Your True Tales
February 2006 – Page 25

Old Man's Ghost
by Carolina

My husband is quite a skeptic, or so he would have you believe. He has a scientific mind and gets irritated when he cannot figure out a rational explanation for something. A few years back, he went to get his chain saw chains sharpened at a local sharpening shop, which happened to be in a private home. We knew the family, and my girlfriend Darla lived in the house at the back of the property. Her grandpa and grandma were the people who ran the sharpening business.

He pulled into the driveway, got out of the car and walked up to the door. He knocked, no answer. Thinking they were at Darla's, he walked to the end of the drive to Darla's, and she was not home either. As he was walking back to the car, he saw a man in the back yard of the sharpeners house. He called to the man, but got no response. He watched the man walk across the grass, around the pool, and then exit out the back gate. Thinking the guy was deaf or not friendly, he gave up and came home.

A few weeks later, Darla was at our house for a visit. Jim asked about her grandpa, telling her that he went to get some sharpening done, and no one was home but an old man in the back yard that wouldn't talk. Darla leaned in and asked my husband to describe the man to her. "He was about 85 years old, had dark sunglasses on, he wore an old muscleman T-shirt, brown slacks and seemed to be wearing carpet slippers. He carried a rolled up newspaper." She grinned, "You saw my greatgrandpa!" "Is he deaf?" my husband asked. "No," she said, "he's dead!"

According to Darla, his ghost is seen in the back yard carrying his the newspaper! She sees him when her grandparents are not at home. He sort of keeps watch. My poor hubby was at a loss for words, suspecting Darla was fibbing. She later showed me a picture of her great grandpa. A sweet old guy, sitting on the porch, newspaper folded in his lap smiling at the camera. Of course, he had his dark glasses on.

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