Daddy's Poltergeist

When I was growing up my father told my siblings and I a lot of stories about his past. These stories included the normal antics of a young man growing up but he also had a few supernatural tales to tell. The one I remember best is about a poltergeist.

It was the late 1960's and my dad was a young man newly married and living in a Mobile home with his wife and new baby, my oldest sister. My dad worked as a long distance truck driver at the time so on some nights he wouldn't be home. That left his wife at the time and my sister home alone in the trailer. I do not know his wife at the time's account because she has since died but my dad remembers coming home after a trip and she would tell him that something would come in the house at night, walk around and in the morning she would find the kitchen chairs rearranged. He dismissed her story saying she was being silly and imagining things until one night when he was home he heard something.

They kept my sister's crib in the next room beside the wall that separated the two rooms. Her crib was one that rocked from side to side and when rocked it would swing towards the wall. My dad and his wife were in their bed sleeping when he was awakened by a banging. He relised it was my sister's crib banging against the wall. He said it sounded if someone was pushing it as hard as they could into the wall. Worried about his baby daughter he got up quickly and ran into the other room to her. He found her sound asleep and the crib rocking. He stopped it and went back to bed. He didn't quite know what to think about this and gave no guess as to what might have caused the rocking. He forgot it the next morning and went on with his daily routine.

On another night he remembers waking up to someone sitting on his bed. It was dark so he moved his hand down over the to where he thought someone was sitting and felt a distinct impression on the sheets as if someone or something was there. He goes to sleep attempting to ignore it. By now my dad is convinced something is going on but doesn't quite know what to do about it. At this time in his life he is not a religious man but he still knows how to pray. He used prayer on another night when he woke up pinned to the bed. He could hear everything around him, the TV in the living room, his wife beside him breathing as she slept. He tried to call out to her but couldn't speak. His mouth would not move. He felt as though a weight was pushing him down. Invisible arms holding him and not letting go no matter how he tried to struggle. It was then that he began to pray. He prayed for what seemed like hours until the presence finally let him up. He was so exhausted from his fight that he went right to sleep.

One night he finally heard the footsteps in the kitchen/living room. He, thinking someone had broke in, got his shot gun and came up with a quick plan to apprehend the burglar. Some of you may know but some may not know that a trailer, as we call it in my area of Monks Corner, is set up inside that if you are in one end you can see all the way to the other end. My father's plan was to grab something and throw it at the other end. When it hit the wall the intruder would look in that direction distracting him. At the same time my dad would flip the lights on and shoot the guy. Well my dad gets up, sneaks over to the bedroom door, picking up a coffee cup on his way. Once in the entrance to the living room he throws the mug and flips the lights on. There was nothing there. He checked all over the house, gun in hand, but found no one there.

Severely spooked he mentioned to a co-worker the next day what was going on at his house. The co-worker being an older man who had life time of knowledge about southern superstition told my dad that if you cuss the spirit out it will leave and never come back. Not being a superstitious man my dad thought little of the old black man's remedy.

About a month went by and nothing strange happened. My father thought it was over until he heard the footsteps again one night. Whatever it was was walking all over the house with seemingly no real purpose. My dad had had it. Being a person of explosive temper he went to the living room much like the last time and flipped the lights on. He proceeded to cuss whatever it was out for every no good expletive he could think of ending in something like, "Don't come in my house again!" My father heard the footsteps walking towards the corner of the room and they proceeded to exit out that corner and he and his wife never encountered the thing again. It wasn't till later that my dad relised that he had cussed the thing out and began to believe that maybe there was some truth to the old man's superstition after all.