Ghost Town

Prompt:
Write a STORY or POEM (Comedy or Satire genre, of course) about returning to visit a place you used to live -- which has either changed a lot, or not one tiny bit, or something in between. Tell us all about it! The best one(s) will make the newsletter highlight section. And remember -- make it FUNNY!



This month is my birthday month. I will be seventy-five years old. Now that seems pretty old for most people except for those who are also seventy-five, then it’s a pretty cool age to be.

I feel kind of sorry for younger people. Their lives seem so hectic and busy. I don’t ever remember living through such busy times. I guess I did though, since I raised two children and four foster kids.

This is a month for looking back to my youth. With the invention of the computer and that marvelous asset, Google, I was able to take a virtual trip back to my birth town. McMahon, Saskatchewan. It was listed under ‘Ghost Towns of Saskatchewan.’

There were pictures too, but there were no pictures of ghosts. I guess we all left before the ghosts came to live there. I really don’t know what ghosts do in a ghost town, there are no humans to haunt. Maybe they haunt each other. Or maybe they go to ghost towns to practice haunting.

There was a picture of my old school. It was a two-room schoolhouse. The kind you read about in novels. It didn’t look nearly as romantic as the ones in novels. The windows and doors were boarded up. I don’t know why, since ghosts would have no trouble getting in or out. It looked like the perfect place for ghosts to learn haunting skills.

The three grain elevators that I remember from my childhood were still standing and still looked intimidating as they ever did. Some small towns only had one or two elevators. We used to boast that we had three. That meant that our town was better than the ones with just one or two. It is strange how we identified ourselves in those days. The train tracks were no longer there though, I guess ghosts don’t have any need for train tracks but elevators would be a neat place to haunt. The train used to come through our town twice a week. It caused great excitement and everyone would come out to see the train and wave at the conductor in the caboose. Fun times.

The town looked a lot smaller in the photos than what I remember. Remember that old story our grandparents always tell us that they had to walk ten miles to school every day and it was uphill both ways. Well I could have sworn that was the truth for me. The photos did not show the hills but then you know how things can be manipulated with Photoshop. On the other hand, who ever saw hills in Saskatchewan? It must have been a trick of my memory.

There was a picture of the house where I was born. It looked a lot smaller too. I knew there were ghosts living there when I was a child. I heard them at night and saw them in my dreams. My mother told me about the ghosts. They sat around the dining room table and played games while we were asleep. We heard the chairs creak and groan and sometimes the door would open and close when they went out to the outhouse. I swear it. I never could understand why they went to the outhouse; there are lots of things I didn’t understand about ghosts when I was a kid.

I’m kind of glad my home town is a ghost town now. It was a safe place to grow up. Now I can look at the pictures and think about the great time I had there. I hope the ghosts are having a great time too. Mc Mahon, Saskatchewan will always live in my memory, at least as long as I have a memory.

Word count: 675
Written 1 December 2009