Ghosts of the Old American South

Map showing the distribution of the slave population of the southern states of the United States.
Compiled from the census of 1860 - Library of Congress

Well there ya go! I always knew Missouri was more or less part of the great American South - literally, or figuratively, notwithstanding. That darker gray patch running through the upper middle part of Missouri (on the map pictured above) is where Columbia is, and where I spent a total of 10 years of my life (after I spent the first 21 years of my life in Southwest Missouri). I even once lived in a building in Columbia that had been built from wood left over from an "old slave house," according to my former landlord.

He was nearly 90 years old at the time, while I was just a poor, twenty-something college student, working a third job for this particular elderly landlord. Between classes and my other two jobs (plus being a full time art student - and believe me, doing artwork after classes means you put in a LOT of man hours), I was obviously exhausted most of the time, but I was young, and I had to make ends meet, so I always just said "yes" when the old man called to ask if I was "available to do some work."

Unfortunately, I didn't even get a break on my rent for working for my landlord. The old man was too cheap for that. But then again, he'd been through the Great Depression and all that. And he was a pretty good guy otherwise. More than anything though, he was just plain cheap. At his age, he wasn't exactly what you'd call a big spender. So let's just say that I didn't get paid all that much.

So anyway, when I wasn't mowing his lawn for bargain basement prices, what my misery old landlord and I actually did when I put in hours with him, was to tool around to all the properties he owned, where I'd help him fix (or sometimes even shamelessly jury-rig) all sorts of broken down things at apartments he was leasing. 'Cause naturally, the old man didn't want to pay for a real repair man! All those do-it-yourself activities also apparently helped him to "stay active" at his age, too - so I guess there was at least some very definite method to his madness.

At any rate, sometimes, we would even have to go downstairs into the creepy basement area of the ancient building where I was myself living, to get supplies and whatnot. And once, after I'd been living in the building for a least a year or more, when we went down into that spooky old basement - where it always, always, always felt like we were being watched, and where it was often just a little too abnormally cold - I was surprised to see the old man reach up and run his ancient, gnarled hands (in an odd, almost loving fashion) along the dark, pitted, heavy beams up near the low basement ceiling.

We'd been down there in that scary old basement dozens and dozens of times before, of course, but on that particular day, the old man just happened to start reminiscing about days gone by. I didn't think all that much about it at the time, to be quite honest, 'cause... come on, that's just what you get when you spend time with most old folks. It did seem rather odd though, that he had suddenly decided to pay so much attention to an obviously very, very old piece of wood running up along the low hanging ceiling.

The building was so old, he told me, that the basement had even been converted into makeshift apartments for American soldiers, who'd just gotten married after returning home from WWII. I've always loved history, so that was all really, really interesting, of course. But what he said next really threw me for a loop. He said he even remembered when the old slave house, that had once stood out back near the parking lot, had been torn down. So the old slave house wood beam he was touching had actually been salvaged for the building I had been living in for a year or more....

That explained why then, that near the little parking area out back behind my apartment building, I could always sense the ghosts of former slaves milling about. There were at least three or maybe four of them on most occasions, and they seemed to always be working with old farm implements, out in a shadowy little, long neglected garden area within a semicircle of trees.

For whatever reason, at the time, I ended up telling this particular ghost story to a group of fellow students at school, and one particular African American classmate quite understandably got a little emotional. He asked me if the spirits I encountered were wearing chains, or if it looked as if they'd been beaten. Naturally, he even guessed that the ghosts of these particular former slaves must still be tormented and in terrible agony.

That, however, was never the feeling I got. Not whatsoever. There was in fact, a very peaceful, even very much at ease feeling about those particular spirits. But hey, don't get me wrong! I'm quite sure that there are plenty of former slave ghosts running around out there in the ether that came to a very sad end, and therefore still haunt our world. I just haven't yet encountered any particularly tortured former slave ghosts myself yet though - so I honestly, really cannot speak to that.

All I know is that the ghosts I sensed out there in the parking area of the old apartment building I used to live in in Columbia, Missouri, way, way back when I was in college, seemed to be pretty quiet, tranquil folks. I even remember distinctly, quite often, when I was getting out of my car, getting the feeling (with the Second Sight I've had since as long as I can remember), that someone or other that I couldn't see with my own naked eyes (usually an older couple, and a younger man that seemed to be a son), would politely pause what they were doing to sort of greet me.

It didn't happen every single day, of course, because I was often in a hurry, or tired from school or work, but I sometimes got the distinct mental image of someone smiling broadly as they paused to rest their rake (or some other type of farm implement) under their arm, just to be polite. I'd even go so far as to say that they were downright friendly. Because honestly, I could go out to that clearing under that shelter of trees (an area that always seemed to be particularly dark, cool, and oddly peaceful, no matter what time of day or season it happened to be) and although I did not feel that I was alone, I always felt a sense of peace.

Although, to be quite honest, I've always suspected that, more than anything else, my encounters with those particular spirit folks had a great deal more to do with how I personally may have come off to them in particular. Meaning that, they could sense my good intentions and were cool and kind with me in return. And I still believe that to this very day, in fact.

Because really and truly, when it comes to the paranormal realm, quite often, you get what you give. And isn't that pretty much the way Life with still "living" people is on this plane of existence - before our earthly bodies inevitably decay and die?

A Very Mixed Bag of Paranormal Tricks & Treats - Poorly Edited, If Edited At All

If only I could say with all honesty that Amazing Paranormal Encounters, by Rick Kueber, Annette Munnich, Michael Lynch, William Lester, and a slew of other 'authors,' was a pleasant literary experience.  Sure, this collection of assorted ghost stories and paranormal themed rumblings is at times arguably compelling.  Scary, even.  But well written?  Not exactly.  And certainly, taken as a comprehensive whole, not near as much as it could have been.

What actually did make me awfully fearful while reading the book, was that this glorified mishmash of otherwise spine tingling tales would actually come off as ill conceived, prematurely published, and exceptionally poorly edited to the vast majority of knowledgeable readers.  But don't get me wrong.  A few of the individuals who allowed their work to be stitched into this pell-mell patchwork Frankenstein's monster of a book actually appear to be relatively good writers.  Sadly however, few of the rest come off as much more than passably competent in their craft in any sort of appreciable way.  Even more frightening is the fact that a few of the most disjointed and poorly edited chapters were written by folks who apparently have PhDs!

And if THAT doesn't scare ya, surely nothing will.

Yes, folks, Amazing Paranormal Encounters appears to have just plain not been edited all that well.  In fact, it doesn't appear to have been edited at all.  But then, these days all sorts of things get hastily and really quite expeditiously "ePublished," don't they?  These days, almost anybody who has the time and the patience to bang away long enough on a garden variety keyboard is a big name 'author.'  Well, not really, but you get the picture.  But hopefully you won't have to buy the book to actually find out for yourself.  Like I unfortunately did.

Mind you, this is coming from a guy who also is sitting in front of his very own keyboard; a guy who also possesses the power to be an almighty 'author' type person too.  Yes, I can articulate, therefore I truly am a writer.  The question is, am I a good one?  Well, the answer to that question is highly subjective, is it not?  At least in my own defense, I'm a guy who actually does believe in the old saying, that "everyone has at least one good book in them."  Of course!  Why not?  But... and this BUT really does deserve both ellipsis AND the strongly indicated obligatory pause, EVERYONE... and I mean EVERYONE, could use a decent EDITOR every now and then, you know.

Heck!  I'll bet even a grade A, choice select, prime cut author like Stephen King has somebody or other who helps him review his manuscripts after he's finished banging away on his very own writing instrument of choice.  You know, someone competent and trustworthy to help him to get all the details just right, BEFORE his latest book goes flying like a bat out of otherwise scholarly hell towards the hot and heavy presses that, in these days of electronic publishing, feed greedy and overanxious book sellers and consumers alike with appalling regularity.

But nowadays we all live in this crazy new wild, wild west type ePublishing world, don't we?  Oh yes we do!  Got a bunch of paranormal themed essays you can slap together and launch slapdash into the Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble stratosphere?  Well you're in luck, baby!  What?  No time to edit it?  And you've got nobody (with an actual background in genuine publishing, that is) to so much as give the book a good, thorough read through before the freshly delivered newborn can even utter its first earthbound scream?  No problem!  Here it is, folks!  And it only costs $3 bucks odd!  So even if your brain gets tangled up in mangled up knots trying to sort those poorly worded sentences out, at least your precious pocket book isn't going to be a whole heck of a lot lighter!

Yeah....  Right....

At any rate, Amazing Paranormal Encounters really should be a good book for anyone who loves true paranormal accounts, but this particular 'author' type person really cannot see how it ever would or should be at the top of anyone's reading list.  Sure, the content isn't bad, as true paranormal fare goes, but some of the essays/chapters are so poorly written, that you may find yourself pausing an awful lot to mentally self edit while reading.  Which really isn't fun, let me tell ya.  One might even say that far too numerous grammar and punctuation errors in this book tend to break aesthetic distance so often, and to such an annoying degree, that the otherwise spooky nature of many of the stories pretty much ends up falling through the cracks in the floorboards of all those oft cited haunted houses.

Bottom line; even though I might be able to recommend this book to anyone who likes to read true paranormal tales, I really don't think anyone (or any English majors who actually know their stuff anyway) would give the book high marks.  In fact, I'd say that most practiced readers and other assorted intellect types worth their salt, who know how to break their thoughts up into carefully worded sentences (highfalutin PhD or no) would find this book to be downright tedious and even needlessly painful to read at times.  And the scariest thing of all, I truly fear to tell, is that a good, thorough editing of the text would have added at least a star and a half to my final, mostly generous, three star rating.  Maybe even two!  And that surely is scary indeed.