Posted By PETE GARVEY
From the ladies, having minds that are open to all possibilities, a resounding yes. The men, who just hate the thought of being considered great big scaredy-cats, will laugh me to scorn. Which is no big surprise; my bank manager does it all the time.
There's a Sunday evening TV program called "Derek Acorah's Ghost Towns" which goes something like this.
Scene 1: Derek, a snappily dressed Liverpool guy, is inside the Ghostmobile with Denise and Angus, his assistants. Denise is a pretty and petite blonde. Angus is billed as an informed skeptic. He tends to panic, screams a lot and always stands in the doorway with a bargain-sized supply of toilet paper.
Scene 2: "Over there!" snaps Derek. "I'm getting a massage from Sam!"
He means a message. We think. Derek, not being an educated chap such as like what you and me is, often mangles the English language. Sam is his spirit guide and, being invisible, who knows what he might be up to? Which could explain Derek's permanently stunned expression.
Knock knock goes Derek, or rather the door upon which he's hammering. It is opened by an incredibly ugly woman - no, I'm sorry, but that's the way it is on Derek's show. The participants always have humpty backs, hairy moles and Austin Powers teeth. They speak in impenetrable glottal grunts - I shall shut up. This is getting uncomfortably close to home.
Anyway, Derek et al bust in, tell the lady that her late husband is still brooding about the hair curlers she used to dangle in his boiled eggs, but that everything will be hokey-dokey. Angus repacks his toilet rolls, everybody joins hands and Derek intones "Oh spirits of the eternal thingy, come and collect Ernest and conduct him to that, that, whatever. Thank you and good night kiddies everywhere."
"Oooh yes, that was really impressive," burbles the lady, interviewed after D & Co. have raced on, scattering ectoplasm and small items of jewelry among the adoring crowd.
"I mean, I don't even live 'ere. I only come in from next door to steal the telly."
It's hard to tell, over there. They have such a long and bloody history that anything is possible. Even the bus shelters could be haunted. I know for a fact that the one on the corner of Lumper's Lane, inside which Orchid and I did much of our late-night snuggling, was.
We remember those magic moments with sad affection. The deep velvet summer nights, the warm scented breeze, the discarded apple cores and chip packets, the posters advertising romantic weekends in Ramsbottom, the wisdom of birth control and, prophetically, Come To Canada! C'mon Over 'N Get Yer Teeth Fixed! And then the sudden, blinding light, the stench of fire and brimstone and that disembodied, unearthly voice: "Oh ye of little faith! Leave this my temple forthwith or face my wrath!"
Unbelievers will tell you that what it actually said was "Now then, now then, you dirty little devils, move along before I slap you sideways."
The sulphurous stench, they say, was an almost palpable blend of rum, tobacco, confiscated marijuana and body odour. Furthermore, the unknown presence was, they insist, Sgt. Albert "Tippitoes" Bullstrode of the Lancashire Constabulary, whose career came to a shuddering halt when he apprehended his chief constable and the Lady Mayoress, Mrs. Ivy Bex-Bissell, locked together like worms in a bucket inside the town hall dumpster.
What would Derek have made of all this? He was naught but a naughty gleam in his mommy's eye at the time, but methinks he would have come down on the side of the Almighty. And who am I to argue?
As is always the case in situations concerning things occult and spiritual, we will never know the answer. If one accepts the existence of a deity and the angels, saints, cherubs, devils and legal advisors that accompany Him/ Her, it follows that there are other beings out there. Santa Claus, for example, the Tooth Fairy, Bigfoot, weeping Madonnas, leprechauns and Elvis sightings.
Does your refrigerator door sometimes swing open in the dead of night? Is it merely a crooked kitchen floor or is your late Auntie Mabel coming back to reclaim the half-eaten ham sandwich she left behind just before tumbling overboard from the Tobermoray ferry in 1988?
I'd say it's her and it's all your fault. Anybody who hoards a semi-ham sandwich for 20 years deserves to be haunted.
http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/Articl ... ETE+GARVEY
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