through the sparse offering of channels and settled on the Olympic opening ceremonies that were on that night.
About a half hour in, we heard some noises from the kids' room--someone needed to go to the bathroom or required a glass of water or simply turned over and didn't recognize their surroundings. My husband volunteered to check on them. As soon as he left the room, the television changed channels to the Red Sox game. I instinctively looked around for a remote and actually did find one. On the other side of the room on a table.
I figured maybe the dial was sensitive, and my husband walking by the television had caused it to "jiggle" over to the next option. But when I got up to return to what we were watching, I realized that the game and the ceremonies were several channels away from each other on the dial.
Weird, but whatever.
My husband returned. When I told him what had happened, we shrugged it off to ancient technology.
Then it happened again.
I told my husband how when we were kids and staying with Grandma and Grandpa during the summers, the only way we could stay up late was if we were watching the Red Sox play. I became a lifelong fan as a result. (Hard to do growing up in the south!).
My husband got up and clicked the dial over to the station we had originally been watching. (The game was a blow out one way or the other and not super interesting.)
“But,” he told me, “if the TV acts up again, I’m out.”
Sure enough, two minutes later, the television returned to the Sox game.
"Grandpa insisted we could only stay up to watch the Sox," I reminded him. "His house, his rules."
My husband went to bed. I watched the end of the game. The television never changed channels again.
The next morning, I told my cousin who lived a few doors down about our evening.
For a beat or two, he just looked at me with no words.
Then he laughed. “Yup,” he said. “Sounds like Grandpa."
Note 2: Hope you enjoyed Monica’s story. Look for more personal ghost stories to come (shared with permission and anonymously upon request). I’m finding it fun to collect and share others’ tales as I prepare for the September 6th launch of my debut novel, SECRETS OF THE BLUE MOON! It, too, features a ghost story.
Don’t be scared, though. Ghosts aren’t real. (Or are they…?)
Cheers ~ J
FUNNY. That’s the F-word I usually focus on in my monthly blog post. But this month, on my way to writing something funny, I hit a detour—a detour named Rice, who was in the midst of shredding old files we’ve hung on to for far too long. He came across a piece I’d published in The Atlanta Journal/The Atlanta Constitution—long ago, back in the days when the paper ran morning and afternoon editions. He suggested I share it in a 2024 blog, as he still found it eerily timely. It’s about FEAR.
Before I share more, let me give you some context: I originally wrote this piece in the year Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson were born, the same year Bill Clinton got sworn into office after his first run. Jurassic Park, The Firm, and The Fugitive sold out at the box office, where tickets ran $4.14 a pop. Only 32 percent of the population owned cell phones then—the kind that had to be flipped open to use.
My kids attended elementary school when I wrote this, one and a half years before the Oklahoma City bombing, five years before the Columbine shooting. It was 1993, eight years before the terror of 9/11, twenty-eight years before the march on the capital of January 6th.
The piece first ran in the Op-Ed section of The Atlanta Journal / The Atlanta Constitution on Wednesday, October 20, 1993. I’d be honored if you’d check it out today.
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LIVING WITH FEAR ~ THE ULTIMATE PARENTAL HORROR
In Atlanta and its suburbs, the fear of random violence striking down children is causing parents to question their own lifestyles and beliefs.
10/20/93 ~ My sister teaches pre-primary “at-risk” kids at an inner-city school. She’s been kicked and hit and called names that would make our mother blush. Their mothers? They’re rarely seen at the school. It’s located across from an alleged crack house, and occasionally sounds of gunshots echo through her classroom. I ask if she’s afraid. She says she doesn’t think about it much.
I think of her when I visit my children’s school. It’s shiny and new, located on a big chunk of suburbia. The kids are clean and well-fed. Parents are present, helping in classrooms, the media center, the school store. Test scores are high. Field trips are plentiful. We parents grouse about fundraisers and requests for money. We do our part, though. No one asks if we’re afraid.
Most of the schoolkids live in our subdivision. It’s a well-groomed “country-club community.” We have homeowners’ guidelines regarding when to put our trash out and providing us two color choices for storm doors. Overall, it’s a nice place to live. We chose it carefully. We felt our kids would be safe here.
Yet fear abounds.
A mother at the bus stop is concerned. A second-grader is harassing her kindergartner. Someone suggests she help her child learn to handle the situation himself. Yet considering recent news stories of violence in schools, she’s uneasy.
A neighbor tells of a visit to the nearby Kroger. She and her nine-year-old witness a man stealing a carton of cigarettes. The child wants to report this to store management. Mother, however, is anxious. The thief has seen them. He may find a way to retaliate.
Statistics tell us that anger and violence are increasing in the suburbs. Theories thrive as to why. Television. Overcrowding. Deteriorating family values.
Some say it’s a mere swing of the pendulum, pointing to eras such as the 1920s, when violence prevailed. They say the apprehension sensed by suburbanites stems partially from the erratic way in which violence strikes. A mass murderer hits a fast-food restaurant. A student is slain in a school cafeteria over a personality clash.
I share the fear of random violence that could touch my children. It’s perhaps the ultimate parental horror. Yet I carry another worry, less hair-raising, certainly, but still strong. It boils down to this: Will I deny my children, and myself, access to experiences where I cannot be in complete control? My answer, like that of most parents, lies one situation at a time.
Recently, after shopping, I found a note on my windshield. It said I was stupid, idiotic, and dangerous. What prompted this? My bumper sticker, supporting one of the candidates from the last presidential election. I found the note irritating and irrational.
I chalked It up to the heat, but my husband voiced concern. Perhaps I should remove the sticker. The next person taking offense might be carrying something more lethal than a pencil.
I considered whether he may be right. Perhaps I should refrain from commentary on my beliefs—all to keep my children “safe.” Yet it occurred to me that then I’d then be bowing to the ghastliest fear of all. The fear of living.
It’s a consternation I’m trying to learn to live without.
***
Jan again, in the here and now: Thanks for reading this blast from the past. Not sure about you, but it made me think. Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same.
That said, I usually aim for another kind of FUNNY for my blog posts. I’ll try to get back to the business of being less serious soon. Promise. I’ll try.
(Please enjoy this excerpt from ONE WRONG TURN AT A TIME, my humor book-in-progress that chronicles adventures I’ve shared with my other half as we’ve trekked around the 50 states over our 45 years together. This piece appeared previously in a 2018 blog post but has been tweaked, as all writing must be when it resurfaces. Cheers!)
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It was the perfect getaway. Rice and me. A lake house—beautiful, rustic, chic. The water—clear, aqua, expansive. It smelled clean as rain against the fresh cut grass on the sloping lot. A couple icy adult beverages and some down time on the dock were just the ticket.
Spotty cell service? No problem. We were on the water. Lake Martin, Alabama. Ahhh.
I felt alive in a way I hadn’t for ages. Eying the jet skis tied at the dock, I called dibs on the red one. Named her Stella, then bragged to Rice about how the next day, Stella and I would go out and spin double nickels! (That’s code for 55, my pending age at the time, and the speed limit I was ready to push.)
“Why wait?” Rice asked, his grin wide.
The next thing I knew, I was bouncing across the lake, wind and water whipping my hair. It was pure heaven. Finding the marina “beyond the point,” I gassed Stella up for the next day.
Back out on the water, I hugged the shore closer this time. Feeling the waves beneath me, I passed colorful clusters of Adirondack chairs …cozy cottages…flapping flags. Then I passed them again. And again. Meanwhile, black clouds loomed. Lightning flirted, about to flicker.
Rice tells me he grew uneasy as darkness began to set in. Where was I? He drove to the nearby marina and learned that I’d stopped there for gas…over a half hour earlier.
When he returned to the lake house, I was still gone. Under his breath he cursed me for leaving without my phone, despite…well, spotty cell service. Not to be stymied, he called the police to brainstorm how he might track me down. To his dismay, officers came to the house, walked him down to the deck, and peppered him with questions, shining their flashlights into the dark depths around them.
Meanwhile, out on the lake….
Hellz, yes, I was lost. So lost I couldn’t even sniff my way back to the marina.
I tried not to panic. How could I ask for directions when I couldn’t recall the address or the name of the subdivision where we were staying.
Spotting a father and son casting lines from their dock, I inched Stella up, close enough to share my woes. Perhaps they noticed I looked like a deer in headlights when they tried to explain the way back to the marina. Against claps of thunder, they powered up their boat and led me back there themselves.
At the marina, I asked another boater if I could borrow a phone to reach out to Rice.
Alas…I think I’ve mentioned spotty cell service?
Needing to gather my wits, I went inside the marina shop to buy a healthy snack. (Okay, I bought a wine cooler and cigs. Don’t judge.)
“Are you Jan?” the clerk asked.
I raised my eyebrows. “Yes?”
“An elderly gentleman stopped in an hour or so ago,” he continued. “He was worried about his wife Jan out on the water.”
Oh, my dear, sweet man….
But oof. Elderly gentleman? At the risk of going to hell, I admit, that made me snicker.
I shouldn’t have laughed, though. Because apparently, I think much the way an elderly gentleman does. Trying to figure out ways to connect back to Rice, I thought of the police, too, and asked if someone could give me a ride to the station.
The next thing I knew, I was in a jeep, jostling around back roads of the lake with two young dudes I’d never met before in my life. Had I not seen enough episodes of Law & Order to know better?
Blame it on the wine cooler. Or the optimism of youth—theirs. When these guys insisted they knew the lake and knew we could find the lake house, any danger radar I had failed me.
“Can you remember any landmarks?” the driver asked.
Breeze rustled my hair, helping me think. “A little chapel, maybe?”
He took a few turns, and the other guy asked, “Any road names?”
Suddenly, I envisioned a street sign that Rice and I had passed earlier.
“Peckerwood!” I blurted.
Yes, I was mortified that’s the particular name I remembered. Yet seconds later, we turned onto Peckerwood Road. And, in short time, we did find the lake house.
The jeep engine idled as the front door of the lake house flung open. Rice rushed out onto the driveway, two law officers on his tail. He looked ashen from worry—indeed elderly. For a moment I thought he might chew me out. Instead, he lumbered over and hugged me. Tight.
The officers left PDQ. Almost as quickly as my rescuers, who hightailed it before we could even offer a reward. Maybe because of the open beer containers on the jeep floor.
Minutes later, Rice shook his head while plopping ice cubes into glasses.
“All I could see were the headlines,” he said. “Georgia man arrested after wife disappears on Alabama lake.”
He handed me a glass, and I studied him—flushed, relieved, slap-happy. Both of us were.
“Maybe that was your plan all along?” I ribbed him. “To lose the wife.”
Before he could respond, I had a slightly more serious question. “How could you not remember, after 30-plus years with me, that I get lost everywhere, even in my own driveway?”
To Rice’s credit, he didn’t attempt a comeback.
Sometimes you’ve just gotta shrug, grin, and give in to the crazy.
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