OPINION - Speaking with spirits
By Gene Price
Published in News on April 17, 2006 1:45 PM
"Is anybody there?"
That was the insistent question when folks in my earlier years were trying to communicate with "the spirits."
They would be sitting around a table at night. Usually four of them. Their hands would be spread, claw-fashioned, fingers touching the surface of the table.
"Table knock," some voice would intone. That was an encouragement for the spirits to ascertain their presence.
And then there would be silence. And waiting.
"Table knock."
Silence.
I had heard there were all kinds of communications during such seances. Folks had talked with relatives long departed. Hopefully leading them to hidden treasures, no doubt!
This particular night years ago, I was reclining on my old sofa in our home at Rosewood. Wife Gloria and our dear friend Mildred Taylor from Pennsylvania were in the dining room, lights off, trying to communicate -- via fingers on the table -- with spirits long gone.
"Anybody there?"
"Table knock!"
I was trying hard in the next room to concentrate on a novel. I had shed my Korean war vintage combat boots and stuffed my socks into them beside the couch. And was turning the next page.
"Anybody there?" pleaded the voice from the dining room darkness.
In exasperation, I suddenly shouted:
"YEAH! HERE I AM. AND HERE I COME!"
This, as I slammed one of my old combat boots along the floor and through the darkness into the dining room.
Feet flew into the air. Ear-piercing screams. Tables overturned. Chairs flew in all directions. Whatever spirits might have been hovering there skedaddled.
And I slept on the sofa for a week.
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