Happy Halloween 2021: Yer Ghost Stories
A collection of spooky tales from the people who lived them. Ghost stories, UFO sightings, paranormal experiences… Things that cannot be explained but were certainly felt by those who’ve shared their stories with me this Halloween.
A few years back I was rushed to the hospital because I had a very bad allergic reaction to medication.
I was admitted overnight for observation and was hooked up to some IVs. While I was sleeping, I rolled over and my dad was sitting there reading the newspaper. He told me to “go back to bed, everything would be OK”, so that is what I did.
When I woke up in the morning I looked over where he was sitting and I saw the newspaper folded on the table.
My dad passed away in 1996… years prior… He, obviously, was watching over me that night and came back to visit.
- Lisa
A couple of weeks ago, my two year old kept saying “Papa! Papa!” while pointing to the corner of her room.
I let it go as my father in law had just come for a visit. Later, while I was rocking her to sleep with the lights off, she pointed to the corner again and said, “Hi Papa”, then she smiles and says, “Papa hiding!” At this point, I felt a breeze of cold on my arm and a sudden chill.
I decided to show her some pictures.
A picture of my father-in-law: no reaction. A picture of my grandfather: no reaction. A picture of my step-dad: no reaction. Then I showed her a picture of my biological father and she said, “Papa! Mommy’s daddy!”
I never refer to my biological dad. Ever. My kids know my step-dad as my dad. My biological dad passed in 1996.
To say the least, I bought white sage and am going to smudge the house.
- Heather
I was 11 years old when grandfather passed. About 2 weeks after his death, my father kept asking me who I was talking to. I answered, “Gug”, but dad says, “He passed away”. I said, “I know!”
What happened was, I woke up ‘cause there was a weight on my feet and there was my Gug! Sitting on the end of bed! So I said “Hi Gug”, and he said “Hi Karl. Don't be scared, I'm in a good place and doing fine. Don't worry, you will be here with me later”, and you know what? I think I will be with my Gug again, but not for a while I hope. I'm 62 and I will see my Gug again!
My mom loved tulips. Adored them. Especially the red ones. But she would only look at them in magazines or on other’s properties as she would joke she “couldn’t take care of flowers to save her life.” So she never planted anything.
She passed away on sept 1,2001. On sept 11th there were the attacks on the world trade center.
I was still at her house sorting out her things and I really needed to get some air with everything happening. I went outside into her backyard and in the corner, by the cedars, was a big beautiful red tulip.
Freaked me out. But then made me smile.
- Mike
When I was twelve years old, me and a bunch of girls played Ouija board. We ask for signs and the typical stuff! I was sitting with the bay window behind me and when I asked for my dead grandpa to give us a sign that bay window exploded behind me! He was an alcoholic and many years ago, on a drunken night, he broke the bay window in my dad’s childhood house! Never EVER played that game again!
- Marie
My mom used to work at this boutique in Mexico that was owned by a cousin. I used to drop by and help move things, and do things for my Mom that she couldn’t do. I came in one time and just before going to lunch, my Mom said, “There’s this one door at the back of the store that I cannot open, I was told to put extra boxes there; can you help?” So we go to the back and there’s the door, behind another door. So, I give the knob a twist and… it opens!
I said, “What are you taking about? It was unlocked!“
We open the door and find this room, which looked more like a corridor, and it’s really really long. Me being me, I want to go see how long it is. We start down the corridor and it goes on and on... We stop after a minute walking and turn around and the door where we came in looks really, really small, so we decided to head back. Fast. And, finally, we get out.
After that experience, I decided that that corridor seemed too long. I’m wondering if it’s even possible. So we go outside the building and count steps along the block to the street behind and determine it’s around 175 steps or so to the end of the street.
Armed with this new info, we go back inside and this time, with a flashlight just in case, we start walking into this corridor. We count up to 200 steps… and there’s more… that’s when we stop and literally run back to the entrance door and close it.
We still talk about it in our family. As for the door? The next day we summoned up some courage and decide we are walking to the end! Well, we could never open that door again and the landlord had no interest in investigating saying, “it didn’t matter because it was not part of the rented premises.”
I still get goosebumps thinking about it, and still look at old building entrances with apprehension.
- Pepe
About twenty three years ago I decided to go on a little trip across Canada with my best friend at the time. We were eighteen and had no plans but to hang out and party for a month straight.
We stayed at my friend's father's house which was in the middle of nowhere Alberta and very old .
My friends grandmother (at the time) was quite ill and my friend Mike was sad and worried that something bad would happen. On my third night there I decided to go to sleep before Mike. He was still in the living the room listening to the radio .
You know that point when you start to fall asleep and you’re kinda awake but kinda dreaming at the same time? Well, I was about there when I heard a strange voice say, "Don't worry Mike, she will be ok." I passed it off as my brain just running wild, until a second later… Mike came bolting into my room asking me, “Did you just hear that? Did you hear somebody tell me she was going to be ok? That came from the speakers!!!"
I sat up and realized that I was not dreaming. We both heard the same thing.
Needless to say, we were freaked out and we ended up crashing at the camp up the road. The next day, we spoke to Mike's dad and kinda mentioned what had happened and he said that most people who have slept there have had something odd happen.
The only other thing that happened to us while there was not half as scary but odd non the less. We could stay in the house for days straight and nothing would happen but the second we both left, we would always come back to all the breakers tripped in the fuse box. If we left together ten times in one hour, we would have to reset the breakers ten times. If we stayed in and didn't leave, there was never an issue.
I am not a true believer in this stuff but I can't explain it. Never happened before the trip and in the twenty years since, I have not seen anything else like it… that I could not explain.
- John
I had been working at a local community hockey rink; working hard shoveling and flooding the ice.
I was in the washroom and had just finished washing my hands. I had literally just turned off the water in the sink and still had my hands on the hot and cold water taps when the hand dryer behind me turned on.
Every hair on my body stood up with fear. I was covered in goosebumps.
This was an air dryer that you had to push the knob for it to work. My hands were still wet and in the sink.
Frozen, I said a loud "Thank you!" turned around and dried my hands.
That was a little frightening.
- Ben
We had just moved into a new house when my daughter was two and we were shopping in a store that gave out free samples. The sample lady told us that,
“Your daughter can see things. She can see THEM. If they bother you, tell them to Go Away".
Weird, right? So we left the store.
A couple nights later, I wake up at around 2 AM because I’d heard something. Turns out it was my daughter walking down the hallway (she just graduated out of the crib into the bigger bed).
I follow her down the hallway, say her name and she turns to look at me. I noticed that she looks totally out of it; eyes wide open, but not really looking at me and she says, in the creepiest voice I've ever heard,
"This child should not be here."
At this point I am obviously freaking out. I walk over to her, pick her up and bring her back to her room, put her in bed, turn around to leave and find that her door is closed behind me.
I walk over to the door and grab the handle when I hear this blood curdling scream coming from behind me. I turn around and my daughter is sitting up in her bed screaming and pointing at the door. I go over to console her for a few minutes and she finally calms down and I go back to bed.
When I get back to bed, my wife asked “What's going on?” I explain everything and she says, “Yeah, I heard a bunch of noise and I have to work in the morning so I came and closed the door behind you.”
Scared the living hell out of me. Only reasonable explanation is that my daughter was sleepwalking or, at least, I hope she was sleepwalking.
- Jaret
ANONYMOUS TEXTER: “I don't know if this is much of a ghost story. But when I was a child I was playing with a first choice play set. I remember so clearly, I was sitting down and look at the wall and my shadow stood up and waved at me. I freaked out and went to my parents but got shrugged off. I'll never forget that day.”
Renfrew Children in Need of Play Structure
Young students attending this Renfrew, ON, public school will not have a play structure this year unless something drastic comes together last minute.
I was contacted through my work’s facebook page by a concerned citizen from the valley. Being from the valley and having gone (very briefly) to school in Renfrew, Ontario, I immediately took interest in what this person had to say.
“Hey, just wondering if you can make a post or something to help my Kids school get a play structure.. the old one was deemed unsafe and with COVID they did not allow us to fundraise so now we are scrambling as they decided to tear it out and replace it with a mound of dirt... can you Help spread the word. Here is a go fund me page for it.”
Essentially, this public school which teaches students from Junior Kindergarten up to Grade 6 is currently without any sort of play structure for ANY of it’s students. How can this be? I am all for the safety and wellbeing of our kids and if the district deems something ‘unsafe’ then demolish it. There should be a replacement plan ready to go to ensure that kids have SOMETHING to make their recess time special.
Being a radio host living in Ottawa now, I am obviously not an expert in the ‘playground structure & safety’ world but I would like to learn more. Ultimately, I would like to see the children have a new structure at Central Public School by the time school starts in September.
Growing up in a small rural town, I can tell you that these playgrounds aren’t just for school time. I used to enjoy the one at Beachburg Public on evenings and weekends with my family and friends, too. Those are long gone but at least there is something shiny and new in their place.
Under the Influence
How do you feel about Social Media Influencers? It’s the way of the future in terms of advertising but don’t you think it’s strange how the risk of disappointment in a company’s product or service is shifted directly onto the person paid to promote the product and it’s consumers? Makes ya think…
Social media influencers are generally popular or trusted online profiles of people who’s taste you share or trust.
Their job is to essentially be a living, breathing advertisement. Since traditional methods of advertising (cable TV, radio, print media) are competing with the online world, companies vying for your business are paying for the oldest method of advertising in the book: word of mouth.
Now, I don’t know if it’s because I grew up in a town of 600 people in rural Ontario but to this day, I always trust the ‘word of mouth’ method. It works both ways… if my buddy tells me they got bad service somewhere; I’ll spend my money elsewhere. If my buddy tells me they got great service somewhere; I’m gonna check it out & likely, even before checking it out, I’m gonna pass that ‘good service’ rumour on.
The thing that bothers me about online influencing is that, in my opinion, these profiles turn real people like you and me into actors expected to play a role. They are PAID to paint a product, service or brand in a positive light. For example, if Company X gives me $1,000.00 to “share my opinion” on their thing, it better be a favourable opinion. Right? That’s the rub.
There are some questionable methods about how influencers are recruited, too. Have a lot of followers? You’ll need to to get the job. However, a popular method of gaining loads of followers is to pay for them or enlist the use of bots (not real people or cloned profiles) to make it seem like you have legions of fans watching, sharing and consuming your content. This is why hired ‘Word of Mouth’ social influencers, by law, must express that they were paid for their opinion.
Lots of people in my line of work are hired as influencers and it’s not an inherently bad thing. It’s a smart way to market a product and it’s the future of advertising. How does it make you, the consumer, feel about that person? What if you try the product and had a bad experience? Who loses: you, the profile of the hired influencer but not the company who’s product YOU bought or service YOU tried because someone you' trusted told you to.
That’s the issue I am struggling with in terms of being an influencer. I don’t have to worry about it too much though as I don’t have a zillion followers. No one’s knocking at my door to shill their ‘things’. To be honest, I have more than enough people paying attention to my social profiles and this very blog (hi!)! I’m always surprised that that many of you are interested in what I have to say. Flattered, for sure, but surprised all the same. Everyone who follows me is a real person or represents an account or brand (mostly local); someone who is genuinely interested in what I have to say. I have never paid for followers. I have never participated in a ‘follow for follow’ situation. I don’t want fake followers and I don’t ever want to post something persuasive that I don’t genuinely believe in or stand behind.
The internet is not real life. I’ve been lucky enough to be granted opportunities to work with and learn from online marketing agencies and to have been shown the ins and outs of what it takes to be a Social Media Influencer (and the money to be made is pretty wild). I have only ever personally promoted things that I have typically paid for, feel strongly about sharing or positive experiences I’ve had with companies X, Y and Z that align with my interests.
I’m curious to hear about your experiences with Social Media Influencers. Here’s some feedback I’ve received through Instagram when I asked “What has your experience been with Online Influencers? Good, bad or neutral"?”
“Irritating. Fake. Buying followers and using filters.” - Kim, describing a potential consumer’s perspective.
“Good for a small burst of sales… but it doesn’t necessarily create repeat sales or long time customers… a lot of online “influencers” are ridiculous and it can be hard to choose who to work with. But if you can choose someone who authentically lines up with your brand and has the type of followers you want, then it’s worth a try for some sales.” - Caree, with a potential marketing perspective.
Leave a comment below if you have something to say on the topic of being ‘Under the Influence’.
Tom Thomson: the Great Canadian Mystery
For as long as I can remember, my dad’s been totally obsessed with Tom Thomson. As a kid, I thought this was purely based on his art and contributions towards Canada’s ‘Group of 7’ collective. I didn’t know the story and even when it was first told to me, I was like, “Oh. That's sucky." You know? I never paid it much attention.
Lately, an author has really captured my attention and now I find myself obsessed and wanting to know more. Maybe not the truth because I think that those in search of Tom Thomson’s death-related-truth may never be satisfied… but I definitely want to absorb everything that I can (within reason) about this troubled artist.
The author, Tim Bouma, masterfully tells the story (first person, sometimes second or third) of Tom’s final months on Twitter:
Canoe Lake: Residents are in collective shock. The man they knew as an artist is tied to a tree stump floating by a flooded shore.
— Tom Thomson (@TTLastSpring) July 16, 2021
Twitter is my social media go-to, so I easily became completely enamored with the @TTLastSpring account. Give it a follow if you’re interested or, better yet, buy the book ‘Tom Thomson: A Journal of My Last Spring’.
If you know of any other great Canadian mysteries to dive into or have more Tom Thomson related things to satiate my inherited interests, please get in touch!
Free Unicorn NEEDS Accessories!
Gave away a number of free toys this weekend. From my front lawn in Hintonburg, someone grabbed the singing unicorn but neglected to also grab the accessories needed to make the toy work!
Please pass this on to anyone you think might need them!! I’m going to save them in hopes of reuniting the set to make some local kid happy!