Ghostly Tricks in Eastern Passage

I have been digging back into the archives, reading some of the stories that I wrote way back when for a local newspaper. I was tasked with writing ‘stories from the past’ for the Eastern Passage and surrounding areas. Some of the stories came to me by way of my Dad. I want to preserve some of them here and with Halloween coming, I thought this one would be appropriate to begin with.

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Ghostly Tricks in Eastern Passage

Are you superstitious?  Panic when you see an owl in daylight?  Knock on wood?  Shrink when a black cat crosses your path, your heart skips a beat when you break mirror so you tie your handkerchief in a knot to ward off evil?  If you're one of those people who avoids walking under ladders or counts crows this story of a prank played on an old Eastern Passage resident who was superstitious will appeal to you.  Leo had an active imagination and was genuinely spooked by ghosts.

Ghost is a word derived from the Saxon word gaste, meaning spirit. In common usage, a ghost is the soul of a dead person that becomes visible to the living. Psychic researchers refer to a ghost as a recurring apparition.  A ghost does not inter react with the living but rather repeats the same action over and over, like a tape being replayed again and again.  Leo was well aware of the activity of ghosts and it sent him into a tizzy just thinking about it.

In the 1940s, the young men of Eastern Passage could often be found hanging out at the Myers Pool Hall on Quigley's Corner.  Leo was one of the usual suspects.  You could spot him easily by his wild tuft of curly hair fopping about while making his way around in his bare feet on his trusty bicycle.  Not a fan of the washtub, his idea of 'cleaning up' was applying a little powder and he was ready to go.   He was a comic sort, often a casualty of horseplay.

Al and the other guys in the pool hall were notorious storytellers.  Devising antics of tomfoolery and telling harebrained fibs while chalking up their cues.   He knew Leo was scared of the dark and particularly of ghosts.  At nightfall, Leo would always rush home, passing the graveyard at St. Andrew's Church. He would pedal fast, his heart racing until he was safely by without incident.  Al knew this and used it to his advantage.

One evening, Al was in the mood to rile up a little mischief.  Night fell to a black hush and Leo mounted his bicycle giving himself a push start off home down the dirt road.  As usual, the closer he came to the graveyard, the quicker his pulse raced.  St. Andrew's cemetery sent chills down his spine especially in the dark. Al, being good with detail knew all of this and decided he would treat Leo to the fright of his life.  Leo pedaled with a fevered pace evading all that goes bump in the night, stiff on top of his bike, focusing straight ahead.  Al was waiting for him behind one of the larger headstones in the cemetery with a ghastly white sheet draped over his head.  When Leo approached, sweaty and nervous Al, in his clever disguise jumped out at the wiry haired man aping the sounds that we imagine ghosts make.  “WOOWWWHOAAAA!”  Leo's eyes widened with sudden fear and jumped ten feet in the air nearly throwing himself off of his bicycle.  He jerked his pedals so hard he snapped the chain spinning his dirty feet creating a billowing cloud of dust behind him.  Al watched Leo, spooked to his core race off pushing his bike with his feet all the way home.  All Al could do was laugh.  He returned to the pool hall to recount his caper to the boys.

The next evening Leo told the story of how he was attacked by an aggressive spirit rising out of the cemetery.  He had every man in the pool hall in stitches, standing in the middle of the room replaying the scene, his hair still wild, and his eyes popping.  Al chuckled and confessed to Leo it was him dressed up in a sheet trying to fool him but Leo wouldn't hear any of it, he knew better than to believe anything that came out of his mouth.  He went on believing that there was in fact a ghost out for revenge and pedaled quicker every night after on his way home.

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I miss my Dad telling me stories, especially after being afforded the opportunity to tour through the Myers homestead yesterday with family. The walls vibrate with history and stories and shenanigans. I wish I knew every single one of them so I could write them down.

I’ve got a few more ghost stories from the area I used in those news stories to share here in the coming week. It’s so much fun re-reading them now.

In propinquity,

Nic