Fairmount fondly

just joined the FB 'Fairmount Community Garden' and boy did it take me into a time and space that was and still is defining for me. i feel like sharing some of the good ol' days with my peeps.

chronological will do i s'pose - though you might have noted in previous writings that i do wander a bit.

and there is a lot to say so this will be the first chapter.

'round about the age of 19 i decided that i would not be able to reconcile my life and my mom's rules ... it had been simmering a long while and i finally came to aha-ness that i had to just get out and be me. the rules at mom's included only having friends of the same color, beliefs, age etc...very oppressive. having friends from all walks was unacceptable - that made ME unacceptable because i can not live without that freedom.

so i moved into a small apt in fairmount - on fairmount street actually. my apt-mate was named Sharon and she was about 2 yrs older and had been on her own a while. our quarters were a part of an old victiorian type home sectioned off to become apts. we lived upstairs, across the hall from Ginger - a world traveler who seemed to have the charmed life. downstairs were a couple of women- sorry that their names have escaped me. i remember going down to watch tv with them - we had no tv upstairs - to see the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. wow.

until i moved in, Sharon had lived very quietly with her main company being her boyfriend who visited during time off between gigs with his band. after i got there the place seemed to draw folks. part of that is what Sharon used to see with both fear and awe...that i would bring people home if they needed a place to stay. feed them, water them, just be there for them - a tiny little half-way house. we only had 1 bedroom, a bath, kitchen & liv room. but man o man was it lively and lovely.

this is where i met Emily, the ghost. yeah i know - but you can read on. i felt a pull to go into the hallway one evening while i waited for my friends to show. thinking maybe i had actually heard them on the stairway i looked toward that end of the house and saw a shadow. a very clear figure of a woman's shadow. i called out to her to wait..having no idea who it might be. she was just a shadow going down the steps. i hurried over to see an empty stairwell. the outside door was still shut tight, no sound. no person to have made that shadow.

having seen things and folks before, i was not afraid, just curious.

i started calling her Emily and i do not know why. it probably was Emily. she did not visit again while i was there though my friends all began blaming anything they could not explain on poor Emily.

another curious thing is that there was a door in our bedroom (2nd floor remember) that went nowhere. it could be seen from in and out the apt. odd. i think it had to do with Emily but do not know what.

one afternoon, rainy and dark, Sharon, our friend Penny, and i decided to contact Emily by using the ouija board. we 3 put our fingers on the guide instrutment and began to ask questions. before we could form the ?'s about E, the thing took over and spelled out that 1 of us was ill and would die a young death in the near future.

we freaked! i asked 'who?' and before we could get away from the board the pointer jumped over to Penny...she screamed and we stopped playing.

about 2 yrs later Penny was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma and died the next year. you can draw your own conclusions. i know i have found some answers very recently as to that prediction and who or what was in control that eventful afternoon. i have not used a ouija board again. nor have i needed it.