Ghost Rider Investigations

I wrote this second installment of my early paranormal life for friends on one of my other webs and thought I'd share it here with my new friends at HPI.... I hope you all like it - It is the story of my early paranormal life and my first encounters with the paranormal side of my very Scottish Highlander family...

As many of you asked for a continuance of my stories, I decided to write about the life I've led and a bit about a special house that blended the paranormal with the normal... My Great Grandmother Nonnie's home... Of course, I had promised to write of my Grandmother Bessie in the first installment, but it does seem that I should follow some progression of time to properly introduce the family and times to you.

As a very young man, I experienced a time when my own family couldn't take much of me and it was decided, at age 17 and a lot of raging hormones clattering about my Scottish frame, that I would spend a summer in our second home in Paradise, California. This home had been in the family since the early 20'th century. When my great Grandmother had it built, it cost $400.00 and was the spiritual center of the family then and on into the future. So, one fine June morning, I waved at my parents as they left me to watch over the home and I was filled with uncertainty, more than a little fear a being on my own and a sense of adventure as I entered young adulthood while trapped without a car in a remote mountain community.... Many lives came and went throughout the 20'th century. Parties and marriages, love and fighting and laughter mixed with pain. All in all, a place of all of life's experiences.

Underlying it all was a sense of peace and permanence as I remember it all. Nonnie was the matriarch of the family and she presided over a family of 12 children, many of who preceded her in death and the remainder of which needed her to guide them, even well into their elder years.

So, for sixty odd years, the house was a hub of life and creation. And as the house aged, so too did the great bulk of the family, who then split apart slowly but surely, like a dandelion shedding it's seeds and scattering to the wind.

Scottish folks tend to have shades of very dark brooding sides overshadowed with great humor for the most part. That side of our family was no exception to this way of seeing the world. Nonnie's experience and view of things was to approach these things with a calmness and elegance that made all bow to her presence when she presided over the family, usually in some row or silly fight that needed stopping.

Nonnie passed when she was 92 and I remember the day well when she did leave the Earth. As I walked out one fine summer morning from the typical family breakfast at my grandfather's house next to her home, I suddenly stopped. As we are all psychic, myself included, I entered that dream-time that seems to tell you, although you don't realize it at the time, that something life-changing is about to occur.

So I stopped and gazed into her eyes. The Scottish gaze is a powerful one you know. Filled with meaning, it is a strange thing. Psychic to psychic, we stared. She looked back cooly at me and smiled. It was if I had said goodbye and she sat back, chewing the last of the pancakes that she was eating at that moment. I smiled back and then went on outside to hang out with my cousins. Five minutes later, she had a heart attack and was passed within the hour. My mother held her as she died and I never have forgotten that experience, amongst of many psychic episodes I've had in my life.

I was totally shocked at how I had "known" but not. This was the first of many such life-changers that announce themselves before they happen, if only we would wake up at the moment.

We inherited her house. And, of course as families are want to do, they fight over such things. Silly, isn't it? Fighting over something that someone gave to you from their heart and eliciting jealousies that have no real basis in logic but more in schoolyard ethics than anything else. So, with our inherited property, we found ourselves "kicked out" of the family. Our own small family took it hard for awhile, but we carried on. We improved the property and took pride in our new summer home.

Forward to two years later; I found myself facing down the lane as my parents car moved away and I turned to face the house that I knew held more than empty memories. I had sensed things in that house before and now I would face them full force for three long months. No one had ever told me I had the sight. All I knew was that I knew something was watching me from those windows. And I was terrified of that knowledge. No one would have believed me, right? Of course not!

In my first week in the home, I remember sleeping with the lights on, since I was particularly scared of the room my Uncle Jaffy had died in. He had passed many years earlier of cancer and had taken a hard death. I remember the last time I had seen him and that he said a tender goodbye days before leaving the earth for good. I sensed a presence in that room and it was the first time I felt a spirit looking right back at me. For the untrained youth I was, this was a scary thing indeed!

So, I took residence in my grandmother's room. That seemed logical, since Nonnie hadn't died *in* the room. That went pretty well for the first week. And then... the events began. The noises were the start of it all. And then the hostilities began, but not from a spirit.

One morning, I woke up to find a hole in the screen and a pile of dirt in the back porch in the shape of a grave. I couldn't figure who in the heck would do such a thing, but it did unnerve me. As we had a pretty hostile neighbor who ran a motorcycle shop and he was quite a piece of work (a drunkard and bully), I guessed it might be him and I called home to report the problem and my folks said they would look into it next trip back up. So I put it out of mind and made sure to lock the house down extra tight.

From that point on, the disturbances really began to pick up steam.

It started with sounds of people *in* the house. Always at around nine to twelve at night. And they were sounds of parties and people milling about the home. Sometimes I heard kitchen noises. It became so bad, I took to leaving the tv on to drown out the noise. I felt that there were people looking at me in Nonnie's room and one night, I felt the bed move as someone else got into it. Someone who bloody well wasn't there!

It was at that moment I called home in the middle of the night in sheer terror. My mother had experience in these things and calmed me down and recommended that I realize that this was probably family and that they were not trying to terrorize me. So, with some trepidation, I returned to go to sleep, but then changed rooms to where my Uncle had died. I figured he would understand. So, I began sleeping there.

A couple of days into that new arrangement, the next thing happened. I looked to the head of the bed to find a white light had appeared just above the spot where Uncle Jaffy had died. I tried everything to cover it up and explain it away, but it remained for many months. It didn't matter if it was light or dark, that light stayed there. I finally realized that he was letting me know he was looking out for me and it brought me quite a measure of peace to realize that he cared enough to show it.

So, with a dead Great Grandfather watching out for me and other equally dead family members making noises all over the house at all hours, I spent the summer with the shadow of my 17'th year arriving and going.

If you ever want to get a kid to shape up, put him in a house with dead relatives and leave him there to scare the crap out of him. Believe me, it works. And then take solace in knowing it will also turn him into a man.

I remember one night, I woke up to hear the screen in the window shaking and I realized my intruder was back. I peered out and saw the motorcycle jerk from next door fiddling with my screen, so I grabbed my 22 rifle and loaded it with blanks. I stuck a fishing BB in the barrel and climbed out the window and snuck around to where the so-called intruder was cutting the screen. While he was intent on the mission of scaring me, I proceeded to toss a rock at him, hitting him on the side of the body with a sickening thud and scaring him near to Hades. As he turned to run, I aimed the 22 and shot the bb into his back-side and that added an extra-bit of speed to his already motivated run for life. I will never forget the screaming. It was particularly satisfying to see that blowhard run for his life and to get even so handily. I did let it be known to neighbors the next day I had shot at an intruder and that I
was now arming with real bullets for any potential comeback performance.

My next sighting of Motorcycle-Boy had a particularly hostile stare thrown my way. I smiled and enjoyed my new found military experience.

I had no more problems with cut screens for  the summer. And I discovered that I had the family pen chance for resolution of problems via justified, but measured violence... As I am a direct descendant of Rob Roy McGregor, this does seem fitting and has been the hallmark of my style ever since.

My mother would come up every weekend to stay and help me with the property and she got quite the laugh when she heard about how I handled his nibs. That weekend, she and I went fishing at a place called "Timberslide", a favorite and very magical spot for the family. This is the place we scatter our dead. And a great place to fish too. We mix life and death you see... And in this mixing, we share our lives with those who passed.

That weekend, I had another experience while fishing. Trout fishing in the Sierras is a particularly absorbing experience. One can gain total focus and rest of the mind while engaged in traversing some of the most hostile country I've ever fished in. It is a stark beauty. Granite boulders, trees all around in ravines that wind and twist with giant elephant ears dancing over the water and trout that fight like no place else on Earth.

As I fished a wide expanse of river, I heard a shout. I turned and looked. No one was there. I shrugged it off and then my "spidy-sense" went off. I could *feel* someone looking at me. And a brief investigation showed no one and nothing about. So I moved on.

It happened again. This time, with my name being called. I stopped. It was a chill that went down my spine at this latest event. I'd heard these things before, but never told anyone. How would it look to my family if I start saying crazy things like this?

So I spent the rest of the day going along and having voices call out every so often. I finally would stop and say "What do you want?" and it would be quiet.

So, as often is the case with fishing, I found myself cleaning my catch next to my mother when I tactfully brought up the question of if she had ever had an "unusual experiences" on the river. She stopped cleaning her fish and eyed me for a long moment. Then she asked me "So... the river is talking to you eh?"

The expression on my face said it all. She had me clean my mess of trout to finality and then we sat and talked about it all. She said that many spirits and family members use the noise of the river to speak to us. And if we listen, we might learn a thing or two. She also told me that sometimes it was "false-speak", with the river making noises as rocks tumbled below and that our brains would interpret these things as voices. But, with practice, I would be able to discern real spirit voices from the false ones. I asked where she had learned this and she revealed that, without exception, the entire family had the gift of sight and had all had these mountain conversations with loved ones long passed.

So, I learned to love that place. It has been and always will be my place of remembering family and conversing with them. We always take extra food and stop at the place of scattering where my Grandmother and various uncles and aunts have found their final peace. And, we always smile, feeling them about as they nod approvingly of our catch and then seek to speak to us over the dancing waters of the Feather River.

Returning home, I faced down another month or so before coming home. My mother showed me the cold spots where things had happened in the far past that were not of our family, but which spoke of someone's passing in a way not natural. And I became aware, in extremely great realization, that life was more than what we see. Our world blends in with the paranormal. Those who have passed live with, in and around us, if we would only open our eyes and ears.

Not long after this time, I entered the period of my life I call the "great shutdown" and the desert that preceded my final awakening to the spirit world's total reality. I'll detail this in a future article and open up a bit about that great period of discovery that so many in the spiritual path find as exciting, unique and totally absorbing after facing the real issues of life and letting the spirit world have it's due with our heart and souls.

Oh... and I still haven't forgotten about the photograph of my grandmother's spirit... you didn't think I would, would you? I'm just leading you down the path dear reader....