This is a six part story about a paranormal event that occurred in January 1980. As usual, it’s told without any embellishments and according to a document that I had written after the event.
The camp ended shortly afterwards, and I went home with a sense of wonder that such a thing could happen. I told several of my friends about it, but few were really interested in my story, apart from that fact it made a good ‘ghost’ story. I told my mother who had no answers, and my father just dismissed it as a group hallucination.
Shawn, however, was never the same after that camp. He became my bane of three future camps. He riled me up so much at the time that I was even contemplating giving him a pounding, but I’m happy to say that never happened. I have to say that he was the only person I ever felt that way about.
When I’d see him at solo competitions, he would just stand there with his friend Terry staring at me and laughing, like Beavis and Butthead.
It was as though he had made it his mission to make sure that my time around him as unpleasant as possible and he did a good job of it, but fortunately, I finally started to come into my own and had much better protection.
I also heard that he was messing around with the occult when he was at home. I never found out what became of him, or if he’s even still alive.
The incident itself was isolated. Nothing similar occurred on future camps. For that I was grateful, though at the time, somewhat disappointed, too.
There is an allure you have when you’re young to the supernatural, especially the dark side of it. Part of you doesn’t really believe it’s true, and the other part wants to believe and while that was the only camp where such things happened, it was by no means the only event of that nature that happened in my life.
Sadly, my ignorance and lack of knowledge might have contributed to the situation there. If I knew then what I know now, that stairway would have been cleared before anything even had a chance to start.
Before I left that 1980 camp, I made an agreement with Shane that we would write down our own experiences of those two weeks and send them to each other.
I started the moment I got home. I took out my father’s old post war typewriter and wrote a 7 page document on the events. (And also interestingly enough, the light bulb in my room blew out three times during the actual writing, but never before, or after I was done.)
Then I rushed to get it photocopied and mailed it out to Shawn. I waiting for days and weeks for his response, rushing to the letter box each day, but the waiting was in vain.
He never did send anything back. The only feedback I got on it was at the end of that year, where he confirmed he had received it and deemed it ‘too dangerous’.
Also, an odd thing happened with the document. It suddenly vanished, and in spite of turning everything inside out a dozen times, I could not find it anywhere. It only reappeared nine months later, in a bookcase I never used. I still have that original document today.
This was an isolated incident as far as things went with me.
I retell it as a cautionary tale on how easy it can be to attract such things to you.
As intense as this was at the time, it pales in comparison with some of the other things that happened in my life and I really have to admit that it’s made for a very interesting one.
I hope you found my experience of interest.
Next: Who is really responsible for readings?
