.WE.ARE.GNOMADS.

Casper the Friendly Ghost was one of my favorite cartoons, but I never knew we would have a friendly ghost all to ourselves!

Yes we are believers! I have always kind of have been, but realized Jim was too, when he would get into watching the ghost hunter shows with me. Well, since moving to the Culbertson House in Brattleboro, Vermont, we are now not only believers, we have experienced the antics of our ghost, Ely.

Ely Culbertson was a famous Bridge player and man about town in his day. He developed a new version of Bridge, called Contract Bridge  He even has a card shuffling device named after him.   He was also a philosopher and author.  He wrote an autobiography, The Strange Lives of One Man , as well as a plethora of other books including ones on philosophy.

He was born July 22, 1891 in Romania, and died December 27, 1955 in the house we now call home,Culbertson House. He is also buried only 1/4 mile away. Ely had a lung condition and ended up dying from a common cold. Or did he die because he smoked even though he had a lung condition? Or is he just smoking in the after life because, now, it can’t kill him? We smell cigarette smoke in our place at random times, when no other people are on the property.

The Culbertson House

From Jim and Dawn’s Hike in Their Woods

For the whole time we have been here it has been all ghost quiet besides the cigarette smoke here and there, and then one week, the week of June 13th to be exact, things got whacky. And it was not even a Friday the 13th, or the day Ely was born, nor the day he died either. We are not sure what instigated it all, but Ely and maybe a ghost friend or two, got a lot more active.

I have never been afraid of being in this studio, even with it being out in the woods, but during this week I had constant creepies behind my back. Just being here gave me the willies, never mind the electricity going in and out only in our unit, the shuffling noise on the floor, the humming, and even a black figure with a hat beside the bed. It was not a great week for Jim and I either, the air was negative and it was working on us.

Nothing more, nothing less…but creepy…yes. Things have gone back to normal, the negative air is almost all gone, the fear of being here has left, but there is still a noise or hum every so often. We are okay with that. We just tell Ely it is time to move on and it is okay for him to leave.

And I will leave you now with some words of wisdom from Ely Culbertson.

“A deck of cards is built like the purest of hierarchies, with every card a master to those below it, a lackey to those above it.”

“God and the politicians willing, the United States can declare peace upon the world, and win it.”

“The bizarre world of cards is a world of pure power politics where rewards and punishments are meted out immediately.”

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~ by My Gnome Little World on July 2, 2010.

Posted in July-Sept - 2010, Return to States
Tags: Brattleboro, Bridge, Casper, Contract Bridge, Culbertson House, Ely Culbertson, Ghosts, Hauntings, The Friendly Ghost, VT