Saturday, March 15, 2014

Ghost in the Graveyard

Oh how I loved to play ghost in the graveyard!  The neighborhood kids and I would make our plans to play while we were baking in the sun at the neighborhood pool.  We would all go home for dinner and baths and then we would meet on my front porch.
If you have never played, one person is the ghost and runs off to hide while the rest of the group waits on the porch and counts.  When the counting is done, everyone goes ghost hunting.  Whoever finds the ghost first gets to be it next.
We played night after night in the summer, interrupted only by a game of sardines or kick the can.  I love remembering this because I can actually conjure the feeling of the warm summer nights, crickets buzzing...  fireflies flashing.
One night, when we were all hunting for the ghost, we were having a particularly hard time finding him.  We looked in the trees, under bushes, EVERYWHERE!
Just when we thought that we were NEVER going to find him, a white image came around the corner of the house with an eerie sound....  "Whoooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaa!  Whooooooooooaaaaaaaaa!"  You have never seen kids scatter and run faster!  I ran around to the front of the house and up the stairs, terrified!  I hid under my bed, listening to the rapid beating of my heart and my own hurried breath.  I waited and waited...  Suddenly I heard my mom's laughter coming down the hall.  She was not just laughing, she was crying, she was laughing so hard!
It was my MOM coming around that corner with a sheet over her head.  :)  After I recovered from the fear and then indignation that followed, my mom and I went hand in hand to the neighbors to assure the other children that our yard was in fact NOT haunted.

2 comments:

  1. Deb,
    This made me laugh! We used to play "Ghost in the Graveyard" all summer long. We waited until dark and then headed out into the neighborhood to play as long as our parents would let us. How surprised I was to find out at the end that it was your mom! Hilarious!

    Cathy

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  2. This made me smile. I can imagine that your mother did not realize how scared you would be...so scared you hid under the bed. Good thing you and she went to the other homes to assure them that she was the ghost. What a fun memory. Jackie

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