The strange events began in 1983.
I tire of correcting typewriter typos, and decide to buy myself a word processing computer. I find a so-called business machine and a daisywheel printer. The computer has 256k of memory. All for only $1900, a princely sum for me. Still, I was happy as a pig in mud as I bring the cartons into a spare bedroom. I sit the new toy on an old table while I check out a desk my wife, Sondra recently had bought at a yard sale. She occasionally brings home one item or another of furniture from yard sales.
Though somewhat beatup and sporting a sorry brown paint job, the desk seems sturdy enough for my new purchase. A closer look shows the desk is well-made, lovingly hand-built by a person who loves to work with wood. I take it to the garage with the idea of checking it over for loose joints, sticking drawers, and anything else needing fixing before I risk my new toy on it.
Two of the four drawer pulls are missing, and a piece of wood under the middle drawer is loose. I put on a set of matched drawer pulls and a dab of glue on the loose wood. When ready, I move the desk into the spare bedroom and put my computer on it. Soon, I am able to get the computer to do what I want it to and I am in business. I am into writing a few science fiction pieces. Shortly, I discover the printer vibrates the desk when in use. Back to the garage for some plywood with which I build a separate stand for the printer.
Soon, I begin to think I know all about how to make my computer do what I want it to. About that time strange things begin to happen. Sondra tells me bedroom doors are inexplicably found open when she knows she shut them. She is the only one in the house. Sometimes our bed is found unmade after she makes it, but only on my side. Occasionally, sharp thumping sounds are heard, the location of which cannot be pinpointed.
I tell her the house is probably settling as it is more than 20 years old, and the sounds she hears probably come from this cause. She is less than convinced by this explanation. The odd happenings continue intermittently over many months.
One day while I am at work, Sondra phones. Her knickknacks flew out of the bookcase while she watched dumbfounded. I begin to think we have a poltergeist in our house. My teenage son, Bruce may be the focus of the poltergeist. At least, a book I read on the subject says so.
I ask a neighbor across the street who was living there before our house was built, if he knew if anyone had died there. He told me the second owner died of natural causes, if a heart attack can be considered natural. I feel an urge to research courthouse records or newspaper obits from 1966. Overtime requirements at my workplace keeps me from immediate action. Besides, maybe whatever is causing the disturbances will go away.
But it, or they, don't.
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