- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894)
With Halloween around the bend I have thought a bit about the subject of ghosts. Not that I have been seeing them - in fact the contrary. I am somewhat sad that I have seen none in a very long time.
My siblings will remember Pete. Pete was a spectre of some renown in the Daniels household when we were kids; Pete would move things, turn on lights, and float down the stairway in the middle of the night. Pete would scare the dog (although the dog of my childhood was Bitsy, a small black cocker spaniel who was spooked by the sight of a spider) and generally be the cause of some uproar almost weekly.
The house I knew as a child was a big old four-square on Queen Anne hill, the kind of place that evokes a lot of scary thoughts, mostly to the neighbors who watched the parade of Daniels by the score coming and going, A sister lurking in the attic like a Bronte clone, brother Steve throwing a scarf around his neck, hurling open the dining room window and hurtling head first out into the yard below after dinner, shouting "Kamikazi". Above the fireplace were the gigantic moose antlers which had hung there for too many years to remember why, above a fire that had once been the exciting recipient of some ammunition dumped into the flames accidentally with the debris from Phillip's desk. The house was full with a lot of life, so what purpose did Pete fulfil?
I remember once when I was about five; it was a warm evening, we had been out on the boat swimming on Lake Washington. We got to the dining room table and there was a small wet footprint on the cloth. It was years until I realized it could be reproduced with a wetted side of the hand and a few wet fingerprints, but the tale on that day had been that Pete had gone swimming with us. I still prefer that original explanation.
Pete was a part of the family, not that we necessarily needed another, but he was a valued participant in everything we did. The house could have been chaotic, but somehow Pete grounded us. He was the connection to the past, something gone but not forgotten.
When we moved from that house, I remember not being particularly sad to leave the structure...after all we were off to a new place, a new adventure. But I do remember walking up to the empty attic that last day, and saying goodbye to Pete. I hope the new family listened to the creaking stairs, the closing doors, the cool basement which scared their dog. I hope there was a small footprint on a tablecloth on a warm summer afternoon, because there is importance in passing history forward.
With Halloween around the bend I have thought a bit about the subject of ghosts. Not that I have been seeing them - in fact the contrary. I am somewhat sad that I have seen none in a very long time.
My siblings will remember Pete. Pete was a spectre of some renown in the Daniels household when we were kids; Pete would move things, turn on lights, and float down the stairway in the middle of the night. Pete would scare the dog (although the dog of my childhood was Bitsy, a small black cocker spaniel who was spooked by the sight of a spider) and generally be the cause of some uproar almost weekly.
The house I knew as a child was a big old four-square on Queen Anne hill, the kind of place that evokes a lot of scary thoughts, mostly to the neighbors who watched the parade of Daniels by the score coming and going, A sister lurking in the attic like a Bronte clone, brother Steve throwing a scarf around his neck, hurling open the dining room window and hurtling head first out into the yard below after dinner, shouting "Kamikazi". Above the fireplace were the gigantic moose antlers which had hung there for too many years to remember why, above a fire that had once been the exciting recipient of some ammunition dumped into the flames accidentally with the debris from Phillip's desk. The house was full with a lot of life, so what purpose did Pete fulfil?
I remember once when I was about five; it was a warm evening, we had been out on the boat swimming on Lake Washington. We got to the dining room table and there was a small wet footprint on the cloth. It was years until I realized it could be reproduced with a wetted side of the hand and a few wet fingerprints, but the tale on that day had been that Pete had gone swimming with us. I still prefer that original explanation.
Pete was a part of the family, not that we necessarily needed another, but he was a valued participant in everything we did. The house could have been chaotic, but somehow Pete grounded us. He was the connection to the past, something gone but not forgotten.
When we moved from that house, I remember not being particularly sad to leave the structure...after all we were off to a new place, a new adventure. But I do remember walking up to the empty attic that last day, and saying goodbye to Pete. I hope the new family listened to the creaking stairs, the closing doors, the cool basement which scared their dog. I hope there was a small footprint on a tablecloth on a warm summer afternoon, because there is importance in passing history forward.
