As many of you may know, my twin sister (aka: the Troll for anonymity purposes) lives in Baltimore. Having a twin sister is fantastic. If I were Sarah Palin, I'd bless her little heart. While having a twin has its conveniences (eg: having an automatic organ donor), it's tough having your best friend live 300 miles away. Since she went to college in New York, and NY is literally the half-way point between Baltimore and Boston, we would meet up in NYC post-college.
Lately though it's been tough since most of our NY-based friends have sought (literally) greener pastures. Since we're both around this weekend, we're thinking of doing a road trip in the Pallisades Mall vicinity. We're going to catch a couple of movies, eat sushi, and hang out. I went on Hotwire to figure out the hotel situation and upstate NY is pretty crowded this weekend. Tarrytown is loaded with places to stay but most of them are booked. I'm guessing that this has something to do with the Headless Horseman and Halloween just around the corner.
The Troll suggested that we check out Headless Horseman tourist traps and haunted houses during our trip. That would be cool except I literally lived in a haunted house in Amherst, and I'm pretty scared s**tless of ghosts. I was up at UMass this weekend and casually discussed my fear with some of the houses' current residents and they all agree that there is some weird stuff abrewin' in that place.
To be truthful, the ghosts that lived in my sorority could be categorized as "Caspar, the Friendly Ghost". Our house was built as a boarding house in the late 19th century and had two recorded untimely deaths in the past 100+ years. I've heard dozens of stories of strange occurances, though I personally only had two questionable run-ins.
During my sophomore year I was elected House Manager, which meant that I was responsible for light maintenance and repairs. One night our sub-pump stopped working and I had to gather the girls to bail water from the basement during particularly bad rain storm. Panicked, I rushed upstairs to change into shorts when a cassette tape on top of my stereo flew at my head and took a hard left before hitting my face. Another time I was alone in the house with another sister during spring break when a radio randomly started going off. I ran upstairs and shouted "hey, please turn it down!". Without a soul in the room the volume numbers on the radio decreased and the radio shut off.
A lot of level-headed, sane people I lived with had similiar experiences. While it's possible that there's a logical explaination (eg: electrical issues in an old house), quite a few recalled strange stories involving radios. There are lots of other tales, some involving radios, some involving crucifixes, and others involving goldfish. However, as I only had two unexplainable experiences, I can only comment on those.
People have believed in ghosts for centuries, and like UFO's, there has to be at least a glimmer of truth behind the unsolved mystery. I'm definitely not a conspiracty theorist and believe that for the most part I'm a pretty rational and reasonable person. Although my dream is to some day live in a Victorian, I wouldn't hesitate to put a "ghost clause" into any purchase and sale agreement. Ghost stories are particularly popular during Halloween, and while I welcome the curiousity I am not ok with seeking another ghostly encounter. It may be Tarrytown or bust this weekend, I'm ok with watching the Secret Life of Bees while tourists live out the Legend of Sleepy Hallow.
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I remember that cassette story. Don't forget about the weird cross that began cracking into the wall over Laurie's bed or how we had the ghost who used to always turn around the pictures.
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