“I don’t believe in ghosts; but I’m afraid of them.” I never fail to get a chuckle from Sam Clemens’ astute observation about his feelings toward ghosts; how well he summed the feelings of many about them. But not many people know that right here in the Kern River Valley the Apalatea-Burlando House is #6 in the list of haunted sites at This Old House Online’s 15 most haunted sites in the United States.

Just in time for Halloween, our local weather guy Rex Emerson passed this on: “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Press release prepared by Silver City Ghost Town staff. UPDATE OCT. 18, 2009. Kern Valley Ghost Stories Sought. National reality show coming to Kern Valley and seeks eyewitness reports. With the Halloween season fast approaching, many people turn their attention to things that go bump in the night. A Hollywood producer has confirmed she is one of them. The Kern Valley has a reputation for having many ‘other worldly legends’ and supposedly haunted sites. The A & E produced series ‘My Ghost Story’ wants to hear residents’ stories.”

I attended school with Arlene Apalatea in “Old Kernville;” a lovely and quiet girl, she appears in the eighth grade graduation picture I include in my book “The Lord and The Weedpatcher.” I got back in touch with her after moving here to live permanently years ago and we would have interesting discussions about the old days; occasionally I would give her one of the books I had written, but at no time did we discuss any paranormal experiences by either of us. Still, I don’t doubt she has such stories to tell and perhaps she will share some for A & E, but she was a very private person as a child and remained so as an adult.

The Bible is filled with stories of the paranormal; but the Old Testament has it that witches were to be stoned to death, and there is a stern warning about consorting with “familiar spirits.” Ghosts have a prominent place in the New Testament, but while the attitude concerning witches seems without any great emphasis in the NT those thought to be such were still being killed toward the end of the 18th century. Thoreau wrote that despite having killed all the witches and with the introduction of candles and Christianity men still seemed a little afraid of the dark; and even today we remain fascinated, some even fearful of things that go bump in the night.

Though I am a believer in ghosts and spirits, in angels and demons, and have even written I live with ghosts what I really mean by that is I believe the spirits of my departed loved ones remain with me, not as Einstein’s “spooky communication at a distance” but in continued commune with these loved ones and friends and such things as spooky and distance have no place or meaning since to my mind they all remain alive and with me. I have no idea how I would react to an actual apparition and have no desire to call forth some shade as Saul requested of the “Witch of Endor” concerning the prophet Samuel. I am satisfied with my profound belief that because of the love we share for one another I will be reunited in a new body not subject to death with precious loved ones and dear friends in heaven, that the “circle” of love will be unbroken there.

It isn’t that I am without experience concerning the paranormal and I have seen UFO’s while camping in the desert near Edward’s Air Force Base together with other inexplicable things here on earth that defy any rational explanation. But the things I have experienced and witnessed have left me with a more open mind about such claims from others and I am not too hasty in dismissing them, though like most rational people I would like to examine the basis of such claims and am not so gullible I am prevented from being skeptical concerning many of these. However, in the end as I have said many times there are mysteries and anomalies enough right here on earth to examine and study that defy rational explanation to convince the most thorough-going skeptic without having to look to the paranormal.

I live within walking distance to Silver City Ghost Town here in Bodfish, and as a boy while living with my maternal great-grandmother and grandparents on the mining claim (now Boulder Gulch Campground) before the lake went in became intimately acquainted with all the structures that were moved to the site. I earned a dollar an hour doing pick and shovel work in the new towns of Isabella and Kernville as the old structures of the old towns were either demolished or moved to the places they now occupy. Admittedly some of the older structures like the jail did arouse my curiosity and imagination as a boy, but it was some of the structures that were not moved, like the old telegraph office on Sawmill Road and the stagecoach stop on Kelso Valley Road that gave me a feeling they might have ghosts. Occasionally I would get that feeling from some of the old miners’ shacks both here and those I would come across during my desert travels far from any paved roads that left me with such an impression. Ah, as I would often tell myself, if only such structures had the ability to tell the stories of their long gone occupants.

A precious line in the 23^rd Psalm goes “He restoreth my soul.” There is a distinction to be made between the soul and the spirit, and the Bible makes this distinction clear. The soul that sins will die, there is a soul to nourish or starve, to either keep or lose, and the soul of an individual is worth more than all the kingdoms of the world according to Jesus. I believe that. So I try to be as cautious concerning what I feed my soul as I am about either body or mind. But I also believe there are those, children of the Devil that are born without a soul, without a conscience if you will. I also believe there is truth in the Parables of the Sower and the Tares that Jesus told. The seed may fall on bad ground or be snatched away by the Devil, it may find unsuitable soil in which to grow, and Satan is busy sowing his own evil seed among the good and the cautionary words of Jesus remain, “Straight is the gate and narrow is the way to life, and few there be that find it.”

But I’m among those not bound by any orthodoxy and allow my beliefs and imagination a wide range in which to roam and speculate about many things including ghosts; and I count this among my blessings rather than being any hindrance to the nourishing of my soul and I accord others this same wide range. Somehow, I think Jesus would agree and I am really looking forward to hearing any of the ghost stories that no doubt will be told by some of my local neighbors here in the Valley as the stories become available. Though we read in the Bible that we are to keep our hearts with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life, and the children of God are not to be ignorant of Satan’s devices and to resist the Devil this does not mean we are not allowed to entertain a speculative and inquiring mind that remains open to things supernatural and may not fall within the parameters of our own beliefs, but quite the contrary.

When I was a child living on the corner of Cottonwood and Padre in “Little Oklahoma” a popular song being played at the time in Bakersfield on the radio was “Cold Icy Fingers.” One line of the song went, “Don’t mind your naked bones, can stand your hollers and your groans, but keep them cold icy fingers off ‘a me.” Perhaps some of the stories resulting from the call for such here locally will be of this nature, and I expect to enjoy them just as much as I did that old song. Who needs the TV and Hollywood versions filled with graphic gore and violence so long as we have the storytellers?