Bide One’s Time: Pacific Northwest Ghosts
During the early 1970s, I was on the road for a time. I spent time in Northern California, Oregon, Washington, and Canada, among other states and areas.
In fact, I lived in Salem, Oregon, for four months. I had as a companion, a black cat named, Driss. When I slept, he slept; when I was awake and driving, he was perched around my shoulder watching and purring. Wherever we were, he was my constant, loving companion and one of the finest cats I ever knew in my life. During my journey, he befriended those I came into contact with and greeted them with a sense of curiosity, humor, and inquisitiveness! At night, he oftentimes slept on the side of my pillow.
During my travels with Driss, I stopped for a time in San Francisco, California, and stayed with a woman I knew whose goal was to become a full-time actress. She gave me an oral tour the first evening of our being alone together, which I enjoyed immensely. That week we visited places in San Francisco and nearby. I recall we were drinking Scotch Whiskey together at a small, out-of-the-way lounge, and the piano player came over and asked us if there was anything we wanted to hear, and we both laughed and she said, “Play the song, ‘More,’ because it’s that kind of evening!” I nodded in agreement. The piano player, a tall lean man, told us the place was haunted, but we never encountered anything paranormal there. There were always ghosts about, and since we both had varying degrees of affinity for sensing those paranormal things, we had a lot of fun together. San Francisco is an incredibly haunted location, as is the entire Pacific Northwest.
Washington, Oregon, and Canada are also places of known hauntings. Vancouver, British Columbia, is another place with paranormal activity.
In Salem, Oregon, I lived and worked, and enjoyed the sense of nature which permeated the region. The old Victorian house I rented a room in was haunted, and the fact that I lived in the former third floor attic which had been converted into a large room with bathroom and small kitchen, made it even more conductive to ghostly visitors. The entire house was heated with steam heating and the pipes were old. There were three ghosts at this old house, one seen at the stairs, one in the basement, and one on the second floor. The second floor ghost was a woman, and she was an intelligent haunting.
Had I stayed, I probably would have inquired about purchasing a small house and living in Oregon. I fell in love with the nature attributes of the Pacific Northwest, and Oregon seemed to highlight the best of all settings with its land variations! The place is filled with paranormal activities and legends as is the entire Pacific Northwest with its numerous shipwrecks. For those interested in the lore of shipwrecks, check out your local library for a book titled Oregon Shipwrecks by Don Marshall.
The next time you visit the Pacific Northwest, observe for ghostly happenings and paranormal activities. They abound there!
