Ghost

Ghost(Anthony Colombo) Well I am not sure where to start, so I guess I will tell you a little about me. I am 76 years old. I was born in St. Louis, Missouri at the beginning of World War II. My name is Anthony Paulo Colon, and I would like to talk to a ghost. I like movies about the dead and what they do. No, not that Hollywood blood and guys stuff. More like the “Ghost Whisper” stuff. I like nice ghosts.

Just after I got married, my wife and I moved into a house on South Eleventh Street in San Jose, California. My grandfather bought it so my uncle could go to San Jose State and get the resident discount. The house was built in the late 1800’s by a local doctor.

You’re asking what does this have to do with my liking ghosts? Well a lot. It wasn’t long after we were there that my wife told me she saw an old man standing in the doorway to the kitchen watching her. She said he had the look of a nice old man but never said anything, just stood and watched. When I asked about him, she told me he always showed up just after midnight and stayed only a short time, never more than an hour. I asked her if she ever tried to talk to him and she said no he didn’t look like he wanted to talk. I was ready to have a real long chat if he ever showed while I was there. He never did, and we moved to St. Louis, Missouri. There she saw a man who told her about what would happen to our three-month-old son when he became an adult.

To this day I don’t understand why dead people appear to others that don’t want to see them, and like my wife don’t want to talk to them, but not to me who does, why?

We came back to California and, moved into an apartment on a street next to a cemetery. OH, what a deal. No one wanted to live there even my wife but for me it was the answer to a dream. You see I really think that when you die you go to a parking lot called a cemetery. You stay there until you are checked out and then move on to where ever. But, while there, I believe that they collect and do what live people do, and that’s what I would like to be a part of.

I would sit on our balcony watching the grave stones for hours. I even spend many sleepless nights out there, but you guessed it nothing. I tried walking through the grounds and on more than one occasion was asked to leave because they were locking up.

On one of my walks I found a hole in the cyclone fence behind the eucalyptus bushes that enveloped the fencing material. That hole gave me access at any time I chose. You may not know it but there are a lot of moonless nights in a month and that makes for some very quiet walks.

One night I watched the groundskeeper lock the gates and sat until the moon set. There was a dim light I had seen several times before and wanted to check it out. When it was nice and dark and the groundskeeper was tucked in for the night, I squeezed in through the parted links. I made my way across the graves heading for the older part of the park.

There in the distance was the light. I could tell that it wasn’t a flashlight and it wasn’t a candle. There was something unearthly about it. As I got close enough to see, I found a globe like a glowing snowball hovering about a foot above the ground. The head stone was worn and very hard to read in the dim light. I got down on my hands and knees and rubbed the crusty dirt off the stone. As I rubbed I heard a whispered “annnnnn-the-neee.”

“It can’t be,” I thought and kept rubbing.

“Annnnnn-the-neee,” this time a little louder.

“Is someone there,” I asked as quietly as I could.

“Anthony,” the voice shouted.

It scared the daylights out of me and stopped what I was doing. I quickly jumped behind a bush to make sure I would not be discovered. “Who’s there,” I asked a little angered by the impertinence of the unseen speaker. I waited and nothing.

The light was still there and it was quiet once more. so, I returned to my rubbing.
“Anthony, why are you here?”

“There is a light over your grave and I wanted to see what’s causing it.”

“You may not like what you find!”

I ignored the voice and continued to rub the head stone. The writing was now clear and shocked me, it read,
“Gettysburg
January 4, 1841 - July 2, 1863
Pfc Anthony P. Colon
Army of The Potomac”