This was a memory from childhood. We had next door neighbors who were our age, and the one who was my age had his birthday only three days before mine, so I was always invited to his birthday parties. This party was a particularly memorable one.
Our birthdays were close enough, we could have almost considered ourselves twins, but from different cultures. His mom was Mexican and his dad was Texan, but a Spanish speaking Texan. My parents were white as they came with heritage primarily from Britain and Scandinavia. His older siblings were close in age to my older siblings and were friends, so it was natural to be his friend also. I was always invited to his birthday parties, which were fun, but one particular birthday party stuck out in my memories more than the others.
Being a quiet and often timid child, being in other people's houses always felt mysterious and peculiar, but nothing was so daunting as a strange basement, and this one it was said had a ghost. The idea was appealing to the other children at the party, and it wasn't long before they arranged a ghost hunt. As many times as I'd been in that house, I'd never been downstairs, and as a timid child going into unfamiliar territory was uncomfortable enough, but adding a ghost to the factor made it spooky in all its power.
I followed the others down, but with much trepidation. The stairs went down into a large room, much like ours did at home and just as perfectly pitch dark with only enough light to see a few piles of miscellaneous items spread in the room and a window in the distance with a hint of light coming from a distant window. I was frozen into place while the other searched and called for the ghost, waiting in anticipation for a ghost cry or for something to suddenly pop out. Nothing happened and after several minutes of searching we went upstairs again to do something else for a while, but there was such a fascination with finding that ghost that they went down again.
As a young girl with a vivid imagination and with all sorts of frightening possibilities swarming in my head, I decided not to follow them down into that eerie darkness again. While the others wandered down and searched I remained huddled against a vent in the upstairs living room so I could listen in on what was happening. Those vents were fun, because they amplified voices from downstairs, because of the way the duct system was arranged. Anxiously, I sat and listened for a frightening ghost voice mixed with screaming children's voices. Much to my relief, nothing even as scary as a creaking door happened. For a long time afterward, I looked down those stairs with an apprehensive eye.
Yes, basements always have that mysterious element to little children. I was probably only about four or five in this memory, so some details aren't as clear as they could be, but it's much to be said that it still lingers in my collection of memories. I have more memories coming. Stay tuned.
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| Me in Capitol Reef National Park in UT at about age 3. |
