The next experience I should tell you took place every summer from the time my grandparents moved into the house until they had both passed and we sold the house. We don't go up there much anymore. I don't remember my grandparents ever living in another home. Growing up every summer my mother would take us (Me and my two older brothers) up to see my grandparents.
Now I need to give you a little information about the lay out of the town. When you came from the interstate as we always did you came into the town from the east. The road coming into town split on either side of a cemetery. One took you along the back of town out to the road that led around the lake. The other took you down the hill into town, as you came down the hill if you looked to your left there was an old house that over the years went through many owners. Next to the house was a pond. I have to say it was about 150 feet long and maybe 50 feet wide.
Every time that we drove by it day or night I saw a young woman at the side closest to town along the edge in the middle and that whole side was heavily wooded and a swamp to boot. No one else ever saw her even when I pointed her out. For some reason I have always known what the girl looked like though I was never close enough to really see her. But she had shoulder length dark brown hair, bright green eyes, the image that I have always seen of her she is lovely about 17 and dressed in 50's attire jeans and a blue blouse. I know that she saw me as well and knew that I could see her because no matter if it was a different car she always waved at me. I never saw her wave to anyone else and I watched her until I could no longer see, other vehicles would be behind us but after she would wave to me she went back to standing looking down at the water.
Now the road wound into town there was two stop signs on the main road through town. At the first we could turn right and go up the hill to my grandparents and the second was just before the water and you had to go left and follow the lake around out of town or right to the park and grocery store. At the first stop sign we'd turn right and head up to my grandparents house just over a small bridge at the one stop sign there was a small convenience store one of two in the entire town. Then up the first part of the hill (this hill was almost like giant steps) on the first step was the trailer park then the section where there were only 4 homes my grandparents neighbour and my grandparents on the west side, across the street was my uncle's and up on a hill a large house. Then you went up the next section to another road that led east and west.
I have told you all before that I am the black sheep of the family. So l spent a lot of my time sitting under a large tree in my grandparents yard near the road. Generally reading or listing to music. I knew that if I sat there long enough that he'd walk by. He was in his late teens blond hair, eyes the colour of polished gold, 6 foot easy and really good looking. I'd say hi and he'd look over reply in kind and keep walking. I saw him every day and one day I asked him his name. He told me that his name was "Robert". I asked my Grandfather about him but he said that he had never seen the boy. I didn't realize that he was dead, he looked solid to me and he was always in jeans and a white t-shirt.
Years later when my grandfather was ill and I about 14 I asked him again about the girl I had always seen. He told me that years before when I had first told him about the girl he had asked around town and a friend of his who had worked at the local paper until he retired told him what had happened. The girl involved I'll call her "Amy" (I don't want to use their real names I feel it's disrespectful) was 17 in 1954 a junior in high school and had a steady boyfriend who was 18 Robert who had just graduated and had a job at a factory in the next town. She had been raised by her father her mother had passed along with the child she was giving birth to when Amy was 6. Amy found herself pregnant, she and Robert were already engaged they were to marry when she graduated high school the next year. She didn't tell anyone, her father caught her throwing up in the bathroom one morning. According to the police report. He snapped and took off; now Robert worked the graveyard shift and was walking home from his ride's house up the hill to his parents home on the east/west road at the top. Her father ran him down with his car in front of the swamp area just past my grandparents' home. He then went home and dragged his daughter out to the pond behind his service garage and drowned her in the pond. She was found by the owners of the house later that day. When he was questioned by the police the man admitted what he had done. The police chief asked him why, why hadn't they just married and the man said the thought never occurred to him. He just wouldn't have a whore for a daughter.
It made me sad when my grandfather told me what happened. I still see them every time that I go, though now that both my grandparents are gone and we no longer own the house I can't sit outside and talk to Robert anymore. I told him years ago what happened and he still walks the same path every day.
I have always wished that I could go and talk to Amy but the area in which she stands is impossible to get to there is a sink hole to the back of her and the family that owns the house will not allow boats on their pond as to many have flipped. Amy does not move from her spot even when I have tried to call her away. I just wish that I could figure out how to get them to one another again.
Sorry it was so long but I had to give you all the details that I have. Thank you for taking the time to read my experience.
Loading comments....
