Need Input

Don't have any personal ghostly experiences (thank goodness!) but I used to work in the Heritage Room in the downtown library. They kept (and still do, I think) newspaper clippings files on all sorts of different topics, and I'm pretty sure there were a couple files on local ghost stories. If not, then there were files about the specific people in the story. Either way, the ladies in that department could probably help you find some. Maybe you can find someplace local to go sit and wait for inspiration. :)

Thanks, Kristen. I'm in the downtown area several times a week. By finding someplace local to get inspiration, you didn't have in mind a cemetary at midnight, did you?
Zeus

No, not particularly ... I meant, read the clippings and see where the ghostly occurences are in this county, and go hang out there (if they're open to the public). See if there's any truth to the stories.

Unless you *want* to go sit in a cemetary. There are some pretty nice ones around here. But I'd think it's a little cold for that right now. :)

Didn't mean to sound frivolous, I was actually being serious. :-)

Lots of luck!

Hey Zeus,
Maple Hill Cemetery and the adjacent Dead Kids' Playground are both a treasure trove of ghost stories. Sally Carter also appeared in an Alabama ghost treasury. Her home was on the Southeast corner of Whitesburg and Drake. If the old house is still standing, it's within a gated community.

Just last night, a friend who lives off Old Railroad Bed Road about a half-mile north of Ready Section in Toney told me that she had a Civil War era ghost in her house who had to be exorcised with prayers, entreaties and smoke from sage. She was convinced he watched her when she was unclothed and would knock things over to get her attention. There was some Civil War action in the area, so you might want to track this ghost down. As far as I know, no one has written about this lecherous spirit of the Confederacy.
Hope this helps,
Amy

Amy
readfish_at_mchsi_dot_com

"Something good will come from the unpromising beginning . . .."
-- Soren Kierkegaard

Fascinating stuff, Amy. Hope your travel lets up so that your word count will osar.
Zeus

Well, I apparently repel goblins and ghosties and longleggity beasties, but my husband's a magnet.

A) When he was very young, his mother was bathing him in the upstairs bathroom when a mid-sized dark shape appeared hovering around the ceiling and began dive-bombing them. His mother yelled for his father, and they apparently banished it.

B) Years later at his grandmother's house he was approximately halfway down the stairs when something forcefully launched him the rest of the way down. He did not trip, but rather felt something shove at his shoulders, and he felt as though he were flying.

C) He had several experiences at Boxwell Reservation up in Tennessee, where he served as a staff member for the boyscout camps there several summers in a row. The creepiest by far occurred on a weekend where he was there completely by himself - the staff had arrived a week early, and had all gone home for the weekend before the campers were supposed to show. He opted to stay. DH sat alone in his tent, reading his bible by lantern light, when he heard a voice calling for help. He grabbed his flashlight and set out, calling out to the voice periodically, but he never got a direct response and the voice never got any closer. Eventually, he could tell that it was leading him toward the waterfront. When he got there, the voice, still faint, seemed to be coming from the end of the pier. DH is NOT a fool, and rather than following a mysterious voice out over the water in the dark, when there's not a living soul at the camp, he hightailed it back to his tent. I don't think he slept that night, but he didn't hear any more voices either.

D) The dining hall at Boxwell is notoriously haunted as well, but more in the "mysterious lights" sort of way. One night DH went ghost hunting there with a couple of the guys one night, but he didn't see anything. The first two guys into the building turned around and ran so fast that the others had a hard time catching up.

I've got another friend who's had some pretty interesting "woogity" experiences. If I can get her to tell me about them again, I'll pass them on.

Also, here's an archive of supernatural stories from the SomethingAwful forums. I particularly recommend the one about the Wireman.

Zeus,

I grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee, a small town in east Tennessee that developed along the Holston River. A funny ghost story happened to a friend of mine that I've always wanted to put in print but never found the opportunity.

In high school, a semi-popular spot to go "parking" was under a river bridge overpass. Only one problem kept the spot from being more popular -- the howling ghost of a woman who had allegedly died under the bridge many years ago and still wandered the dirt road under the bridge.

One Saturday evening, my buddy took his girlfriend to the underpass in hopes of getting past third base and going all the way to home, as we said back then. He had even stolen a condom from his father's bureau. Just as things got hot and clothes were coming off, the couple heard the howling. Now my buddy didn't believe in ghosts. That's why he decided to go parking at the underpass, knowing full well that the howling was probably just wind whistling through the concrete-and-steel trusses of the bridge.

He looked up over the edge of the rear gate of his family station wagon and just about peed on his girlfriend. About 20 yards away he clearly saw a white ghostlike creature coming at them from the other end of the overpass. My buddy pulled his pants up (he, like many of us, always kept one pant leg on just for such an emergency) and climbed over the seats to drive away. He looked in the rearview mirror and swore the ghost was following them up until they got back up on the main road.

A bunch of us guys went with him to check out the "ghost," figuring it was a trick of light or something that scared him and subconsciously kept him from having sex. We wandered around the parking area and didn't find much, except beer bottles and used condoms, of course. I even took a casual date to the parking spot. We made out in the car -- kissing and blind groping but no sex. No apparition appeared.

Mike took his girlfriend, who had not seen the ghost, back to the underpass. Once again they got to the part where it was time to slip on the condom. This time, both of them heard and saw the ghost. They hurriedly dressed and drove away again, never to return to the underpass.

To this day, Mike swears by this story. I never had the chance to ask the girlfriend about it and just wonder if Mike really saw the ghost or made up the story as an excuse to protect the girl's virginity.

Other people have also sworn they've heard and seen the ghost. On windy days, there is a slight low-pitch whistling sound that comes out of the underpass but I wouldn't call it howling. Also, when the moon is setting, the hanging vines can look like the shadow of arms on one wall of the underpass, waving at the cars parked on the other side.

Anyway, I hope you can use this story. There was a book, Skinflicks, that came out years ago, written by a former resident of Kingsport. I wonder if the underpass figured into that book.

Best of luck!

Rick

What's it all about? Where are you going?

A big thanks to Rick, Roundelais, and you others who responded to my my ghostly request. Much more and much better than I had hoped for.
Zeus