Selling Savannah Spirits

"How many believers do we have in here?" asked Elizabeth, our ghost trolley tour bus driver (pictured above).

Only a few hands among us passengers tentatively rose in response. Nevertheless, touring the haunted sites of Savannah (supposedly the most haunted city in America) is big business. There are three separate companies offering such motorized tours, including one that rides along in a hearse. And at least that many walking tours that take visitors to cemeteries, dark mansions, and other venues of which chilling tales can be told.

Elizabeth told such tales well, whether it was a tragic end to young lives or local mysteries involving voodoo and murder--as is the subject of the well known book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. We were told to inspect the photographs we took for "orbs", little moon-like dots of light that indicate the presence of spirits. Didn't get any on my snapshots, though a fellow trolley passenger got several on his digital photo near a reputedly haunted house.

Not everyone takes such spooky stuff seriously. At one cavernous mansion, while our tour driver spoke in serious tones of a pair of twin spectres seen in the upstairs on many occasions, we passengers noticed lights flickering on the walls in the third story of that very house. Then we saw faces of kids holding flashlights. They obviously knew why our bus was parked outside. Good prank.

Later, we toured the dank cellar at The Pirate House, a restaurant where in olden times sailors were lured downstairs to be clubbed and shanghaied, dragged through underground passages to waiting ships. But other diners when they learned of our mission teased us as we passed, going, "Wooooooo, oooooooo" among titters from other diners. If I had any pirate tendencies, I would have dragged them to the cellar for a little clubbing of my own. Twerps! (That's me in the cellar here)



Even my wife Wendy didn't seem to take seriously our spook-hunting. We stayed at the Olde Harbour Inn, where the spirit Hank is supposed to reside. Our room contained a journal where previous guests wrote of their stay. The initial entry mentioned disembodied voices and shuffling footsteps outside their bedroom in the dead of night.

That didn't impress Wendy. Once, when I asked if she wanted to take a walk, she responded, "You go. I'll stay here with the ghost."

Well, Hank was a no-show, I must admit. No orbs, mists, disembodied voices, or shuffling.

Guess I'll have to make something up now to justify the money we spent. That's probably what keeps the ghost-hunting business booming there in Savannah.