Scary Campfire Tales

I'm always up for a good ghost story. "Scary" has been my middle name going back to when I was a kid. So when my extended family gathered for a party up at Hubbard Lake this past weekend, I was ready when we gathered around the night-time campfire to swap tales of the supernatural.

First, we got permission from my great-niece Jocelyn who at seven years of age might be frightened enough to have nightmares.

"Just as long as they're true ghost stores," she replied. That's my kind of kid.

Coming up with true personal tales of contact with the unnatural might be more difficult, but not overly so. In fact, we shared quite a few.

I recounted how I felt the tickle of fingers running along my back as I slept in a bedroom occupied at one time by my dead grandfather. My brother Tim recalled his encounter with a bat while he was alone one night in our aging, creaky two-story family home.

Tim said he heard the door to the basement open, then close again. Next thing he knew a bat was flying about him. He fled the house in a panic and had he not been tackled by a neighbor, might still be running today.

My favorite was my sister Sue's story of how she was doing laundry in the basement of our aforementioned family home. As she was taking the clothes out of the washer, she heard the unmistakable sound of a chair moving across the kitchen floor upstairs, as if somebody was taking a seat at the table.

Unnerved to say the least, Sue breathed easier when she remembered that our dog Missy had a habit of jumping up on our kitchen chairs. Our dog must have taken a bigger jump than usual and had moved the chair himself. But when my sister turned around, there was Missy sitting right there in front of her.

My nephew's wife Melissa trumped all of our stories, however, with her tales of ghosts sitting on beds, shadowy figures that chased her up stairways and electronic appliances that took on lives of their own.

How did all this affect Jocelyn? Well, first she plugged her ears. Then she began to hum to herself. Finally, I heard to go "Bla, bla, bla, bla" with her hands over her ears.

But she claims she slept well that night.

P.S. After arriving home, my son Scott who watched over our humble abode for the weekend, reported hearing footsteps running inside our house. Later, he also reported that his bed was shaking. Great. Trading stories around a campfire is one thing, but thinking that you might need an exorcist is a whole different can of worms.