Shadowy figure at the top of the stairs

With Halloween right around the corner the radio station I listen to was in the Halloween sprit and asking listeners to call in if they're ever seen a ghost or lived in a haunted house.  I didn't have time to call in, so I'll share my story here.

I grew up in an old house, that had been in my dad's family for 4 generations.  I always thought there was something there but never saw anything strange until one night.  My sister and I were home with a friend.  I needed something from my bedroom, but the upstairs hall light was burnt out and I was to scared to go up there alone.   The top of the stairs turns 90 degrees, so when you get to the top there's a little nook off the hallway that leads into one of the bedrooms and a window opposite the bedroom door.

My sister, our friend and I all went upstairs together, using a flash light to see.  When we got to that turn in the stairway we shined the flash light on the wall between the bedroom door and the window and very clearly saw the shadow of a man in a wide brimmed hat.  It scared the crap out of us and we ran down the stairs without killing each other in the process.

There's no explanation as to how that shadow could've been cast in that spot because the bedroom door was closed and there was nothing outside the 2nd floor window that would make such a shape.  I never saw it again after that, but it was something that stuck with me for years.

A few years ago, while doing some genealogy research, I ran across a shadowy photo of my Great Grandmother's second husband standing in the doorway of our grainery shed.  I immediately recognized the figure in the photo as the shadow figure I had seen at the top of the stairs years earlier.

A house on stilts

Every time I go out to visit my parents, I pass by the big yellow house that I grew up in. A new family lives there now and it's been over 10 years since I last walked through it's familiar rooms, but I will always consider it HOME. That's were all my childhood memories are.

The house was originally built by my great-great grandfather and was were my grandpa and my dad grew up.  When I stared kindergarten we were starting a major renovation.   We were replacing the small root cellar (which could only be accessed from the outside) with a real basement and having new siding put on.
In school one day the teacher had us draw a picture of our houses.  Since I knew we were going to change the outside from white to yellow, and because you can't see white crayon on white paper; I drew a yellow house.  The neighbor boy who was in class with me told me that wasn't a picture of my house.  My house was white, I needed to draw a white house.  "Yeah, well it's going to be yellow!" I told him.

Our house on stilts

Putting a basement under a preexisting house is a little more complicated than you can imagine.  It involves digging a large hole underneath the house and jacking the house up on stilts so a new foundation cam be built, all while we were we were living there.  Mom was pregnant with my sister and was terrified to leave the house because we had to "walk the plank" from the front door over the hole, which was about a 12 foot drop, to the other side.  One day I was taking my time getting out the door to meet the bus.  Mom didn't realize I wasn't all the way out and just saw the door had been left open.  She gave it a good slam from the inside.  It hit me in the butt with such force it send me flying over the hole and landing on the other side with a thud.  Luckily I was unscathed, other than a stinging backside. Mom was mortified when she realized what happened, but we laugh about it now.

Another time I was playing with the dog on the edge of the hole.  I was sitting right at the edge with my feet dangling.  The ground underneath me started to give way and I could feel myself starting to slip.  I grabbed the dog, hoping she would be able to pull me out, but she knew what was happening and was desperately trying to get away.  She struggled out of my grip just as the ground gave away and down I went.  I don't remember how I got out or how long I was down there, but I do remember having a black eye from the fall and having to explain how that happened.

With a month left of her pregnancy and the house still on stilts, Mom was getting nervous.  She was having nightmares about the house tipping over while we were inside and she swore she could feel it swaying when the wind blew.  That last month of her pregnancy she and I had to move out and live with Grandma until the basement wall were finished and the house could be put back on the new foundation.

I used to be a World Wrestling Federation Groupie

Flipping through twitter yesterday, I saw the headline “Roddy Piper dies of a heart attack at 61”.  And my heart sank a little because I used to be a fan girl.  I texted my friend, V, to tell her the news and that started a flood of memories from the mid to late 80’s when we were both crazy for the WWF.

I don’t remember exactly how it all started; only that V was the one who turned me on to it.   We each had our favorites. We would watch wresting almost religiously every Saturday morning.  Once a month after school we would head to the newsstand at the local drug store and flip through the current issue of WWF magazine; making sure there were picture of “our guys” before buying it.  Then we would take it home and cut out the photos and articles we wanted and put them in scrapbooks.

We saved every magazine just in case, even if they were cut into pieces and no longer readable.  And sometimes would use them to play jokes on each other.  V was much better at it than I was.  There were quite a few times I’d unsuspectingly open my locker in between classes to find the whole inside plastered with magazine cut outs of the villains of the week.  

When the WWF came to Minneapolis, V’s mom; who was just as crazy for wrestling as we were, would order tickets and drive us into the city to attend.  I don’t know how she worked it out, but she always was able to get us seat right on the isle where the wrestlers walked from the backstage area to the ring and we were always 5-7 rows back from the ring, so we always had good seats.  

We made tag board signs, proclaiming our love for certain wrestlers and waved them as they would make their way to the ring.  I’ll never forget the one time I made a sign for Brett Heart and he grabbed it from me as he walked by.  Once in the ring he proudly held it up for the whole arena to see.  I was on Cloud 9, until his opponent sneaked attacked him from behind and ripped my sign in two.  After the match I asked a security guard, who we had gotten to know fairly well because he recognized us as regulars to these events, to retrieve my sign.  He could only find half if it, but that was enough for me, knowing that Brett Heart had touched it.  I took it home and stuck it in my scrapbook with the rest of his pictures.

The first time I got to see Roddy Piper in person, was almost the last time I was allowed to go. I was finally going to be able to see my guy in person, and up close.  I was giddy at the thought of being able to actually touch him as he walked the isle.    I was so excited for this event, I could hardly eat.    The whole car ride into the city I was a nervous ball of energy, hopped up on Mt. Dew and adrenaline.  I had my program and waited anxiously for his match to start.  Finally his match was being announced, I stood up and looked back toward the black curtain where they would emerge from back stage.  My heart began to race when I saw a red pair of wresting boots walking toward the curtain.  His entrance music cued and I knew this was the moment I’d been waiting for all night.  The music played for a few notes before the curtain parted … and there he was.  I screamed, I jumped up and down, I reached way over the railing to get a good pawing as he walked by, I screamed his name, told him I loved him.  All in the hope of getting his attention.  Yes, I was that girl.  Once he was out of my reach, I was so exhausted from all of my over excitement I couldn’t even watch the match.  I burst into tears, sat down in my seat and everything went black.

The next thing I knew, I was being carried out of the arena to the First Aid station by two security guards.  V and her mom were being questioned if I had anything to drink or taken any drugs.  V’s mom was kind of shocked and replied, “She’s only 13.”    An ambulance was called and I was taken to the ER for some tests.  After spending a few hours in the ER, the toxicology screen came back clean and it was determined that I had hyperventilated and passed out.  I was given a sandwich and something to drink and released.  The $300 ambulance bill was enough to make my mom forbid me to ever go again.  She must of forgot, because after a while I was allowed to go again, however I had to promise that I would contain my excitement so I wouldn’t pass out again.

The next time I was allowed to go, the events had been moved to a different arena.  Before the matches started we started talking to a lady who was sitting next to us and she offered us some insider information about what hotel the wrestlers were staying in and that they sometimes hang out in the bar afterwards.  Turned out the hotel was practically across the street, and we could walk there.

We didn’t know if this information on legit or not, but figured it wouldn’t hurt to check it out.  Since the last match of the evening was one we really weren’t interested in, we decided to leave early and head over to the hotel.  At first we weren’t sure where we were going or if we were even allowed to be there, but after wandering around for a while; we found the bar and there wasn’t anybody there to kick us out.  Since V and I were too young to hang out in the bar, we sent her mom in to scope it out and see if she could find any wrestlers in there, while we waited out in the hallway with some very pretty, but overly made up women in tight short skirts and very high heels, who really didn’t seem that interested in getting autographs.  I never thought about it until now, but they were prostitutes.

After a few minutes V’s mom came out of the bar and dropped a few names of wrestlers she had seen, and confirmed that our inside info was good.  The bar was located just off of a small lobby area and we decided to wait in the lobby area away from the bar, in case someone from the hotel saw us there and wondered why we were hanging around when we were obviously too young to be there.  This spot gave us a perfect view of the bar entrance and  the side door. 

V’s favorite wrestler, Tito Santana, had fought that night, and she was lucky enough to spot him as he came in the side door.  She jumped up and ran after him so fast, her mom and I didn’t have time to recognize him.   He stopped and posed for a picture with her and gave her his autograph, before disappearing into the bar.  Another time, we stationed ourselves in the same spot and she spotted another one of her favorites coming from the bar and heading through the lobby.  V chased after him, asking for an autograph, without paying any attention to where he was heading.  He tried to ignore her but she was right on his heels.   He abruptly stopped, turned around, and told her he’d be back in a minute.  If he hadn’t stopped her, she would have followed him right into the men’s bathroom.

Shortly after Roddy Piper announced his retirement, the WWF was coming back to Minneapolis and he was scheduled to fight.  If I never went to another match again I had to get to this one.   It was my last chance to see Roddy in person and I had to try and get an autograph afterwards.  Once again we hung out in our usual spot but we weren’t having much luck.  V’s mom went into the bar to look around and spotted a few of them at one table.  She came out and snuck us into to bar so we could meet them.  I don’t remember who they were because they weren’t exactly who I was there to see.  We got to say hi and shake their hands, but were denied a photo because one of them told us he didn’t take pictures in a bar.  On our way out of the bar, I spotted him.  He had just walked in but then disappeared in the crowd before I could reach him.  We left the bar and waited out in the hallway for I don’t know how long until he came out and was heading for the elevator.  It was now or never. 

Unfortunately, there were other fan girls there too and I had to fight my way through them.  We followed him to the elevator, and somehow I managed to shove a piece of paper and a pen at him and got his autograph as a friend of V’s mom, who had come with us that night, snapped pictures.  Security must have been tightened by that time because somebody stopped me from getting on the elevator with him.  The elevator door opened, he stepped in and turned around to wave.  I gave him a quick high five before the door closed and he was gone.  That was the last of my groupie adventures and shortly after he retired, I gave up on watching wrestling.

I never mentioned my fan girl behavior to my husband, because by that point I was quite embarrassed by it, but thanks to V and our 10 year class reunion she told him all about it.  He thought it was quite funny and still, 20 some years later, teases me about once in a while.  He’ll be flipping through the channels and will run across wresting and tell the kids “Oh, quick change the channel, we don’t want Mom to hyperventilate and pass out.”