Sondra and I continue our day to day living, generally trying to ignore as much as possible the extraordinary happenings. But one day she phones and tells me she has seen something inexplicable. She was washing her hair in the kitchen sink and happened to glance back over her shoulder. She was startled by a figure standing there. It appeared to be a male. She turned back and wrapped a towel around her head, thinking, or hoping it was our eldest son, Conrad. She went into the living room to seek him out and dress him down for scaring her like that.
The house was empty.
She relates on the phone that the figure had a thin build, was wearing a baseball cap, blue pants, black shoes and a white shirt. His facial features she could not make out. It was like they were -- blurred.
This news did nothing for my piece of mind. Still, so far the apparition has shown no inclination to hurt anyone. More like it was trying to attract attention to itself than anything else. We speak among ourselves of the entitiy's ghostly doings, always referring to the apparition as "it." We are now convinced the the ghost is a him. Even so, the discussions remain in the family.
Circumstances cause us to forget about the uninvited guest and its occasional shenanigans. In August, 1983, my daughter, Renee, her husband, Denton, who is in the Air Force, and their three kids stop to spend a month or so with us before they are all to go to Germany to his new assignment. They are here but a short time when more excitement ensues.
One night we have a fire. A breeze box fan motor overheats causing the power cord to catch fire. The curtains are set ablaze. I hear a scream, then silence. Somebody bangs on my door. I stumble out of my bedroom, half asleep. The smoke detector is screeching. The kids are crying and yelling. Sondra and Renee are near hysteria. The house is filled with smoke. Bedlam!
But Denton already has the kids out of the room. The fire is lapping up the last of the window curtains. There is nothing left for it to burn except drywall, which doesn't burn worth a flip. Even so, the room is a disaster. Smoke has blackened the walls and the window glass and the carpet is melted where flaming curtain has dropped on it.
Next day, Sondra and daughter-in-law, Shelly are standing in the bedroom inspecting the damage. "Get out!," a gruff voice tells them. Sondra tells me they lost no time in obeying, even though nothing was evident where the voice had come from. Even Shelly's boy, our grandson, was outside playing for a change.
After that, things were unusually quiet for awhile. Then, in midyear 1984, my middle son, Shawn, lost his job and was forced to move Shelly, his two kids, and himself from a rented house. There was no choice other than make room in our house for him and family. So, I move my guitar, amp, mike stand, computer, desk, printer and other personal stuff into the master bedroom. Sondra doesn't mind; she doesn't sleep with me in there much anymore. She suffers from cramps a lot and sleeps on the couch so as not to disturb my sleep. Most of the time I sleep alone in the bedroom except on weekends when a little loss of sleep doesn't extract a toll on my on-the-job alertness.
My youngest son, Bruce, who is 15, and I yell at each other more often than we should. I am the one doing most of the yelling. I suppose it is due to the strain of two families living in the same house, or my general aggravation. Almost every time we have words, that night after I turn out the lights, there is a loud bang in my bedroom, like two pieces of wood being slammed together.
Bang!
Even without that, my sleep is fitful. I am a light sleeper and am awakened five or six times a night, but am unable to pinpoint the cause. I think maybe it's a car passing by on the street, or maybe a motorcycle, but cannot be sure. So desperate am I for a good night's sleep, I buy a sound conditioner device. It is electronic and makes sounds of the ocean waves, rain, or waterfall. The pitch and frequency can be varied. I turn it up full blast. Sometimes I think I can hear faint voices coming from the unit.
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