Ghost Rides

My father and his brother were world class story-tellers.  They would, on the drop of a hat, settle in for an afternoon or evening of enthralling yarns.  Some would be funny, some exciting, and some would carry a moral or point they wanted to make.  The best ones, though, were the scary ones.  And the best place for a scary one was on a ghost ride.

In our little town, summer evenings were long (no day light saving time so it got dark before bedtime).  Kids and adults would take to the yards to enjoy the coolness of the evenings and visit with their neighbors.  We youngsters would be running in packs as we played hide-and-seek or kick-the-can.  Sometimes, when we became too obnoxious or just tired of the same old games, daddy and Uncle Ben could be teased into a "ghost ride". 

Daddy had a furniture store so he usually drove one of the big panel trucks home for the night.  He would load all the neighborhood kids into the back, cozily cushioned on piles of furniture pads.  Then he or Uncle Ben would get in with us and close the big back door.  It total and absolute darkness, relieved only by daddy's small flashlight, we would start our journey.  The truck would sway and shift as we traveled to some undisclosed spot out in the county.   Our guide would begin to build the anticipation by telling us that we had to do exactly as we were told when we arrived because of some unnamed menace lurking outside.  After what would seem to us to be a long drive, we would stop and the back doors would be opened.  At that moment, daddy would discover a problem with the flashlight, which left us in darkness.

We would gather close to the two men and be instructed to sit quietly in a circle.  Usually we found ourselves on a dirt road in the woods or sometimes on a bridge over a gurgling stream.  (Woods were always more fun for us townies.)  Then they would begin to tell ghost stories.  They were so tuned in to each other that they would pass the story back and forth without missing a beat.  One elaborating on the others ideas until we were peering into the dark and jumping at every frog croak.  We would then be instructed, in an agitated tone, to be absolutely quiet.  "Did you hear that?' one would ask.  "I think so...do you think it is????" the other would reply.  "We better get these kids to be quiet or it will find us!"  "Listen, listen hard...do you hear it?"  We would all sit and strain our ears until every sound was magnified and the night was filled with chirps, grunts, and buzzing. 

It never failed.  At some point during the tense listening, an owl would hoot or a fish would jump, or sometimes we would hear the harsh screech of a bobcat in the woods.  At that the men would jump up and yell for us to get in the truck quick!  Like a flock of frightened chickens we would scramble and run for the safety of the back of the truck.  Once inside the doors would close and the flashlight would miraculously work again as daddy counted noses.  He would heave a sigh of relief, "Thought maybe we had lost  little Bobby that time, but we got away."

After a quiet drive back he would deliver the now sleepy children safely to their parents.   Who needed television, we had ghost rides!