The Mysterious Abandoned House by Sarah J. McNeal #AbandonedHouseMystery

Haunted House

When my family lived in Luthersburg, Pennsylvania before we moved to North Carolina in 1952 when I was 4 or 5 years old and my sister was 5 or 6. Next to our house was an open field and, on the other side of the field was an abandoned house. My sister and I were curious about that house. We knew it was empty.

In those days kids were off the leash and allowed to explore. Everybody knew everybody else and were all up in their business, plus the village was barely larger than a football field before it became fields, forest, and farms. It wasn’t like a crime-ridden city—not even close. So parents allowed kids to have the freedom to roam, explore, and play unattended by adults.

My sister and I decided to go to the empty house and see what was inside. The door was unlocked. I don’t remember if we knocked or just walked right in unannounced. Inside, all the furniture was in place, but the paint was peeling off of most of the pieces as if it had stood like that for years. The dishes were all stacked in the cabinets like they might have been washed, dried, and put away long ago and never touched again. I opened a drawer and found it filled with flatware. The spoons, knives, and forks were sort of untidy in their arrangement, but still, it all seemed present. I do have to admit to a crime here. I stole a butter knife. I don’t know why, I just liked it and nobody lived there anymore, right?

While we were sorting out things in the kitchen, we heard footsteps upstairs. Our eyes met, widened with terror. I couldn’t seem to move. So we stood absolutely still like rabbits. There was a rustling sound and then footsteps again. Fear animated us. We scrambled out the door and ran all the way across the field until we reached the safety of our home and ran up to our room to stare out the window to see if anyone—or any thing might be coming after us. There was nothing except an open field and an empty house. We never went back to the house again and, as far as I know, no one was known to live there again. I will never forget that event for as long as I live.

Have any of you had an experience like mine? Have you ever gone into an abandoned house? Did you see anything interesting there?

Sarah J. McNeal

Diverse stories filled with heart

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Pop's Microscope #Pop'sMicroscope #ChildhoodMemories

My sister, Mary, asked me to post something about Pop and his microscope, so here goes.

Pop had many hobbies. Among them he liked to study things under the microscope. I must preface here that his microscope was as basic as it gets just above a magnifying glass. A mirror reflecting light from the sun or some other external light source is all his microscope possessed in the way of illumination to view whatever was on the slide. That being said, it certainly made it a mobile device that could be used in the house or out on the picnic table.

He taught my sister and me how to use the microscope and how to prepare slides. He showed us the wonders and diversity of life along with objects of interest from nature like the difference between sugar crystals and salt.

One of the things we did that I found fascinating was to put straw in water in an old mason jar and let it stand for a few days. He placed a drop of the “matured” water on a glass slide and placed a slide cover (a thin square of glass) over the drop without a fixative to spread the drop thin enough to look at what was in it. Inside that single drop of water life had sprung up in the form of tiny creatures. They were busy creatures, too. They moved around eating microscopic bits of algae and such. As days passed we checked on the tiny world of creatures in that jar of straw water and things were rapidly changing in there. New creatures would arrive and older ones disappeared. I could only assume new creatures hunted down the older ones and ate them. After some time had passed watching the evolution of life in the jar, we found that all the creatures were gone having, I imagine, reached the end of life in their world with nothing further to eat.

Our parents gave us each a new microscope one Christmas and I loved that mine had its own little light I could plug in and see things more clearly. After I left home to go to college and then out into the world, Pop found ways to use my microscope and the wooden box it came in to improve his microscope. I don’t know what became of my microscope, but years later, Pop gave me his (in the wooden box mine had come in, but transformed to accommodate his microscope.) I still have some of the slides we made together and some pipettes and other tools left from my days at Career Academy. Pop’s microscope is one of my favorite treasures. It warms my heart to have these things that my parents held dear. And I like sharing these childhood stories with all of you.

#The Old Oak Tree by Sarah J. McNeal

Our House and the Tree

Like my father, I love trees, especially those ancient oak trees that have lived a century or more and have stories they could tell. I bought my house because it had a deck and a huge white oak tree to shade it. I called it Grandfather Tree because it provided a home for all kinds of wild things. It seemed so wise because it have lived a long time and knew stuff.

Pop under the tree

Pop loved trees, too. The old house where I was raised stood in the middle of a bunch of very old elms and oak trees. His favorite tree was a huge oak tree in the middle of the front yard. Everybody in the family ended up having their picture taken standing under that old tree at some point in their lives.

Mom under the tree

One of the oak tree’s limbs stretched out over the roof and was maybe only a foot or two above it. When my maternal grandfather came from Buffalo to visit one summer, he noticed that tree limb hovering over the house and told Pop he ought to cut that limb before it fell on the house. Pop, of course, wasn’t about to cut that limb. He said, “That’s the owl limb. I can’t cut that limb and take away their favorite place.” I should mention here that Mom loved owls. They were her favorite animals. So, anyway, the limb stayed for many years. All was well because Mom had her owls and Pop had his tree and the limb that hung over the roof.

My nephew, Matthew under the tree

Many years later Mom died and six years after that Pop died unexpectedly while he was on vacation at the beach in Wilmington. It’s an odd thing though that right after Pop’s funeral, the owl limb fell. A year or so later, my oldest sister, who had inherited the house, sold it. One of the first things the new family did was to cut down that big oak where we had all had our pictures taken.

The old house is on the other side of town from where I live. I rarely have reason to go to that side of town anymore. I don’t go by to see the old house because everything I loved about it is gone. Strangers live there now.  

Me under the tree

My Childhood Summer Vacations by Sarah McNeal

Summer Vacation

Most of our vacations growing up were spent visiting my grandparents in Pennsylvania. Pop wasn’t much on vacations that cost a lot of money like going to the beach, traveling to see national parks, or visiting historic monuments. As much as Pop was an Eagle Scout and a Boy Scout leader in his youth, he never wanted to go on camping trips either.

Still, vacations were fun. I liked that I could stay up as late as I wanted as long as I didn’t disturb the household. Going for walks in the woods and eating family meals down in the orchard instead of in the dining room were always fun. We visited my grandparents once or twice a year. The trip in the car on roads before there were interstate grand slabs was tedious and long. Mom always packed a big basket of sandwiches, fresh fruit (mostly bananas, and, for some unfathomable reason, hard boiled eggs, and a thermos of coffee. The eggs and bananas filled the car with their combined scent which is still imprinted on my brain. When I get a whiff of those two scents, I immediately think road trip. Oh, and did I mention we always took the family dog with us? Yep. A big Irish Setter, named Robin whose whole purpose in life seemed to be how to take up lots of room in the back seat and slobber in our hair all along the way. My sister and I were probably quite a sight upon arrival. 

 My maternal grandmother was a great cook. It sticks in my memory that she always had a vanilla cake covered in thick layers of vanilla buttercream frosting with sliced bananas between the layers and colorful nonpareils on top waiting for us when we arrived. Everything she made tasted great—even pea soup. Don’t know why. Maybe it was just the magic and wonder of being in a different place with people who weren’t like us. I loved to play her piano even though I couldn’t really play it and no one ever told me to stop or be quiet.

My first memory of my Grandfather McNeal’s house fills me with a kind of wonder even now. He bought an old school house and converted it into a home. I looked and looked for a picture of his house, but I have yet to find one. All the pictures they took were in the yard. Bummer. When I walked into the front room I remember the huge wooden ships with real canvas sails sitting everywhere and the sun gleaming through the long windows to the left of the room. I think my dad made the ships, but he never really said. My grandfather died when I was six, but I still remember how gentle and kind he was. He was frail and almost blind in his later years, but he was fiercely independent and insisted on living in his own house with a rope tied between his house and the outhouse to guide him. The last year of his life, Pop chartered a small plane to fly to Numidia, Pennsylvania to get him and bring him to our house in North Carolina. He died a few months later of a heart attack. I wish I could have had him longer. I didn’t get to hear his stories or ask him questions.

Summer vacation meant freedom for me. No one kept me from flying down the dirt road on my hand-me-down bike which I imagined was my horse or setting up a playhouse in the garage. My life was my own until Mom called us in for supper. Freedom from rules and restrictions allowed me a chance to be who I really was with unfettered imagination. I spent a great of time in solitude after we moved from the first house we lived in to the house beside Berryhill Elementary School. There just weren’t any kids around to play with. I didn’t mind. I had tea parties and gunfights with my imaginary friends and on a rare occasion, with my older sister who was usually more interested in reading or sewing doll clothes.

I didn’t miss having vacations at the beach or traveling. I had plenty of things to do right there at home going on my adventures into the woods, to the neighbor’s pond to fish, and pretending I had a horse. Mostly, what I loved was the soaring amount of freedom my parents allowed me.  

What were summer vacations like when you were growing up? What kinds of things did you do? What is your fondest memory of summer as a child?

Sarah J. McNeal

Author of paranormal, time travel and western romance

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