A Ghost Story

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 May 12 - 12:23 AM

JelloMan! The new supervillain, towering 800 feet tall, he advances upon Manhattan! He wiggles! He jiggles!

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Bert
Date: 22 May 12 - 11:02 PM

Now THAT is scary olddude.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 22 May 12 - 08:54 PM

I walked into my mom hospital room today ... there it was .. a giggling pile of dare I say "Red Jell-o"   the horror of it all

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 May 12 - 07:14 PM

I thought they were already jealous of us... ;-) Another good word is "avaunt", as in "Avaunt, wretch!"

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: alanabit
Date: 22 May 12 - 05:10 PM

I enjoyed the story.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Bert
Date: 22 May 12 - 04:44 PM

Ah yes, forfend, somehow I didn't manage to work that into my story. Let me see if I can squeeze it in somewhere.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 May 12 - 03:43 PM

Pretty soon everybody will be jealous of me, LH and Bert because we're the in-crowd that uses words like 'bodice'.   and 'forfend'.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Bert
Date: 22 May 12 - 03:01 PM

Whoops my post just disappeared.

Leenia, I'm an old fart with two skinnans. So I also know what a "Liberty Bodice" is.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 May 12 - 11:08 AM

I too know the word bodice. And a lovely word it is.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 May 12 - 12:02 AM

Thanks for the story, Bert.

Where did you learn what a bodice is? I bet 99 men out of 100 wouldn't know that word. Good for you.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 May 12 - 10:27 PM

Better a cold woman than a gargoyle, I guess! ;-)

I thought I saw a dinosaur walk through the room at night once when I was a kid. Scared the hell out of me at the time.

Now I worry that Spaw will walk through the room at night with no clothes on! Puts me in a cold sweat.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Bert
Date: 21 May 12 - 10:08 PM

She was very tactile though extremely cold at first. It wasn't until I jumped out of bed and looked back at her that I realized that she wasn't mortal.

Many years ago I had a previous experience that I put down as a hallucination at the time. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a gargoyle like statue, just over four feet tall, standing right by my bed. I blinked and it became see through, I blinked again and it was gone.

I put it down as a bad dream as I has been watching the Dr. Who episode where they excavated Silbury Hill and had a gargoyle that came to life. It didn't shake my Fundamentalist #2 belief then though, it was just a hallucination.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 May 12 - 09:17 PM

It's a really interesting story, Bert. I used to be one of those Fundamentalists #2 as well. The "scientific" type. I've also had a couple of unusual experiences which altered my formerly rigid set of beliefs, all of which were based on the conventional "science"-minded and materialistic outlook on life which goes like this: "If traditional science doesn't give it their official seal of approval and hasn't done it in a lab somewhere, then it can't possibly be real..."

I've found out otherwise through direct experience on a couple of occasions...and I'm not so hasty anymore as to think I can predetermine what's real and what isn't just on the sayso of some authority figures in my society who tell me their version of it (whether they be in the scientific OR the religious or the political authority systems or any other approach to life). They might be wrong. They very often have been in the past.

So, here's a question for you: This being evidently a ghost you encountered, she was obviously visible, though transparent. Was she also tactile? Could you feel her through the sense of touch? And if so, did it feel just like a normal human body? I would assume so, since you say you "held her". That surprises me!

I'm also a bit puzzled that she would feel "cold" when in spirit, I thought that external circumstances of heat and cold only affected beings who were still in the physical body.

Hypothetically speaking...

Not trying to prove anything one way or another here, I'm just inquiring out of my natural curiosity.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Bert
Date: 21 May 12 - 08:17 PM

Well, Amos, I don't know anything about psychic holograms, I only know what she told me, and that she didn't have any clothes on. I suppose that that could have been just a story that she had made up to get into my bed. But that seems a very unlikely explanation 'cos it is usually me that has to make up a story to get a girl into my bed.

Before that I was definitely one of Little Hawks Fundamentalists #2

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 May 12 - 06:26 PM

I took what Amos posted seriously. I think he expressed it extremely well. Not that I'm saying it must be so...but it may be so. I see no reason to hold either form of fundamentalist belief, meaning:

fundamentalist belief # 1: There definitely ARE ghosts and disembodied spirits. Only a fool would think there were not.

fundamentalist belief # 2: There definitely ARE NO ghosts and disembodied spirits. Only a fool would think there are.

Either of the above is a rigid, dogmatic, faith-based belief...not backed up by conclusive evidence of any kind or by experience, but by a set of preconceived and absolutely rigid assumptions which the fundamentalist would NOT dream of questioning.

That's how fundametalism works. ;-) Whether it's religious fundamentalism or "scientific" fundamentalism. (I put the quotes around scientific in this case, because such mental rigidity really has no place in good science...good science doesn't categorically deny things it doesn't like...it continues to look into them in an open-minded fashion, and continues to seek new information.)

So I'm saying that IF there are, in fact, ghosts, then what Amos said about them in connection with projecting psychic holograms was quite well put.

And I don't know if there are, in fact, ghosts. But there may be. I have no way of being certain either way about it. I haven't seen absolutely conclusive evidence either for or against the notion of ghosts.

Therefore for me it remains hypothetical, same as reincarnation, life after death, God, Angels, extraterrestrial spacecraft, a Democratic Party organization (at the top levels) that actually means and believes in what its leaders say publicly, a Republican Party that isn't ethically virtually insane, etc.....

All these are hypotheticals. ;-) Some of them may be true. We shall have to await further evidence before making a final decision...unless we're fundamentalists! If we are, then all our decisions have already been made.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 12 - 03:06 PM

Yeah, yeah, FP...jes' wait til you meet a full-bore revivified minie ball or a Cherokee tommyhawk tearing through space in your direction. Holograms are nothing to sneeze at!! :D

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: frogprince
Date: 21 May 12 - 01:28 PM

I might just post, on the "what spooks you" thread, the possibility that Amos took his last post seriously. : )

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Amos
Date: 21 May 12 - 12:57 PM

Bert:

A small technical correction: while it is true that material objects themselves do not transmigrate outside the normal rules of spacetime, individuals who are caught up in those objects (such as cltohing and stagecoaches) can be so attached to them for various reasons that they continue to project the objects as nental impressions, or psychic holograms if you will. These projections, when done with enough emoitonal force, are sometimes capable of penetrating the mental shields and obfuscations of normal bipeds, and become visible. The objects themselves, of course, long since decayed to dust, are not involved, but the hologramic images can be very persuasive, especially to the unprepared.


A

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 May 12 - 12:02 PM

Okay, Bert, so are you saying this actually happened? If so, it's interesting, because there seem to be a fair number of stories around about ghosts who are seen wearing their clothing, so this one would be an exception to the usual.

It's quite clear that clothing cannot rise up out of the dead body the way a spirit can. However, the thought of the clothing could still be held by the spirit, in which case it might appear to be clothed.

Perhaps. I'm just theorizing here. Spirits seem to appear in a great variety of ways, and it may be dependent both on how they are thinking and how the one observing them is thinking at the time.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Bert
Date: 21 May 12 - 06:52 AM

Well that was the truth. I stayed there for another couple of nights and I go back every year on 'our anniversary' but she's gone, boy she's gone.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 May 12 - 01:12 AM

Hmm. Nice story.

How do you know for sure that she was never seen again? Or is that just part of the story?

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Bert
Date: 20 May 12 - 04:04 PM

Uh Oh! You've got me worried now SINSMELUV.

But in this case don't you mean "Things that go BONK in the night"?

Hmmm. A semi-transparent brat!

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 May 12 - 02:07 PM

From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggity beasties and things that go bump in the night...serve you right if she serves you paternity papers in nine months.
LOL
SINS

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Bert
Date: 20 May 12 - 07:24 AM

"PA 'Shine?" "Liars Club" are you guys implying that my story is not the height of verisimilitude?

Just because it flies in the face of most reported ghost sightings. It means your 'ladies in white dresses at the top of the staircase' or your 'ghost trains' and 'old men in chains' are obviously delusions as they all contain items that cannot come back to haunt us.

It makes perfect logical sense that a ghost must be starkers, just because you haven't heard it before, doesn't make it a fib.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 May 12 - 03:13 PM

(Excellent moonshine had in East Texas. Clear and pure).

But lets not convict Bert of a Shine dream in our mudcat kangaroo court just yet.
He should be allowed to defend himself before we sentence him to the hallucination bin or give him membership in the Liars Club.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 19 May 12 - 02:52 PM

I once thought I was the King of France after a jar of Home Shine from one of the mountain boys .. that stuff makes yer brain all fuzzy

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 19 May 12 - 02:50 PM

Bert
Take it from me an old Pennsylvania boy "don't drink PA shine"

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 May 12 - 02:38 PM

Interesting, Bert, Thanks for sharing.

Subject: RE: A Ghost Story
From: GUEST,josepp
Date: 19 May 12 - 11:44 AM

Did you know Wilkes-Barre was named after the British statesman John Wilkes who championed the cause of American independence along with Sir Francis Dashwood, Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was his cohort in the secret society called the Friars of St. Francis of Wycomb but more infamously (and incorrectly) known as the Hellfire Club, which Ben Franklin also joined?

Wilkes is one of the few men in history to successfully face down his king (George III) and win. He published a paper that championed Scottish independence in which he accused George of numerous offenses, made fun of his increasing madness, wrote a skit concerning a true incident which a trained horse backed up to the throne instead of away, and caused a riot by accusing the Earl of Bute of having an affair with the Queen Mother. He was exiled to France for a time after the Earl of Sandwich (another Hellfire member) declared him a traitor. At one point, he was introduced to Madame Pompadour and who asked him, "Monsieur Wilkes, how many times can an Englishman insult his king and still live?" To which Wilkes bowed low and replied, "That, madame, is what I am attempting to find out."

The common people turned against him after a riot in which they attempted to destroy the Bank of England which Wilkes prevented by assembling a ragtag militia and firing on the agitators. Destroying the Bank meant destroying the Empire--not that the rabble gave a shit since they were poor anyway.

Wilkes was so loved in America that Wilke-Barre and Wilkes County were named after him. Many Americans often named their male children John Wilkes including the parents of the man who would assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

Subject: RE: Tech: New thead won't post
From: Bert
Date: 19 May 12 - 12:31 AM

Just changed the thread title.

Subject: RE: Tech: New thead won't post
From: Bert
Date: 19 May 12 - 12:14 AM

No SRS I just posted it in Firefox as usual. But it seems to work if I add it to this thread. Weird.

Subject: RE: Tech: New thead won't post
From: Bert
Date: 19 May 12 - 12:12 AM

It was a Ghost story that. I had just written.

Here 'tiz, see if it works now

I was working in Exton Pennsylvania, debugging peoples programs over the phone. I got to be quite friendly with my customers and one day one of them asked me if I'd be interested in a job.

He wouldn't tell me much about it but asked me to meet him in Wilkes-Barre one evening.
He pronounced it Wilkesbury. I always thought that it should have been pronounced Wilkes- Bar. But I guess that, seeing as he lived there, he maybe had it right.

So I dressed up in me best pinny and set off on the assigned evening. It was in the fall so it soon got dark and, as my luck usually goes, it started pissing down with rain. Now I don't know if any of you
have ever driven in Pennsylvania, but there aren't many road signs and the few that there are are placed where you can't see them so if it is dark and raining, you have to get out of the car and walk right up to them with your flashlight.

Eventually I arrived there, LATE! I found somewhere to park and walked the block or two to the hotel meeting place.

It turned out that it wasn't really a job interview after all but one of those damned pyramid schemes, you know the ones where you buy household products to sell to your friends but in reality, you make your money by roping your friends into the scam. Well I gave him a piece of my mind as I had turned down that very same scheme just a few months before.

He was not too pleased but I didn't care that much and set off home.

Well the rain was coming down worse, of course, and the wipers weren't really keeping up with it, so I missed my turnoff to the highway. (Did I tell you about the road signs in Pennsylvania?)

I struggled an along the back streets for a while and when I saw a VACANCY sign, I finally gave up and turned in to what I thought was a Motel.

It turned out that it wasn't a motel after all but a bed and breakfast in an old Victorian house.

So, any port in a storm, I braved the rain up to the front door. The proprietor was an old guy and he told me that he had just the one room left. I asked, but no, they didn't have a restaurant or, more
important, a bar.

He showed me into the living room/lounge or whatever it was, and then my luck changed for there was a roaring log fire in there. He said he would try to rustle me up a Sandwich, so I sat down and steamed before the fire. I was just getting warm when he came in with a tray of ham sandwiches and was trailing a three quarter full jug of Jim Beam in his other hand. He wasn't allowed to sell liquor but he said he could give me a glass or two as long as he didn't charge for it. So I paid for the 'sandwich' and left him a healthy tip and we sat down and polished off both the food and the liquor.

A very enjoyable evening it was in all and it was close to midnight when I wobbled up to my room.

Now I want to point out here that I was a little tipsy, but I was in no way drunk.

I undressed down to my skivvies (I hadn't come prepared for an overnight stay) and climbed into bed. I had just pulled the cover up when a naked woman came into the room and climbed in next to me. I was still sober enough to think that this was unusual. It couldn't be that old joke because I had just turned down a job as a salesman.

The poor girl was freezing cold and she asked me to turn up the heater. So I climbed out of bed and turned on the light, that was when I made the mistake of looking at her. She was transparent. I yelled "A Ghost" and headed for the door, not caring that I was still in my skivvies.

She called out "Stop, at least turn on the heater before you go" Well she sounded so sad and cold that I turned the heater up as far as it would go. And she said "Come and keep me warm, I wont hurt you"

I said "Why don't you just put some clothes On?" That was when she gave me that look, you know the one, all girls learn it at an early age, a mixture of pity ans scorn. It is the same look that my Granddaughter gives me when I pretend to put her socks on her hands instead of on her feet.

She said "I am a ghost silly, let me explain"

Then she started telling me her story, so I climbed into bed next to her and held her while she explained.

She said that she had been murdered in that very room over a hundred years ago. She was wearing a beautiful blue silk dress with an embroidered bodice. Her killer had come up from behind and strangled her; and in her own words "I looked down at my body on the floor, in that beautiful dress, but when I looked down at myself I saw that I was completely naked and of course it dawned on me that, as beautiful as that dress was, it didn't have a soul so it couldn't rise up like I did"

I interrupted her at that point and said "But what about the ghostly coach and horses that are supposed to gallop past here at midnight"

"Nonsense" she said "Horses, yes! coachman, yes! but a rattling old stagecoach, NO WAY! A stagecoach doesn't have a soul so it absolutely cannot come back and haunt you"

I asked her why she hadn't crossed over "Didn't they catch your killer?"

"Oh yes, they caught him alright and I had great fun haunting him before they hanged him, he went to the gallows screaming in terror. Not at the thought of being hanged, but because I was haunting him"

So I asked her again why she hadn't crossed over and she said that it was because she was so very cold and she had to get warm again before she could move on.

I held her close for the rest of the night and a gentleman doesn't tell tales. But at about Six O'clock in the morning she climbed out of bed, kissed me goodby and said "Thank You, I am warm now" and she
walked into a bright light that had just appeared over near the wall and disappeared.

She was never seen again.

Subject: RE: Tech: New thead won't post
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 May 12 - 12:10 AM

Did you try it in a new browser, not just a new browser window?

Subject: Tech: New thead won't post
From: Bert
Date: 19 May 12 - 12:06 AM

I just created a new thread and no matter what I try it won't post