Happy Halloween Eve! Here in Milledgeville, trick or treaters will be roaming the streets Sunday, October 31st. If I rationed correctly, I'll have enough candy left to handle the 4 or 5 neighborhood children that I expect will knock on my door. I try not to buy candy too early in October because I would hate to have to run out tonight to buy another bag of Reese's cups.
When I lived on Stanislaus Circle in Macon, Halloween got a little out of hand due to big kids, not in costume, who would pound on my screen door, not even say 'trick or treat', but hold their backpacks out for me to fill them up. Then they would leave without a 'thank you' or a 'kiss my @#%'. I stopped staying home on Halloween. I would leave the dogs inside, leave all the lights off, inside and outside, and hightail it over to a party somewhere. Oh, those were the days...
This ghost story happened in the little Stanislaus house. I have to remind y'all that I did not live in one of the Big, Beautiful Stanislaus homes, but in a small bungalow, on the back corner, across from where the new Kroger is. That's funny. I guess it will always be the 'new' Kroger to me. My house was across the street from the house on the corner that backs up to the railroad tracks. Now that entrance to Stanislaus Circle is walled off, completely blocked off. When I lived there, I called it the demilitarized zone. The small houses were the buffers between the Big, Beautiful homes and the rest of the world. But I loved living there.
When Sweetie Pie and I married, he moved in with me on Stanislaus. He was working at the Methodist Children's Home, just down the street, so I think he married me because he was less than five minutes from work verses the hour or so drive in from Milledgeville. I was using the third bedroom as a den, so we decided to change it back to a bedroom for the weekends when his children stayed over with us.
He had a bed that had been his mother's and we put it in that room for his son. It looked great in the room with the nice, boyish green, burgundy, and gold plaid comforter and bed skirt. The bed had been in the house several weeks and the kids seemed to like visiting with us for their Daddy weekend as we all adjusted to being a new family.
There was a hallway from the three bedrooms to the kitchen and I usually left our bedroom door open at night so the dogs could come and go. Their beds were on the floor on my side of the room. When I was between husbands, they slept on the bed with me, but Sweetie Pie put a stop to that. That was our first fight. He won. I cried, but I understood.
So one night, I woke up in the dark. It was three forty seven. My heart was pounding. I sat up in bed and noticed that both dogs were up, alert, but not moving. They were looking out of the bedroom door. I had the strangest feeling that someone was in the hallway. Did I say my heart was pounding?
I punched Sweetie a few times and whispered that someone was in the house. He reminded me that our security alarm had not gone off and no one could have come into to the house without setting off the alarm. I asked him to go check anyway. I won't repeat what he said, but you can imagine.
As my feet hit the floor, I snapped my fingers and both dogs followed me to the hallway. I flipped on the hall light as both dogs silently walked to the kitchen. No one was there. No one was in the house. Otis and I patrolled the entire house (that took 3 minutes). Otis was the larger dog and could look menacing, but he was really a cream puff. Reathie dashed back to her bed in our bedroom. The alarm was still armed. I went back to bed.
Later, weeks later, Sweetie mentioned that his mother passed away in that bed. I asked what time did she die. He said it was in the middle of the night. I might be wrong, but I think his mother somehow came back to check on him, on us, and her bed. I hope she was pleased.
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