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roger rollman
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If I had courage

Category: gardening and old home restoration | Posted: Fri Aug 07, 2009 8:09 pm

After having been away from GardenStew for awhile, I find myself returning, and I think the reason is that I liked sharing thoughts about Melrose, which is a mess of a place I have in Eastern North Carolina. Melrose is old, at least by US standards. It celebrates its 200th birthday, depending on who is doing the counting, either next year or in 2014. I think that after all these decades, quibbling over a couple of years is a bit of a waste of time. Melrose also was a wreck. 200 years of failure to properly care for the house had left it in pretty bad shape. The roof leaked in many places, rotted wood both exterior and interior was commonplace, the floors were in atrocious shape, the walls were covered by 40-year old wallpaper, the heating system was on its last legs (indeed, one of the systems died a joyless death and had to be sent to the ol' bone yard), there was no air conditioning on the upper floors (which in Eastern NC means it was well neigh uninhabitable in the summer) and the list of shortcomings goes on and on. I had taken to calling Melrose my little road to the poor house.

However much as happened in the last year and a half, and while the poor house remains a distinct possibility, the house is rapidly getting to the point where it will be ready for the next 100 years. It has a new metal roof, the kitchen has been totally redone, all of the floors were recently sanded and are ready for some protective surfacing, the wallpaper is gone and the walls have all been repaired and are ready for painting, the upstairs bathroom (which we fondly call the "bloody bathroom") is restored, the broad front porch has virtually been rebuilt, the upstairs is air conditioned , and generally speaking, the old girl looks pretty respectable, though it is still a good idea not to look too carefully in the nooks, not to mention the crannies.

There are two issues facing us as we move ahead in restoring Melrose- one is supernatural and the other is merely vexing.

On the supernatural front, Melrose is, not to put too fine a point on it, haunted. We have taken to calling our resident ghost, (if there is indeed only one ghost) Lucy. The temptation when she visit the house to come through the door and say in a lound voice "Lucy, I'm home" is quite hard to contain. But given that Lucy may not like being called Lucy, I don't give voice to any I Love Lucy capers.

Lucy has shown remarkable patience with me and my family, choosing apparently to signal her presence by some rather low-key signals. There was, however, a signal of a different sort which even now stands as a remainder that pissing off a protoplasmic phenomenon is rather unwise. My wife had done plaster work in the bloody bathroom and aimed the beam of a strong work light at the still drying plaster when the workday came to an end. The idea was that the heat from the lamp would speed the plaster's drying. During the night, as we slept in a downstairs room, we were awaked by lots of thumping sounds from upstairs. Lots of thumping. Not the sounds of an old house settling. Not the sounds of an owl owling. More the sounds of stomping around. If I had courage, which I do not, I would have gone to the foot of the stairs and yelled "Lucy, you got some splaining to do." Yes indeed, that is what I should have done. If I had courage. You'll notice that I did not say I would have gone up the dark stairs to make known my displeasure. Oh no! Not on your life. Not me. Instead, I would have stood there in the downstairs hallway, every light on the first floor lit to its maximum wattage, draining megawatts from the North Carolina power grid, and proclaimed my annoyance. If I had courage.

The next day, as we prepared to return home, I took the opportunity to go upstairs, to position myself in an otherwise empty room and to have a one-way chat with Lucy. I splained that we are good folks, trying to do the old house a good turn through a lot of back breaking labor. And I asked her forbearance in the event that we should piss her off again. There haven't been any repeats of the loud sounds since that night, but then we have been careful to leave the intense light off when finishing work for the day. Coincidence I suppose.





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Comments

 

toni wrote on Sat Aug 08, 2009 12:46 am:


After this many years and the dozens of people who have lived in that house I wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a real spirit there. All that life energy has to be somewhere.

I guess the bright light was keeping Lucy awake that night....or maybe she was concerned that the plaster would get too warm and catch fire.




 

eileen wrote on Sat Aug 08, 2009 1:20 am:


Ahhhh it's so good to hear from you again!!
I'm amazed at how much work has already been done on Melrose and hope that, before too long, it will be completely habitable. Any chance of seeing some photographs of your progress as I'm a nosey so-and-so?!!

Lucy sounds as though she's a pretty benign ghost and was probably quite pleased that you took the time to explain what you were doing to her. I hope you and she can live together happily from now on.

WELCOME BACK.




 

lulu1107 wrote on Sat Aug 08, 2009 1:22 am:


Roger, it's certainly possible that someone is watching over the place. I've had that feeling about my house, but never experienced anything obvious like you did. When my son was just a 3 year old, my ex-husband was helping to remodel a historic former residence of some "higher up" with the railroad. One day, after touring the place and seeing a disconcerting number of flies at the upstairs window, I joked that the place must be haunted. That's when the stories of sightings, mostly by children, came pouring out of the mouths of several people there. We were creeped out, but not ready to believe the stories. We spent the day there, with my son playing nearby, when we began to notice that he seemed to be interacting with someone,an imaginary friend. When it was time to go my husband turned for a last glance at the house and caught a flash of a figure of a young boy in old-fashioned attire in the window. I've always wanted to research that place.




 

Netty wrote on Thu Sep 10, 2009 12:27 am:


You sure have been busy! I too would love to see some new photo's of your beautiful Melrose.





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