Year after year I'm amazed that strange stories come to me that I can share on Halloween, and this year the stories came to me early; while I was on a trip to Nova Scotia with my big brother, Ken, in February. Buckle in for a long one this year. To begin with some context: Ken has advanced lung cancer and we went down to spend some quiet time together at the lakeside family compound and to visit our aging parents. On the flight down, I asked Ken if he had a secret "Houdini-style" signal that he intends to send to people from the beyond, and as that wasn't something he had heard of before, I reminded him of how after my husband's parents died, Dave and his sister kept finding dimes everywhere — and as they felt there was significance in it, it still makes them feel good every time they find a random dime. As a matter of fact, I told Ken, just the week before, Dave's sister, Ruthann, and I had been out for a dog walk in the snow, talking about this and that, and just before we crossed a street, I looked down and saw two shiny dimes on the sidewalk. I pointed them out to Ruthann and she smiled and bent down to pick them up, saying, "One for you and one for me. It's funny: I was having trouble falling asleep last night and I just kind of put it out into the universe that with my birthday coming up, I would really like it if someone wanted to send me a sign." Again, if you see significance in finding a dime (or a feather or a cardinal or whatever), then it can feel really nice to chance upon one; even if it just gives you a reason to think of someone you've lost and smile. And Ken really liked that story.
So we got to Nova Scotia, and the day after we arrived, two uncles and an aunt came to join us — not knowing if it would be the last time they saw Ken — and as the house had been empty for months, I decided to clean up the basement rooms where they would be staying. I dusted everything from the high corners to the baseboards, and then I vacuumed everywhere, and on my third time through the rooms with a dry mop and spray bottle, my internal monologue went, "There's Dad's old treadmill. Christine (my sister-in-law, and current co-owner of the house with my younger brother, Kyler) used to like running, I wonder if she ever runs on the treadmill. I know she likes to walk the loop. She didn't want to walk with me and Lolo and the dogs last summer when I'd invite her, but I totally understand what it's like to be overrun with inlaws and want to carve out some quiet time for yourself." And at that moment, while spraying and mopping and thinking of my departed inlaws, on my third pass over these same surfaces, I spied a dime on the floor beside the treadmill — in an area of floor I had barely finished vacuuming. It honestly felt like a poke from my mother-in-law — as in a good-natured, "I didn't know how overwhelming we probably were in life, but I get it now" — and it made me smile. And when I showed it to Ken, he really liked the story.
When the uncles and aunt showed up, Ken asked me to tell them about the dimes, and my Uncle Billy — who can't listen to a story without trying to one-up it — told of a time forty-five years ago when he and his wife were visiting one of his sisters and her husband in a purportedly haunted house. There was apparently a ouija board out, and everyone gathered around it in the living room, with the overhead light turned low, while Carole and Eric described the strange sights and sounds that they experienced in this house (mostly involving hearing a knocking at the front door [even seeing the screen door jolt with the knocking] and there being no one there when it was opened). It was all spooky fun until, as soon as the storytelling was over, the chandelier above suddenly turned up to a full and blazing brightness that none of them could dim nor extinguish. Billy finished by saying that he and Dianne hightailed it out of there and never went back to that house again.
On the Saturday, Dave and my other brother Kyler also flew down — happily showing up for Ken — and once again, Ken wanted me to share the story of the dime. Dave eagerly added his stories of all the weird places he has found dimes (and not infrequently seen cardinals) since his parents' passing; and while Kyler initially got hung up on the idea that I thought of his wife as somehow resentful when "overrun" with family (which was not the point; the only point was finding a dime at the exact moment I was thinking "inlaws"), he told the following story: One time in Lethbridge, he was driving around with some friends, and when they passed a guy on a bicycle, Kyler yelled out the window, "Get a horse!" At the next red light, this guy caught up with them, and that's when Kyler realised that it was someone he knew from school who he hadn't seen in years. The guy told them that he was training for a road race, and he found it hilarious that someone yelled that at him because it seemed like the universe didn't want him on a bike. He had blown a tire the week before on a training ride, and within minutes of fixing it and getting back on the road, he blew the other one. After a bit more talking they went their separate ways, and a couple of weeks later, this friend was killed by a drunk driver while out on his motorcycle (which was, coincidentally, sold to this guy by one of Kyler's closest friends). Which intriguingly illustrates that while some people find significance in ordinary objects, others, like Kyler, are moved more by strange coincidences (which, as a science-minded engineer, Kyler says he calls "quantum entanglement" while also stressing that he knows that's not what the term is meant to refer to).
Which leads to the last, and strangest, story that was shared over the course of that trip.
My dad came out one afternoon for a visit, and it's testament to what a straightforward, no-nonsense, even humourless, kind of man he is that Ken did not ask me to share the story of the dime for our father. Even so, out of seemingly nowhere — and despite none of us bringing up the kind of stories that had been recently shared — Dad said, "There's this local guy who collects stories and writes books about people's strange experiences and I've been thinking about contacting him to tell him about that supernatural encounter I had in Alberta." My head slingshotting towards him, I said, "You had a supernatural experience in Alberta? I've never heard about that." (For context: my parents left Alberta in 1988 and moved into a decidedly haunted house in Ontario [recounted in my first ever Halloween post here], and I must stress once again, my father — straightforward, no-nonsense, even humourless — is probably the most reliable and non-attention-seeking source I know; if he says something happened, it happened; and while I had heard him add details to Mum and Kyler's stories about the house in Ontario, this was the first I had heard about a "supernatural encounter in Alberta" forty-some years ago. ) And he proceeded to tell us the following:
Every quarter I'd have to travel to Toronto for a meeting with Home Office, and I'd drive the two hours up to Calgary for the flight east and leave my car at the airport there for the drive back home to Lethbridge. This one time I returned on a late night flight from Toronto, and when I got to my car, it was freezing — probably twenty-five below — and I was glad to get in, get the heater blowing, and get to the highway; heading home. So, I'm on the road, probably an hour south of Calgary, middle of the night, middle of nowhere, and my gas tank — which had been full when I parked it — had its low fuel warning light suddenly come on. You also need to realise that at this time, the price of gas was skyrocketing, mortgage rates were in double digits, people were really feeling the pinch of inflation, and everyone was at risk of finding their gas tanks siphoned off. I suppose my tank had been drained while parked at the Calgary airport, and I didn't like being ripped off, but my bigger concern was making it to a gas station before I ran dry.
I knew there was that twenty-four hour Shell near Claresholm (my uncle Mike, from Calgary, murmurred his confirmation of this fact as he sat across from Dad) and I rolled into it on absolute fumes, only to discover it was closed. And as I sat there wondering what to do — with the engine off, and it was getting cold — this old F100 Ford with the wooden rails and a box full of hay, a wooden headboard hung with bridles and bits, this truck comes rolling up and an old farmer got out, walked up to my car and said, "You in trouble?" I said I was, that I was out of gas, and he said that the service station would be closed until seven the next morning. He added, however, that he had gas back at his farm if I wanted to follow him, and with no other choice that I could see, I told him that I'd be very grateful for the help. "There's one thing, though," the farmer said, "this is farm gas with the purple dye in it." (Dad paused here to explain what that was and how the Mounties would sometimes randomly examine drivers' engines to look for evidence of the dye in non-farm vehicles — as it could result in a hefty fine for tax fraud — but again, seeing no other choice, Dad decided to follow the man back to his farm.)
After a few twists and turns along the concessions running parallel to the highway, we arrived at the farm and drove up to the barn where there were two tanks up on struts; one filled with diesel and one with gas. I took what I thought would be just enough fuel to get me home, and when I tried to give the farmer some cash, he refused it, saying, "If you want to repay me, come on up to the house for a cup of coffee before you go. It can get lonesome out here." And even though that was the last thing I wanted to do, how could I say no?
So, we drove up to the house, and after the farmer parked, he went around to his passenger side, opened the door, and lifted out this boy — who I hadn't noticed before — whose arms and legs just hung dead from his body. Feeling weirdly uncomfortable now, I followed the man into his house. We sat and had that cup of coffee, and once again, I tried to give him some money. Again the farmer refused it and explained that some years before, he had been driving along the highway with his wife and son when his engine just gave out. And while he was gone to look for help, a transport truck ran into his family; killing the wife and crushing the son and inspiring the farmer to keep an eye out for stranded motorists in need of his assistance. The whole thing gave me the willies so I got out of there as soon as I could, made it home with gas to spare, but all that's not the strange part of the story.
Back at the plant the next week, I held my regular Friday meeting with the buyers and ended it with the strange story about the farmer and his crippled son who had helped me outside Claresholme. I thought people might get a chuckle out of it, but I was met with stares and silence. And then the lead buyer — this man named Don; excitable, probably had undiagnosed ADD at fifty, always talking loud and waving his arms — he gets up like this (Dad waving his arms around), saying, "That's bullshit. You're bullshitting us right now." And I thought that was odd and I let it go and I dismissed the meeting and everyone just kind of melted away without making further eye contact with me. But Don stayed behind and he said, "Everyone knows who that is you're talking about, it's an awful thing that happened to that family, but it happened in 1935. There's no way you met that farmer last week."
Well, to wrap it up, I went home and told your mother what Don said but never told that story to another soul. The next time I had to go up to Calgary, I drove around the concessions but couldn't find the farm anywhere. Another time, your mother and I drove up and down and all around there, but we couldn't find it that time either. And another thing: when I sold that car, I had to explain to the guy who bought it why the carburator was all stained purple; I told him he would need to take care of it before the Mounties caught him. And that is the story of my supernatural encounter in Alberta.
Of course, at this point, Uncle Billy couldn't help sharing his story of the haunted house and the flaming chandelier, and when it didn't get the big "wow" he was hoping for from Dad, Billy pivoted appropriately, "I can understand how someone could have an encounter with the paranormal — ghosts and all that there — but what I don't understand is the physical part. How you got the gas to get yourself home. And how the dye stained your engine."
"I don't claim to understand it either," said Dad, "but all's I can say is that it happened."
And if you knew my Dad, you'd believe him.
And another thing: When I got home and told my dad's story to my family, when I got to the "but it happened in 1935" part, Kennedy burst out with, "It's Large Marge!" Which is kind of hilarious because just the week before this trip to Nova Scotia, Kennedy was telling me how scared she was to go to bed after seeing Pee-Wee's Big Adventure as a kid — in particular, how she was too scared to reach across from her bed to turn off her light on the side table — because she was terrified Large Marge would reach out from under her bed and grab her. Another strange coincidence, harkening back to Kyler's notion of quantum entanglement, to add another yet layer of mystery to this most unusual story.
And whether it's the spotting of random dimes and cardinals, eerie synchronicities, or impossible encounters, with a brother approaching his date with the great unknown, it does give me a degree of hopefulness that something must survive the passing of the body; I've had thirteen years now of recording stories that seem to prove the point.
*****
My usual caveat: These stories are recorded, to the best of my recollection, as told to me; make of them what you will.
Happy Halloween!
Strange stories from previous years:
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