Robin the Ghost on 27th Street

This post is a bit of a departure from my usual posts about my family, but I guess my own personal ghost story is part of the fabric of my life, right?

Annie is asking for ghost stories, and I thought that sounded like fun. So here it is!

When my ex-husband (YES ex, not late... I don't talk about Steve very often) moved into a vintage house back in 1980, I was very excited. I had always wanted to live in a house from around the turn of the century.

We had a friend staying with us who had helped us move.

It all began the very first night when we turned off the light and went to bed. Suddenly we heard some weird music for a few seconds, and it sounded like it was coming from somewhere in the house.

I sat up in bed and said, “Steve! Did you hear that???”

He said, “It’s nothing. Go to sleep.”

I was just beginning to drift off when suddenly the curtains blew straight out.

“Steve! The windows are closed! I think we have ghosts!”

He replied, “Are you crazy? I don’t believe in that garbage. There is probably a hole in the window somewhere. Go to sleep.”

We had barely settled back down when suddenly the overhead light turned on by itself.

Me: “Screeeeeam!”

Steve didn’t say a word at first, but sat bolt upright, reached over for a cigarette, and could barely light it because he was shaking so hard. As scared as I was, I couldn’t help falling out with laughter at Mr. “I Don’t Believe in Ghosts.”

Now, this was a standard light switch that had to be clicked down to turn it off, and up to turn it on. We both examined it, and could find no logical explanation of how it would have flipped up by itself.

Finally, whatever was going on settled down. We had no more strange episodes that night.

The next morning I was serving breakfast when our friend who was staying with us sat down at the table. He didn’t look like he had much sleep, either.

“Gary? How was your night?” I asked.

He moaned, “I couldn’t rest. The weirdest thing happened. I had my door opened to the hall and suddenly I saw this white thing floating in the air! It scared the heck out of me!”

Steve and Gary had to work that day, so I was left alone with my three-year-old Jimmy. He had heard all the talk at the breakfast table and was pretty scared himself. So I decided to get proactive with the situation. I told Jimmy that if there was a ghost, he was probably a friendly ghost. We named the ghost “Robin,” which would be appropriate for a boy or girl. Then we talked to the ghost and said that we were going to be living there with him (or her) and wanted to be friends.

Robin the Ghost was there with us for the two years we lived there. He would play pranks on us all the time like hide stuff that would later reappear, but never did anything really scary. We invited Robin to go with us when we moved. But he stayed behind, maybe because he had to. All the cute little pranks stopped after we went to the new house. We actually missed him.

You can call me nuts. But that’s how it really happened!!! :)