After paranormal things began happening at Holt and Balcom Logging Camp, I asked our curator, Bob Brown, if he’d experienced anything similar. Bob said he hadn’t, but he said he believed that spirits do walk among us. Except for the story I am about to relate, I haven’t seen the invisible guests taking up residence in the museum. But I feel and welcome their comforting presence. It’s like having a crew of guardian angels.
I am convinced a ghost I call Charlie was the one who played Moving the Chair while I was cleaning the bunkhouse in 2014, because a year later Charlie decided to get up close and personal. This wasn’t my only encounter with spirits. Both of my parents, my sister Carol, and my best friend Barb come from time to time, usually when a song, scent or holiday ritual opens a “window” to the netherworld. I’ve never really seen them; I just know they’re there. With Charlie, it was different. I was not, as Shakespeare would say, “in my cups” when he appeared. I was stone cold sober every time.
During my first sighting, I was outside the museum closing up. I saw him sprint across the garden area in front of the building, as if he had to get inside before I closed the dingle doors and locked the bunkhouse. He turned toward me and then disappeared, like he was the one who was afraid of me.
He looked to be in his early 20s, about 5 feet, 10 inches, well above average back in the Big Pine Era. He was lanky and fit, fully bearded with heavy eyebrows and wearing a mackinaw jacket, wool pants, fur hat and laced leather boots. I don’t have a clue as to why, but I knew instantly his name was Charlie.
Charlie appeared and vanished so fast that, at first, my brain couldn’t process what my eyes had seen. I was rattled and needed to sit down. I went back into the cook shack, parked my shaking backside on a bench and replayed the scene in my mind. Was I seeing things? Going crazy? No, I told myself as I carefully conjured up the apparition. After I calmed down, I went home, but I didn’t tell anyone except Jon. Enough people already think I can be a bit too imaginative.
Whatever. I saw Charlie again a couple of years later, but not at the camp. I was out walking, halfway down our narrow half-mile gravel road. Using my iPhone earbuds, I was listening to Jango, an online country music radio channel I love. I was approaching what I call the Big Blind Curve when there he was, about 10 yards into the woods and waving frantically in a beckoning motion. I hesitated, then shouted, “Charlie, it’s High Tick Season, and I’m wearing a T-shirt and shorts!” I can’t explain it, but I had an extraordinarily strong compulsion to go see what he wanted.
I muted my phone and started to carefully pick my way through the foliage. Suddenly, I heard engines. Two all-terrain vehicles came flying down the road, not slowing at all for the blind corner. I didn’t recognize the ATVs as they raced past, and helmets shielded the drivers’ faces. I surmised they were “lookers,” trespassers who regularly ignore our two posted private road signs. They must have seen me though because they turned onto a rough logging trail in our woods and snuck out the back way via Sandy Ridge Lane.
As the sound of their engines faded, I realized I was trembling. I would surely have been killed if it hadn’t been for Charlie. I looked to where I’d seen him waving, but he was gone. Whew.
Another similar experience occurred a few months later, then years passed with no visit from my spirit friend. Until a few weeks ago. I was driving home from a library board meeting on Nicolet Road. Suddenly, there he was, frantically motioning me toward him once again. I pulled onto the shoulder to take a better look. Moments later, a huge pickup truck came roaring up the hill, well over the center line. There is no doubt I would have been badly injured or killed had I been on the road.
I know. It all sounds totally fantastical, an old woman’s hallucination. It’s fair to ask, why did this happen to me? I think perhaps I was his lady in a former life. Did he somehow fail me and come back to set things right? I like that idea because I believe deeply in redemption and restitution. If that was his mission, I really do consider the debt fully paid. You can rest in peace, Charlie. I’ll see you on the other side.
Kathleen Marsh is a lifelong educator, writer and community advocate. She has published eight books, four on the history of Townsend, where she and husband Jon are happily retired on the beautiful Townsend Flowage.
