This year, 2006, was a very special Halloween for us. Kate and I spent the evening celebrating the glorious Irish season of Samhain, summer’s end or feast to the dying sun.
This day also combined the functions of Harvest festival and the Festival of the Dead.
It was a Druidic belief that Saman, the Lord of death, summoned together the souls of the evil people condemned to inhabit the bodies of animals, including people. As the leaves fell, annual growth decayed, the sun’s strength waned and the nights drew in, the Celts prepared for winter and for the sun to rise the next day.
This Samhain, in Ireland, we realized we were at the source of the celebration. Bonfires were lit around the whole countryside and if you stood on the Lydon’s Hill you could see the glowing embers of bonfires in the fields. Orange stars on the blackened landscape.
It was a time of mischief playing, of trick or treating and you just knew the faeries would spit on the blackberries so they could be eaten by mortals.
To be safe, Kate placed some milk and bread outside our door. The faeries knew therefore we were friendly and caring of their plight and respectful of All Hallow’s Eve.
It was also conjuring up the eve of 1954.
It was a lonlier October after all.
This day also combined the functions of Harvest festival and the Festival of the Dead.
It was a Druidic belief that Saman, the Lord of death, summoned together the souls of the evil people condemned to inhabit the bodies of animals, including people. As the leaves fell, annual growth decayed, the sun’s strength waned and the nights drew in, the Celts prepared for winter and for the sun to rise the next day.
This Samhain, in Ireland, we realized we were at the source of the celebration. Bonfires were lit around the whole countryside and if you stood on the Lydon’s Hill you could see the glowing embers of bonfires in the fields. Orange stars on the blackened landscape.
It was a time of mischief playing, of trick or treating and you just knew the faeries would spit on the blackberries so they could be eaten by mortals.
To be safe, Kate placed some milk and bread outside our door. The faeries knew therefore we were friendly and caring of their plight and respectful of All Hallow’s Eve.
It was also conjuring up the eve of 1954.
It was a lonlier October after all.
Halloween.
Cool evening. Dark, small glitters of stars. I was coming home from my cousin Cookie’s house on Earley Avenue.
I crossed Third Street. Began to step into the alley next to Pohlod’s house. A warmed feeling hit me in the face like a beam of sunshine.
Down at the end of the alley, what amounted to 40 car lengths away I saw a beam of white light. The light began to get larger and brighter. I was mesmerized but I kept walking toward the light.
The closer I walked the larger the light grew and the warmer I felt.
Half way day the alley was our garage and our back yard. If I only could get there I would be safe..I’d run down the yard to the house about 150 feet into the comfort of safety of our kitchen.
Could I make it ? What was that at the end of the alley ?
There was street light there, I knew that. But this strange ghostlike vision stood next to the street light. The light pole was about 14 feet high, but the ghost seemingly shrouded in a flowing white sheet in the form of a human person, stood next to the light pole and towered over it by about 10 feet. There seemed to be the form of a man with a horse like head through the glowing shroud.
What could be that be ?
I was almost at the our garage, and the vision about 20 car lengths away, the figure in yellowing white moved toward me.
Closer and closer, warmer and warmer until I started to sweat.
It was about 40 degrees outside. Crisp October weather, but I was getting hot.
I closed my eyes and kept running toward the wire back garden gate.
Peeking only momentarily to see if I was going in the right direction I shut my eyes again.
I felt something brush by me, a hot touch on my left shoulder. With my eyes closed I saw a red glow through my eyelids and felt my hair rustle.
I burst thru the gate almost ran into one of the peach trees and ran faster and faster toward the house.
The back door to the side porch was open, I ran inside completely out of breath.
Mom and Dad were sitting at the kitchen table.
“What’s wrong,” my mother said in a panic.
“I just saw….I just saw…” I cried as drops of sweat ran down my forehead.
“What…what,” Mom ran toward me and held me close to her flowered lilac aproned dress.
“It looked like….a….” but I couldn’t tell her.
“Were you hurt, Did somebody hurt you,” my father demanded.
“No,” I said quickly,”
“Come on , tell me… now !” he scolded.
At the top of the alley, next to Pohlod’s house, was Russell Griffith’s garage. The garage and adjoining building was at the rear of the Griffith’s Funeral Home.
Russell and his sister were well known in the town for their gentle understanding personalities and were the most popular people to visit on Halloween. Their treats always consisted of a few pennies and chocolate peanut butter cups. Although no one knew exactly what went on in the garage, we all suspected it was the embalming room for clients no longer with this world. More than often, a black hearse sat quietly in the alley. Death was of little concern to a nine year old, but it still had a mysterious, Bela Lugosi spine tingling effect when you walked past it.
In those days, very seldom did one actual use the funeral home to lay out the deceased, especially in Coaldale where many of the families came from the “old world”…Ireland, Wales, England, Slovakia.
Most “wakes” were still held in the parlor of the deceased family home.
To me this was still another memorable paradox of feelings.
I was so out of breath, not from running but from fear, I could hardly get the words to fall out of my mouth.
“A ghost…I saw a ghost.”
They laughed.
Dad got up from the plastic yellow-white and chrome kitchen chair and came over to hug me. That was one of the few times in my life that my Dad actually hugged me. It was the perfect time as far as I was concerned.
“There are no ghosts,” he said
“But..but I saw this white big glowing thing coming towards me,” I trembled, “ and it brushed my shoulder right here.”
I showed them the spot. It seemed to have left a black mark on my coat.
“It looks burnt, “ my Mom said. “Were you playing with matches ?”
“What did you do to your coat George !” my father shouted. “Dammit ! This is your good coat !”
First they comforted me, then laughed at me and now I’m being yelled at.
But I was safe.
I couldn’t sleep for two weeks after that without seeing the ghostly figure. I certainly would not walk down that alley at night ever again.
No, I don’t know what it might have been.
I still fear black hearses, and whitened alleyways.
Cool evening. Dark, small glitters of stars. I was coming home from my cousin Cookie’s house on Earley Avenue.
I crossed Third Street. Began to step into the alley next to Pohlod’s house. A warmed feeling hit me in the face like a beam of sunshine.
Down at the end of the alley, what amounted to 40 car lengths away I saw a beam of white light. The light began to get larger and brighter. I was mesmerized but I kept walking toward the light.
The closer I walked the larger the light grew and the warmer I felt.
Half way day the alley was our garage and our back yard. If I only could get there I would be safe..I’d run down the yard to the house about 150 feet into the comfort of safety of our kitchen.
Could I make it ? What was that at the end of the alley ?
There was street light there, I knew that. But this strange ghostlike vision stood next to the street light. The light pole was about 14 feet high, but the ghost seemingly shrouded in a flowing white sheet in the form of a human person, stood next to the light pole and towered over it by about 10 feet. There seemed to be the form of a man with a horse like head through the glowing shroud.
What could be that be ?
I was almost at the our garage, and the vision about 20 car lengths away, the figure in yellowing white moved toward me.
Closer and closer, warmer and warmer until I started to sweat.
It was about 40 degrees outside. Crisp October weather, but I was getting hot.
I closed my eyes and kept running toward the wire back garden gate.
Peeking only momentarily to see if I was going in the right direction I shut my eyes again.
I felt something brush by me, a hot touch on my left shoulder. With my eyes closed I saw a red glow through my eyelids and felt my hair rustle.
I burst thru the gate almost ran into one of the peach trees and ran faster and faster toward the house.
The back door to the side porch was open, I ran inside completely out of breath.
Mom and Dad were sitting at the kitchen table.
“What’s wrong,” my mother said in a panic.
“I just saw….I just saw…” I cried as drops of sweat ran down my forehead.
“What…what,” Mom ran toward me and held me close to her flowered lilac aproned dress.
“It looked like….a….” but I couldn’t tell her.
“Were you hurt, Did somebody hurt you,” my father demanded.
“No,” I said quickly,”
“Come on , tell me… now !” he scolded.
At the top of the alley, next to Pohlod’s house, was Russell Griffith’s garage. The garage and adjoining building was at the rear of the Griffith’s Funeral Home.
Russell and his sister were well known in the town for their gentle understanding personalities and were the most popular people to visit on Halloween. Their treats always consisted of a few pennies and chocolate peanut butter cups. Although no one knew exactly what went on in the garage, we all suspected it was the embalming room for clients no longer with this world. More than often, a black hearse sat quietly in the alley. Death was of little concern to a nine year old, but it still had a mysterious, Bela Lugosi spine tingling effect when you walked past it.
In those days, very seldom did one actual use the funeral home to lay out the deceased, especially in Coaldale where many of the families came from the “old world”…Ireland, Wales, England, Slovakia.
Most “wakes” were still held in the parlor of the deceased family home.
To me this was still another memorable paradox of feelings.
I was so out of breath, not from running but from fear, I could hardly get the words to fall out of my mouth.
“A ghost…I saw a ghost.”
They laughed.
Dad got up from the plastic yellow-white and chrome kitchen chair and came over to hug me. That was one of the few times in my life that my Dad actually hugged me. It was the perfect time as far as I was concerned.
“There are no ghosts,” he said
“But..but I saw this white big glowing thing coming towards me,” I trembled, “ and it brushed my shoulder right here.”
I showed them the spot. It seemed to have left a black mark on my coat.
“It looks burnt, “ my Mom said. “Were you playing with matches ?”
“What did you do to your coat George !” my father shouted. “Dammit ! This is your good coat !”
First they comforted me, then laughed at me and now I’m being yelled at.
But I was safe.
I couldn’t sleep for two weeks after that without seeing the ghostly figure. I certainly would not walk down that alley at night ever again.
No, I don’t know what it might have been.
I still fear black hearses, and whitened alleyways.
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