Spooky Story

Being as we just had Halloween, it is the perfect time to tell something spooky and of course about father.

Now, something had gone terribly wrong with my sister and she was rushed off to California for surgery accompanied by my mother, so that left father and I as bachelors, and yes, we were a bit bored.  So we planned to take a Saturday and building something fun with my father's Erector Set.

The day started out normally enough: father made Rosti - a Swiss potato dish he made for us kids on Saturday mornings.  We cleaned up and set up to build something with the cool erector Set!

Only, there was this HUGE explosion which rocked the house and we ran outside.  All of the neighbors were also coming out as well.  The blast was still echoing around the Willamette River valley below us.  Dad called the police but there were no explosions they knew of.  Next he called the Portland Air Base and reported the sound.  They had heard it too and had already identified it as a super-sonic blast.  Only problem - there were no aircraft anywhere over the area on radar.....

Everyone went back to their homes scratching their heads over that one.

So, father and I returned to our construction and built an elevator which would lift a marble, drop it onto a rail, where it would run around for a while and then hit the elevator at the bottom just in time for a ride back up.  Mesmerizing.

Father took a bathroom break and I went and got some water for us.  We both walked back in just about the same time, I just a few feet ahead of him.

In the center of the room, in the corner of my eye I saw something, to this day I have no idea what it was but it went from hanging in the air to a blur of acceleration in  a fraction of a second!  I yelled at father to duck and threw myself backwards.  Father did the same and the what ever it was streaked within inches of his face was he was falling.  It then buried itself into the hallway wall.

Father was naturally quite shaken.  We both just stood and looked at the hole in the wall and eventually father reached in with a pair of pliers and pulled out a little car build out of Erector Set Parts.  We looked at each other and ran to the table where our marble carrier stood.  It was still completely assembled - only the marble carrier was missing from the elevator shaft!

A hoist engine and wheel sat directly over the elevator shaft.  There was no way the little car could have been removed - and yet IT WAS!

No question something para-normal had occurred, no question there was no natural explanation, no question it had happened, no question it could have killed father, no question about that hole in the wall either.....

On base, the police had a good laugh until they came out to the house and saw the evidence.  Of course, everyone thought I had thrown the item, but I had two cups of water and was a might small as it was.  The hole in the all looked like a bazooka had hit it.  One of the guardsmen even tried to punch a hole in the hallway wall with his gloved fist - but it was a lath-wood wall and all he did was break a bunch of fingers.  Literally!

We left the house for a few days and I think went camping.  Father was to never mention this again to anyone, even me - aside from one comment one time - "It must have been done with magnets....".  And I think we are at the point where what existed of father's religious faith had died ...