Pappy’s ghost
Pappy Naron’s first wife died in a fire, and years later he married my Nana’s mother, who we called Granny. Pappy and Granny died years before I came along, but when I have grandkids, they better call me Pappy.
Pappy and Granny were simple country folks, content to live their lives out in the country without much fanfare. One of Pappy’s favorite pastimes was sitting on the porch in his rocking chair waving at passersby, and he would do that each evening after all the work was done until he got too old and feeble to sit out there for long stretches. Eventually he was relegated to a cot in the front room where he’d entertain visitors.
Eventually Pappy got called home and his children sold the house. Daddy helped dig Pappy’s grave by hand in the backyard, but beyond that, all signs of the Naron family were gone.
Unless you believe the folks that bought the house.
Sometime after his death, Granny went by to visit Pappy’s grave and while visiting with the new owners, she noticed the drywall had been torn away from the wall near where Pappy’s cot once sat. Granny asked about the remodeling and the owners said that they thought there were squirrels in the walls or something, but when they investigated it, they couldn’t find any explanation for the strange scratching sounds they had heard.
And they also couldn’t explain the squeaking of a rocking chair they’d hear on the porch after supper some nights.
As Granny left, one of them stopped her and said, “We see a lady walking around from time to time too.” A few years later my uncle went by the house and found two ladies tending the garden and when he asked if they lived there, they said, “We used to, but strange things happen in that house; we moved out.” I don’t believe in ghosts myself, and I can’t explain what kind of things were happening at Pappy’s house, but after I’m long gone if my grandkids hear the ghostly squeaks of a rocking chair, it’s probably because they refused to call me Pappy.
