Strange things began to happen when we moved into the house at 608 Perry Street. I had never in my life had any psychic experiences, but there was just something about that place that had me tuned into things I didn't understand. Neighbors had told us stories about how our landlord's husband began to have bouts of withdrawal and depression soon after they had moved in there. One night he left the house and took his sports car down Route 250 and crashed at high speed into the bridge abutment in Avery. According to witnesses, it appeared to be a purposeful act...suicide. The man's wife and kids moved out of the house and rented it to our family. It didn't take long before strange things would occur.
We had several dogs at that time. My German Shepherds, Kimmie and Samantha, and three boxers...Rebel, Toastie, and Bridgette. Toastie and Bridgette had to be forced to come into the house. Rebel would come in but would not remain in a room by himself. Kimmie and Samantha refused to go upstairs, even though for as long as I had them they would sleep with me wherever I was. I slept upstairs at that house and they never joined me.
It seemed that as a family everything went downhill when we moved into that house. It may have been a coincidence, but my life as a happy-go-lucky teenager ended when we moved there. I became moody and withdrawn and didn't care to associate with as many people as I once had. Donnie began to drink heavily at the tender age of 15 and even attempted to commit suicide by jumping out of his upstairs bedroom window. It wasn't that much of a drop, so in his rag doll-like drunken state he was not hurt. He continued to re-enter the house and jump out the window until we had to call the police to come and get him.
One night I had an intense dream and woke up feeling extremely hot and felt I was surrounded by fire. It felt so real I walked through the house searching for smoke or flames. I chalked it up to a bad dream, but to this day the hair stands up on my arms when I think about how reaistic the heat felt to me that night as I dreamed or imagined flames shooting up around me. The very next night I went out with my three best friends for a night on the Ave and hanging out at Frisches. One of my friends, Bunny, lived two doors down from me on Perry Street. There was one house between us where a couple and their young chldren lived. As I related my dream to Bunny, Carol, and Sandy over a fish sandwich and cchoccolate cake at Frisches that evening, Bunny was aghast in that she had an almost identical dream the night before at approximately the same time I had my dream. She even woke her father to tell him about it. We were spooked but went on with our Friday night ritual of buzzing the Ave and panhandling for quarters for gas. whenever we saw anyone we knew who might be willing and able to contribute. Our night concluded and after Bunny and I dropped off Sandy and Carol, we headed for our homes on Perry Street, only to ffind several police cars sitting in front of my house and our next door neighbor's house. As we exitied my Corvair the nine year old girl from next door ran to me and in tears wrapped her arms around me screaming that her brother and cousins had just died in a house fire on Finch Street where they were trapped in an attic bedroom with no way to escape. They found their little bodies huddled next to the window. Bunny and I looked at each other in shock and never forgot the impact our dreams had on us because of the reality of what happened the next night.to those poor helpless children.
Fast forward to early December, 1969. As a typical teenager I didn't ccare much for the fact I had to be a chauffer for my Grandma Ruby. I was always the one to have to lug her around town for her shopping trips and pick her up at designated times and places. She was never where she was supposed to be when it came time to pick her up and I selfishly copped an attitude everytime she made me wait somewhere for her. I had places to go and people to see, you know. This particular Saturday my plans were once again put on hold as I waited for Ruby in front of the Jupiter dime store. Again she was late and again I sat there waiting. For some reason, though, I had this feeling come over me I had never felt before. It is to this day hard to describe, all I can say it was a peace and loving compassion I had never experienced before as I peered into the doors of the store and watched Ruby methodically go through a table full of socks knowing that I was waiting for her outside. I thought to myself, "She's not going to be around much longer." My eyes welled up with tears and I knew inside that soon I would be missing her and would regret I would no longer have the opportunity to haul her around and wait for her as she shopped downtown on Saturdays. This would be her last shopping trip. The next few weeks she said she didn't feel like going anywhere and she never aked me to take her shopping again. Many of the socks she had gone through on that table that December day would find their way into gift wrap and be set under our 1969 Christmas tree as her gifts to us that year.
On the first week of January in 1970 I had gone to bed after my nightly spider search. You see, I had a terrible fear of spiders and could not sleep until I had Donnie help me search my room for spiders lying in wait to terroize me while I slept. Sometimes I would awaken with the feeling we may have missed an elusive spider and I would wake Donnie and have him come to my room and re-inspect it before I went back to sleep. He always complied. Here I was a senior in high school, nearly eighteen years old and still having my younger brother protect me from one of my irrational phobias. This night when I woke up in the middle of the night I had no interest in a spider hunt. I made my way to the desk I had n my room and began to, without prior thought or design, draw a pencil sketch in my art book. When finished the sketch was of five hooded figures in black robes at the bottom of the paper, a large hand and arm extending downward from the top of the paper gentley clasped a sixth robed figure lifting it away from the five left below. I closed the art pad and went back to bed. The next morning I remembered the drawing and again sat down at my desk to inspect my midnight impulse while fully awake. At that time, I didn't know what it meant, but a few days later there were five of us left in the house as Ruby was taken away after having died in her sleep.
The night Ruby died I sat in the living room watching television and she came out of her room in good spirits joking that she was going to pitter patter her way to the bathroom. I laughed to myself that she had never pitter pattered anywhere as long as I had known her. Her mobility was restricted for years as she would shuffle through the house on paiful feet grunting as she made each step. It was odd, I didn't remember hearing her grunting in pain as she walked that night..Johnny Carson had just ended and she would return to her room and turn off her TV to go to sleep one final time. The next morning Kim awoke in the bed she shared withh Ruby and was not able to awaken her. Kim then went to mom and told her that Gram would not get up and get her and Shelly ready for school. Mom was working the night shift at Bud and Nolie's bar so Ruby would dutifuly rise to make breakfast and send us off to school. They estimated Ruby died around one o'clock A.M. Not long after pitter pattering her way to the bathroom and turning off the TV after having watched Johnny Carson.
Ruby was laid to rest after having passed away on January eighth 1970. The next six weeks were eerie in our home. Sometimes at night the curtains that were in place in Ruby's doorway instead of a door would part around one o'clock each morning. They would not blow, there was no air or wind to blow them...they would part in separate directions. The once warm room remained cold for that six week period and a smell of lilacs would eminate from the room. We went through that room with a fine tooth comb and could not find the source of the lilac smell. No one ever slept in that room again.
After leaving that house I have never had premonitions or any other psychic type experiences. The next place we lived was not a place our dogs would be afraid to enter. I often look back and wonder if what I had experienced in that house was real or my imagination. I kept the drawing of the six hooded figures for many years. You cannot convince me that there was not something about that house that infiltrated my psyche and caused fear in our dogs. Oh, and once before we moved away from there I received a tearful and terror driven call from my little sisters, Kim and Shelly while I was at work at my dad's shoe store in Huron. They asked me to please come home. They had seen Gram and was scared.
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