As Halloween approaches, I often think about the unexplained. There are things for which there is no logical explanation, and we enjoy hearing these old stories again and again.
I have been visiting with different folks over the past few weeks and asking questions about peculiar happenings that have taken place in their lives. I was surprised to find out that there is so much of the unexplainable that make us stop and question.
There is an old house here in town that stands gracious and imposing on a corner lot near our downtown square. The beautiful old dwelling holds some secrets. I talked to the people who used to live there and was told that early on some mornings, they would smell bacon frying in the kitchen and perhaps hear a few “different” sounds coming from this room. It was as if the earlier residents may have been cooking family breakfast.
There is a newer house residing out in the country that is said to have a rocking chair sitting where a departed one always sat. When they gather in this room, the chair begins to rock.
My grandmother told us that late at night her mother, Granny Key, in her late nineties, could be heard singing, and she always told us she was singing her husband to sleep. My great-granddaddy was gone before I was born.
As a young child, my family moved into the land around the Old Strain House as my daddy was hauling pulpwood. We lived in a little cottage right on the side of the Scooba Chita River. The main house was about a mile from our little house. My Daddy would always tell us to stay inside after dark because the “old soldiers” made camp by the river. This land was where the Union and Confederate armies crossed during the Civil War. I never saw anything, but Daddy told us at times he could smell the smoke from their campfires late at night.
There is a little cemetery that lies just northwest of our cabin in Sallis. We carried some of our family over into the woods several weeks ago and fought our way through the overgrown brush, dead tree limbs and old cow bones to reach the timeworn grave markers. The founder of Weeksville, Jabez Weeks, and his wife, Elvira, are buried here in sunken graves with several other graves scattered about with broken markers at the head of the recessed burial places. As we knelt to wipe away some of the dirt in order to read the headstones, we heard a sound not unlike a woman’s soft scream through the longstanding trees. My husband, the ever rational one, said it sounded like a panther out in the thick woods.
All of these unexplained things are eerie and baffling. I do not know if any of them can be explained. Decide for yourself while enjoying this great Halloween candy.
Halloween Bark Candy – 2 t. melted butter, 1 ½ pounds chopped white candy coating, 2 cups chopped pretzels, 10 chopped Oreo cookies, ¾ cup candy corn, ¾ cup roasted peanuts, ½ cup M&M’s, ½ cup Reese’s Pieces - Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and grease. In microwave melt candy coating and stir until smooth. Spread into prepared pan and sprinkle with remaining ingredients and press. Let stand one hour and break into pieces.
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Peggy Sims is a Kosciusko resident that writes a weekly column for The Star-Herald.
