I’m about to share with you an adventure a childhood friend and I had back when we were between the ages of seven to nine. I know the age because I moved when I was ten. Boy did we comb the neighbourhood at that young age, something I wouldn’t have let my child when she was that age.
We lived in an apartment building beside a gas station and a variety store. Used to get penny candy from that store and nickel bags. I still remember him telling us to show him which candies we wanted since we kept saying no to ones he picked out.
Truthfully, the block we lived on wasn’t that big. I just described most of the front end. It consisted then of a few houses along the other, past the parking lot, and a few more on the other behind and beside the garage/station. But we used to randomly walk around the corner for something to do. To get away from the adults and talk.
It’s one of these walks I want to share and a particular house we swear had a ghost.
On one of our walks, like any other time, we would look up the driveways of the neighbours…curiosity being a child’s right. Well, this one time we both saw a white-hooded being pass by the back of a garage door window. It seemed to float by; not the normal walk look.
We back stepped to see if we could see it again, maybe see the actually person. Nope, nobody.
You have to realize that mere seconds had gone by. Someone had to be in the backyard…right?
Nope, never did see anyone. Never did see that hooded figure again, but I can still picture it in my memory-mind. Yes, right now as I’m writing this.
I don’t know how many times we went by to catch a glimpse. How many times we knocked on the door under the disguise of collecting pop bottles. Nobody ever answered the door. Never saw anyone in the backyard. It was a ghost.
Now, with this strong a memory…that could easily be explained away as an adult…there is a story here to be written. Which also means that somewhere in your childhood memories are stories to be written.
These stories don’t have to be true happenings. Save that for your memoirs. Just take a childhood memory and let the imagination run wild. Take your childhood imagination out for a spin, what stories are waiting for you to write?
Like the time a mystery hand turned the laundry room lights out on us. By the time we…seconds at full child speed…got to the door and looked out into the hallway, nobody was there.