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Becky Armstrong (Helms)
As a young boy I used to stay out late at night and ramble until midnight! But one night I got really scared on my way home from the grocery store. We used to live on Cherry Road in College Park. You may or may not remember the area but I need to describe it to tell the story. There was a Sunoco gas station to the right of my house. On the other side was a liquour store which later was replaced by a Pizza Hut. We were the only house on that corner lot from Cherry Road to Eisenhour Street. It was 1168 Patton Street. There was a large dugout area on the other side of the street Which I called the Gulley. Other kids called it the Pit. Same on the opposite side of my house. In the middle of the gulley was a sign advertising the movies at the Drive In theater. There was a small hill in the center with bushes and a cedar tree. I was walking to my house one night after going to the store across the highway. Kimball's Grocery. I noticed someone standing behind the tree! As if they were hiding. The person was wearing rubber boots and had a long coat on. I was sure it was my Mom trying to scare me! I kept watching this person until I got all the way across to my house. When I got to the back door of the house I had to knock to get my Mom to open the door. We had all kinds of locks on the doors, ha,ha. My Dad had passed away when I was 12 and we lived alone, except for Faris my youngest brother. He wasn't there that night. It took my Mom forever to unlock all the locks. When she finally opened the door I noticed her wearing the same kind of rubber boots! I was relieved and "knew" then that it was her! But!!! That was NOT her! There was absolutely no way that she could have gotten past me to get to the house before I did! I would have seen her! She swore to me that it was not her! She could not have locked all the locks before I got home! To this day I don't know who or what that was behind the tree! It's Halloween soon! Submitted by Ken Hinson
I worked for the Prince Charles Hotel in Fayetteville for 2 1/2 years as the Public Area Manager. Loved that job until the place was closed. We had our own ghost there! Her name was Charlotte. A true story. Way back when the hotel was in full swing Charlotte and her man got married there and were going to spend their Honeymoon there. Except,... she came upstairs and found her new husband in bed with her bridesmaid right after the wedding! Charlotte had been partying after the wedding and her husband had slipped away for awhile. When she caught the two she of course came unglued! Now, it isn't for certain if she jumped out of the 4th story window to her death or if he pushed her out. She was killed in the fall to the sidewalk below. Her husband was a police chief so he didn't get investigated. Here's the results of her death. Every wedding that was held in the hotel after that has had some sort of strange incident happen. The elevators would stop moving, the lights would go out on the 4th floor, people would get sick after eating food they had brought to the reception, Preachers or Ministers performing the wedding would faint sometimes, and other strange things would occur during the setups for the weddings. ---- Submitted by Ken Hinson.
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.jpg) THE WINTHROP GHOST: Built over one hundred years ago, by Ben Tillman, namesake of the campus` main building. In the initial phases of construction on the campus, he suffered a riding accident and consequently lost the use of one side of his torso. Embittered by the accident, he grew ever more cruel, whipping and sometimes bludgeoning the prisoners and slaves who worked to construct the college. Acquiring the nickname "Pitchfork Ben," he died an angry old man, and is still said to haunt the upper two floors of Tillman Hall. Since closed by the University, and deemed unacceptable for class or administrative use, on the right day, you may see a shadowy figure glaring at you from the front portico.
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10/20/2012 Kay, You said you vaguely remember hearing about the building at Winthrop. I don't even have a vague remembrance of anything to do with Halloween. I guess I led a sheltered life. Toby Fields and I went to see one scary movie one time and I got physically ill and we left the theater on Main St. I think it was called "2000 Maniacs".
I just never got into Halloween much.
We have a Harvest Festival at the church with games, hay ride and lots of food and candy. That's about all I have.
Oh yeh, I did learn to carve pumpkins at my grandparents farm. From David Sealy
Thanks, David, for your memories of Halloween. As children we all viewed Halloween differently. It was all so simple back in the '50's when we were young. There were festivals at our churches and schools, but mostly my parents preferred to walk us around the neighborhood for a brief period of time, collect some candy, and home for bedtime. Things have become too exaggerated and overdone for our children - not much imagination anymore. I did love those hay rides. Remember bobbing for apples with no front teeth - that was not only difficult, but humiliating. One of the best Halloweens I remember was at the Church at Charlotte's haunted woods behind the church. My daughter was about 9 and we went in a large group. It was very scarey but we all enjoyed it very much!
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10/21/2012 - Submitted by Lewis Whisonant - I would like to relate something that has happened to both Jenny and me at our house. Our house sits on a piece of property that was once a portion of my grandfather’s farm back in the 1920’s and 1930’s. On our particular piece of property, there lived a share-cropper that helped my grandfather on the farm. I still find pieces of china and metal from the old house. The gentleman who was the share-cropper was named Dan. As the story goes, Dan contracted typhoid fever and died. My grandfather attributed the fever to contaminated water from the well on the property; so he and my uncles hauled wagon loads of rocks from the fields and filled the well in. There is still a sunken spot in our back yard where the well was located. I have attached a picture of the spot.
My grandfather always said that the ghost of old Dan still roamed the property. About 22 years ago, we had two separate events that may have proven my grandfather to be right. While I was in Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Storm, Dan appeared and checked on Jenny and our son one night. Jenny awakened to see a character that appeared to be observing her as she slept. He hovered in the bedroom for a moment, then he floated down the hall to our son’s bedroom and checked on our son. Then he vanished.
On another occasion, I was alone with our son one night. I awakened to see an ethereal-like character looking in at me in bed. I sat up in bed because at the moment, I thought I had had a dream. I was wide awake, and I observed the figure float down the hall to check on our son. Then it disappeared.
Jenny and I attribute the events to Dan’s ghost keeping guard over the property and us. Dan has not reappeared since, but occasionally we hear things that go bump in the night. Also attached is a picture of what happens to produce poachers if I catch them in my garden, and a picture of an old soldier standing guard to scare away deer and two-legged varmints. Enjoy, Lewis
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While I was stationed in the Azores there was a crewchief for the C-130 airplanes from another stateside base on temporary duty (TDY) at Mildenhall Royal Air Force Base, England whose wife was very ill back in the US. He had asked his commander to let him come back home to be with her but was refused. The crewchief got so upset that he actually highjacked one of the planes from his homebase and took off towards the US! He was on his way back and Fighter planes were scrambled to try and make him come back to England. He wasn't going to go back! After alot of radio contacts with him the fighter planes had to shoot him down! He was far out over the ocean when this happened. Later on in my years I was stationed here at Pope AFB and I was sent to Mildenhall 4 times for TDY duty with our own C-130 planes. Each time was 60 days except for once I came down with an ear infection and couldn't fly back. I had to stay on "vacation" for an extra 30 days! Anyway, the parking areas fot the C-130's were called Hardstands. One had a small wooden cross nearby. I asked the guys who were stationed there what it was for. They told me that this was where the crewchief who was shot down had left from! Very spooky! They told me that many things had happened around this area over the years. The crewchief had died around 1968. I was there beginning in 1973. I had to work on our planes on this hardstand several times. It was numbered 21. One night in the middle of winter and foggy as could be I had to change a hydraulic suction boost pump. I was left alone with no one else for miles. The airplanes were on the other side of the runway from the workshops. When you got dropped off at the planes that was it until they decided it was time to come check on your job completion. I had to connect the power unit to the plane to check the pump operation. While it was running the power shut off. I thought maybe it had ran out of gas. I went back outside and found the cable was disconnected! I figured maybe I hadn't pushed it in all the way. So I reconnected it to the plane, walked back to restart it and found a blue baseball cap lying on top of the power unit. It was the type that crewchiefs wore. Now in the military you don't go anywhere without wearing your hat! And as I said I was all alone at the aircraft. I started the unit up and went back inside and ran the pump. It was okay. About an hour passed and the guys from the flightline truck finally showed back up. I asked whose hat that was that I had found. Everyone on the truck had their's on!. They all looked at each other with a strange look and wondered what I was talking about. I don't believe in ghosts but this night I did! Spooky!! _ Submitted by Ken Hinson.
10/23/2012 - OOOOoooh!! 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4!! (That's the theme from the Twilight Zone - 4 little notes!) Good job, Ken! Kay
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