imMBrtnn dtantg jnim, ,
The NEW BERN
K‘2’ "C 235S0
liU
IHIBLI8HID WIIKLY
IN THI HIART Of>
■ASTIRN NORTH
CAROLINA
I St Per Copy
VOLUME 14
NEW BERN, N. C., FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 1971
NUMBER 15
Yesterday was when
something happened to hun
dreds of hauntM houses Aat
once dotted North Carolina’s
iandscape. It was noticed most
in this section, after military
bases sprouted at Cherry Point
and JacksonvUle.
The houses stayed right
where they had always b«n,
only they weren’t scary any
more. A shortage of dwellings
made desperate shelter seekers
immune to strange noises and
even stranger tales.
Spooks don’t, like to be
crowded, and hate people who
refuse to take them seriously, so
there was no choice but to
gather their sheets around them
and head for where spooks out
of business congregate.
“We didn’t have a ^ost of a
chance,’’ a prticularly ^oomy
ha’nt confided to us one night,
while gazing dispiritedly at a
brightly lighted, freshly tinted
home on the outskirts of New
Bern.
At first, he appeared to be
inebriated, three sheets in the
wind that is, but the more he
taiked, the more sense he made.
A ha’nt, we discovered, ain’t a
bad guy when you get to know
him.
“Hiese yoiatg service couples
started it all,’’ he said. “They
blew into town from the North,
South, East and West, and in
less time than it takes to say boo
they claimed every avaOable
house, apartment and room.”
And, he added, “They didn’t
inquire about spooks, all they
wanted was a place, anywhere
at any price. If the price didn’t
scare them out of their wits, it
was a cinch we didn’t have a
chance.”
What had happened to prior
occupants was of no concern.
“These young upstarts,” the
ghost inform^ us, didn’t take
any stock in all this stuff about
pirates and other cut throats in
New Bern’s spook parade.”
They were willing to concede
that lots of unusual deaths
occurred here, before and after
the Revolutionary War. So
what! Tliey had their own iives
to iive, and .they were going to
iive to the fullest.
Scarcely pausing for breath,
or whatever it is that enables a
ghost to talk, the dispiried spirit
continued, “Civilians took a cue
from service couples, and
having experienced the
dwelling shortage too,they grew
disdainful of our scare
technique.
“As a matter of fact, it wasn’t
much point in trying to make
houses sound creaky. A hi^
percentage of the places really
were creaky, without any
assistance from us, and nobody
knew it better than the ten
ants.”
Spooks fared worst around
military areas like New Bern,
Jacksonville, Wilmington and
Fayetteville, but there was a
shortage in other towns too.
Some apartments were so
crowded a ghost would have to
be a midget.
“What worries me,” moaned
our talkative ghost, “is a
sneaking suspicion that folks
never will get around to being
afraid of ha’nts again, at least
U'oiitiniicd on page K)
★★★
BON VOYAGE TO THE MAGIC LAND
ONLY CHILDREN UNDERSTAND.
—Photo by Theodore Baxter
★★★