Two weeks ago, I wrote a bit on my thoughts about ghosts. I told a couple spooky stories. Since then, I must admit, I have been a bit obsessed with the subject. I read earlier this afternoon about Blood's Point Cemetery, just a hop, skip, and two jumps from here, and motored on down. Not only did I encounter nothing, but I got not the least inkling there was anything untoward about the place. Most cemeteries claim a ghost or two, for obvious reasons. This one, however, just seemed like a typical, old, country boneyard.
Now, some may say that my feelings are hardly at issue. I would disagree, based on my feelings, as stated in the post above, during my visit to Gettysburg Battlefield. Indeed, in that earlier instance, I was looking forward to an enjoyable afternoon visiting one of the most important historic sites in America, and left quite quickly due to an overpowering sense of both sadness and horror. I would not return to Gettysburg if paid - the feelings were so overwhelming, I do not wish to go through them again.
I have had one other experience in my life similar to my sunny afternoon on the battlefield of Gettysburg. That was two nights spent wandering the streets of Auburn, New York.
My first job after graduating from college - a job wherein I learned only that sales is not my forte - was canvassing door to door for Greenpeace. They had just opened an office in Rochester, NY, and were canvassing throughout the Finger Lakes (I went on expedition from as far west as Aurora/Niagara Falls east to Skeneateles, south to Ithaca). Somehow, I finagled my way in to being (I forget the exact job title) a canvassing leader. My job was to get maps from city hall, draw up canvassing targets, drop the folks off, go do my own door-to-door work, then swing around and pick people up so we could head on back home.
To say I was "uneasy" from the moment we entered Auburn is to put it mildly. We stopped as a group at a Denny's (as I recall), and almost immediately, I commented on the fact that I didn't like the feeling of the place. The rest of the canvassers thought I was acting odd, but I distinctly recall not liking the town at all. I didn't like dropping the folks off, all by themselves, at various points around town. I didn't like being out on my own, especially once it got dark. I remember one house I walked by - a tall, brick Victorian, abandoned - and I refused to look in the windows, because I knew that something was looking out at me. I also remember going the wrong way down a one-way street, having to turn around in an empty lot - and seeing . . . something . . . that made me slam on the brakes, gasp, and peel out, panting in fear.
I returned, reluctantly, and was even more spooked by the entire town. The people I encountered were distinctly odd. Indeed, they got more odd (and more than odd) as time went on. I vowed I would never return to Auburn after that. I was lucky when I found another job soon afterward.
I relate all this not because there is anything objectively scary about what I went through. Indeed, I am retelling things as best as I can recall them 20 years and many experiences later. With the sole exception of that strange . . . event . . . in the vacant lot, which I cannot recall at all other than a feeling of abject horror, there is in fact little here but my own feelings. Yet, it is precisely here - at the level of feeling - that I have encountered what can loosely be defined as "the paranormal". My feelings about Blood Point Cemetery are simple - just another old place where people buried their dead. Auburn, however, is in a whole different category; like Gettysburg battlefield, I would not return to Auburn for love or money.
Virtual Tin Cup
