Welcome to the cKotch.Com blog. I’m Christopher Kotcher, and this is my history with ghost stories.
The Charm of Specters
When it comes to storytelling, there is nothing quite like a good ghost story. There is something about hearing of things beyond our visible world.
And the best way to enjoy these tales? That would be when gathered with family and friends. Sharing little stories and rumors with each other. Playfully spooking each other and proving our links to the supernatural realm.
Considering the season, I thought it may be fun to share some of my favorite ghost stories through the years. Let you hear some of these personal tales.
Dad’s Lighthouse Lore
My dad has always been a key storyteller at family gatherings. Birthdays, Christmas Eve, football games. All of it.
Typically his stories focus on his good old days growing up. He was actualization of those mythical free roaming kids you see.
He would leave home after breakfast, return after dinner, and get into all kinds of misadventures along the way.
Out of these stories, there is a clear category for ghosts. Much amounts to friends messing around or rumors from his youth.
Still, there is one story which I feel stands above the rest. One of his most popular tales told time and again. The lighthouse story.
The tale begins on a family vacation.
My dad and a couple of his cousins went to an old lighthouse. They entered the building alone, wanting to see what they could find.
They roamed the halls, carefully examining each and every knickknack and wondering what it would have been like to be lighthouse keepers.
While wandering the second floor, these three boys found a quiet stillness. They could feel something around them. They heard a woman’s voice speaking to them.
The group scrambled back to the first floor. They could not escape soon enough.
Then the front door refused to budge. The strange presence from the second floor could be felt approaching once again.
The boys ran to the basement. The lighthouse had storm doors. That was the next best hope of escape.
But this hopeful exit proved useless too. There seemed to be no clear way out.
The boys did the only thing they could. They climbed on top of each other and pushed and pulled their way through the nearest basement window.
The boys ran from the scene. They were perfectly happy to leave this story open-ended.
Haunts in High School
Now for some tales from my home away from home.
My old high school St. Mary’s is a place full of history. The place itself is over a century old, and the campus used to house a military academy.
We used many of the military academy’s old buildings. Naturally, they became the source for many ghastly tales.
The Old Gym would be one such building. The place is now used for events and open gym activities. Back in the day, it held some of the barracks for the old military academy.
And so, tales have spread of ghostly militia men wandering the place.
The militia men are said to walk the upper track of the gym deep into the night. They are always watching, always on patrol. Never leaving their posts, even in death.
On top of this famous tale, there are plenty more. Tunnels hidden under the school and said to stretch beneath the area’s lakes. Random spirits believed to wander the dorms after lights out.
Another good one had to do with a demon. Legends say a priest expelled it from a seminarian on the campus. The frenzied fiend fled from the priest only to trap itself in a tree.
Years later, lightning struck the tree. People worried the demon could escape. So, they bound the tree back together with chains.
One year later, lightning struck the tree again. A statue of the Virgin Mary was placed on the remaining tree stump. That way the demon could remain forever sealed.
These stories and many more raced between us kids. Some even persist to this day among students and alumni alike.
Creepy College
Even college had its share of ghost stories.
While walking between night classes, we would try to creep each other out or get in a good laugh. Any rustling leaves or moving bushes could be blamed on some new twisted creature.
Typically, these ghosts were nothing unique to the campus. We would just apply pop culture references or generic urban legends. Everything from internet tentacle freak Slenderman to Spongebob’s very own Hash Slinging Slasher.
Probably the best example came during the creepy clown epidemic a few years back.
Clowns just started randomly appearing in places. They would stand at street corners or hide in the shadows. Most just stared but some actually did chase people.
One of my night classes used the situation to get out of class early. We got everyone to walk out as a single group. We huddled together and watched each other get into our cars.
Here and there people would point in random directions and claim sight of a clown. That was honestly one of my favorite experiences with a night class.
Inspiring Spooks
Ghost stories build communities.
They allow us to attach supernatural meaning to our common experiences. We include ourselves in them as potential witnesses to the great beyond.
They are ways for us to test each other’s fears and move past them together.
There really is nothing like a good ghost story told among family or friend to bring people together.
Do not get me wrong. I love writing. I love the idea of anyone now or later being able to read I story I have told.
Still, there is such a great energy to the stories we tell each other. To the stories we tell together. That energy is priceless in building relationships with the people around us.
There are times where I aim to mimic such energy in my own writing.
My work Story Chronicles is all about the moments which shape stories. My main character Ulysses often writes for his friends with their help. These may not all focus on ghosts, but they do feature the community aspect often linked to ghost stories.
My short story “Tale of the Snow Siren” incorporates elements of ghost stories. It could be seen as a bit of a commentary on community storytelling versus more professional writing.
Maybe more works could come from my thoughts on ghost stories and community storytelling. After all, there is certainly a lot to these subjects.
Kotcher’s Call to Action
My works mentioned in this post can be seen on the cKotch.Com portfolio. You can check out the first part of a two-part Story Chronicles preview here, and you can read “Tale of the Snow Siren” here.
If you like my content and wish to see more, then you have a few options.
You could check out my book Good Stuff: 50 Poems from Youth on Amazon. Good Stuff is enrolled in the Kindle Matchbook program, so anyone who buys the paperback can also get the eBook for free.
You can also check my Essential Posts page for links to some of my greatest posts to the cKotch.Com blog.
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