Supernatural Childhood

As explained in my very first post, I want to use this blog as a way to go over my experiences in the paranormal. Not just as a ghost hunter with a team or solo missions, but my childhood that led me to this path. I won't spend days and days on my childhood, I'm going to toss it into this one post. Maybe make it two, I don't know. We'll see how it flows. Regardless, that's what this is. A journey for you into my experiences and a place for me to ramble about my experiences. We'll start from the beginning.

We used to live in government housing. Not insanely poor, but poor enough to live in government housing. The neighborhood was full of kids and our neighbors were batshit insane. The old guy across the street used to buy bags of sand and pan for gold. He also used to get drunk and ride down the hill in his wheelchair, sometimes naked. His sisters were loud but I don't think we ever had any issues with them. But, they kept us entertained. Either way, we lived in government housing.

It was rumored that in our particular unit, a man died while he worked between the walls. They poured in the cement without knowing he was there and that's where he stayed. You could run your hand over the wall and feel the facial features of the man on my parent's bedroom wall. While gruesome and sad, it was also kind of neat and caused for a few haunting memories. My father used to talk to this man in his sleep. I'm not talking like he mumbled at him, he would hold conversations with someone and it was typically directed at the wall where the man died. I don't remember being told anything of what was discussed nor do I recall my father remembering. These were just things that I remember hearing and witnessing.

One night, I was sleeping in my bed. The next thing I know, I'm awake and upside down across the room, laying against my closet door. Something had picked me up and thrown me across the room. Being a young kid, I ran into my parents bedroom and begged them to come check it. My mom got up, checked, and discovered nobody was hiding in my room and nobody had picked me up to throw me. There were no signs of a break-in, no signs of anybody having suddenly left. It was just nothing. Thinking I was simply dreaming, my mother urged me to return to bed. I refused until I had a lamp in my room. We took the living room lamp and I can remember staring at my room all night, waiting for whatever it was to come back. It didn't.

After we moved from that home and into a home of our own, we never really had anything major happen like that, again. Most of my stories from my childhood surround my grandfather's skating rink that he owned down there. The whole fam damily worked there. My father was the DJ and general maintenance. He ran the skate room (where they give out the skates) and did whatever it was he needed to do around the place. His main job was DJ, however, and he was very, very good at it. My mother and Aunt worked concessions and ticketing. And I grew up skating. I won races and dance-skate stuff. Something, as an adult, I wish I had stuck with.

Anyway, the rink, itself, was haunted. Rumors of a woman who massaged the shoulders of the male workers were rampant and even our most skeptical workers found themselves wondering what the hell when they were given a ghostly massage. Skates would move on their own, fall off the racks, so on. We had phantom skaters. During closing hours and sometimes just before open, you might catch a glimpse of a person skating on the floor when nobody was there. The concession stand also had something in it. I don't think we ever figured it out, but, one night my Aunt challenged it. And it hit her with the popcorn machine door.

My parents, family friends, and immediate family members used to do Ouija board sessions there. I only remember two moments where I was allowed to watch. Nothing major happened, the planchette moved around on the board, a few words were spelled out, but nothing insane ever happened while I was there. However, I was told that one night, while they were doing a session, a family friend of ours joined them. She outright didn't believe in the supernatural, at all. I mean, hardcore 'You don't exist,' sort of thing. While they were doing this, the board was spelling things out and this family friend wasn't buying it. She started arguing, literally arguing, with the board. Apparently, it got so heated that the planchette flew off of the DJ stage and to the concession stand. We're talking a very long distance. I don't know the exact distance, hell, I don't even know an appropriate measurement that can put it into perspective for you. But, I can tell you that if a person tried to throw a planchette that distance, they would be laughed at and the chances of it ACTUALLY going that far by human hand is impossible.

That same family friend had a daughter who was my best friend. We hung out all the time and they had this abandoned home on their property. It was such a weird place. It had such a heavy feeling to it. I don't know if it was because of the stigma that we put on it or if the place /was/ actually haunted. I mean, we believed it to be, if only because it looked so damn scary. We decided to put a piece of paper and pencil in the home, one of those run in quick and run out before the ghost gets you things. Asked it to write down its name or anything it wanted. I remember going back to see weird squiggles on the paper, but no actual words. Being we left it overnight, I still don't know if someone was messing with us. I don't remember ever really seeing anything valid, other than faces in the windows every now and again. And just being utterly terrified of this house. You walked up to it and expected a serial killer to bust through the door, grab you up, and kill you. As an adult, I truly miss that home. But, the kid in me would probably run in terror if I ever got to see it again.

Beyond that, my childhood was filled with the twilight zone, X-Files, Unsolved Mysteries, and so much more in regards to the paranormal. I loved it. I was always on the hunt. There was this local legend that surrounded this abandoned home. Supposedly, people were murdered there and if you went into the house, the walls would bleed, and murder would appear, written in blood, on the walls. You know, typical kids making up bullshit about an abandoned house. Or grown-ups doing it to keep kids out of a rather dangerous area. I never went there, but I remember being fascinated with the idea of it.

I think this is a good place to halt this particular post. Tomorrow, or maybe later today, I'll start in on the teenage years. All of this happened during the ages of when I was born until 12 or 13. If you're curious about the whole skating rink thing, you can check it out on Google. It's now the Ozone Skate Center. They have pictures. They've done renovations since then so I don't know if the DJ stand is still where it was, same for concessions. But, you can get an idea of distance just off of those pictures alone. Anyway, thanks for reading. Stay tuned for the teenage years!