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By Pastor Robin Swope

Four Mile Creek meanders through the woodlands of Northern Erie County Pennsylvania and empties into Lake Erie. Over the eon’s it’s slow moving waters has cut a large swath of land, and one of the more spectacular creations of the small creek is a mile long ravine called Wintergreen Gorge.

From Prehistoric until Colonial times the Gorge and creeks path provided a clear route to the Lake for both the local Native Americans and European Settlers. Ancient Indian war trails line both sides of the Creek, trails that were used by the Seneca Indians as they waged their war with the local Eriez Indians before the white man entered the area. Many intrepid amateur archaeologist and even professionals from the local Penn State Erie have found a rich stash of pre-Colonial Native American artifacts lining the paths and cliffsides of the small waterway.

My friend Tim grew up in a small house on the banks of Four Mile Creek near the thousands of acres that made up the Penn State Erie’s Wintergreen Gorge. Tim Randall grew up hiking and exploring the endless trails that crisscross the ivy covered cliffs of Four Mile. From the age of six onward there was hardly a day that passed that you would not find him with walking stick in hand on his way to have a new journey.

And many of his adventures were fruitful indeed.

He had found a treasure trove of arrowheads and discarded pottery near ancient Indian campsites, as well as early European coins and sword hilts. Perhaps the most spectacular discovery he made was an out of the way vale on the Westerns side of the Gorge far off any path that was covered in thick foliage and had hearty vines from which you could safely swing out into across the vale. In this mystic sanctuary it was hard to believe that you were less than a mile away from a major Interstate Highway and close to one of the largest cities in the State of Pennsylvania.

Most of the time in his journeys of exploration he had the constant companionship of a large Newfoundland Dog named ‘Dutch’. ‘Dutch’ was a birthday gift for Tim from his father on his 10th birthday. From that day the two were inseparable. Despite its formidable and imposing size the large black canine was the most gentle of creatures that I had ever encountered. With thick webbed feet, the dog is specialized for water rescue and there were numerous times while traversing the slippery smile covered slate of the creek bottom that Tim would fall into a nearby pool. Dutch would inevitably jump into the pond no matter the depth, to rescue his little master. Dutch lived a very long life and died at the age of 14 years. Needless to say Tim was devastated. Though many women had come and gone in his life, Dutch was his best friend and constant companion. Moreover, the loyal Newfoundland was a constant assurance of unconditional love in a life filled with turmoil and difficulty.

For you see, throughout his life Tim was in and out of trouble in one way or another. In Grade School he was the practical joker who held the attention of the entire class. He ended up many times in the principles office and there were many calls to his parents concerning his disruptive behavior. In his teens Tim moved from being the class clown to be the chief stoner, sampling any kind of illicit substance that came his way. Gradually his meager funds could not keep up with his veracious appetite for illegal pharmaceuticals and he turned to crime. First it was shoplifting and then it escalated into burglary. Sadly,when he was 17 he was sent away to a juvenile detention facility a few months after he was caught shoplifting at the local mall.

But even this close brush with the law did not stop Tim’s lust for mind altering pharmaceuticals. By his early 20’s he was dealing drugs and breaking into houses to sustain his addiction. At age 24 when Dutch died, his downward spiral seemed to escalate. In response, he ventured into harder drugs in order to find the release that he could no longer find in marijuana and LSD.

Excerpted from The Paranormal Pastor

Wintergreen Gorge Ghost Child

Ghost Car Of West Chester Pike

Newtown Square, Pa. was farm country in the 1950s. Newspaper stories involved dogs killing sheep and dairy cows getting loose, and, of course, traffic accidents. A car carrying a man, wife and teenaged son was struck by a drunk driver one Christmas shortly after midnight on West Chester Pike. They were killed. They were coming home from Christmas Eve services. The occupants of the striking car, two young men who will remain nameless since family members are still alive, survived with minor injuries. They were looking for another party.

The driver’s family had political connections and he escaped with a slap on the wrist. Accounts say he liked to joke about it and the deaths he caused.

Within six months, he was back on the road boozing and burning rubber. Within a year, he was dead overturning his 1938 Plymouth hot rod on the trolley tracks that went along the highway. Yes, it was early Christmas morning; yes it was near the place where he killed the family; and yes, his passenger was the man with him in the first crash and he also died.

Spooky, huh? But not a ghost story, at least not yet.

That part of West Chester Pike is patrolled by Pennsylvania State Police and municipal police from Newtown Township. Reports soon appeared of a recklessly driven ’38 Plymouth that they couldn’t manage to bring down. As the years passed, it became quite unusual to see that type of vehicle on the road yet the reports and police chases continued. The chase always happened in the early morning albeit it was not dependent on the season. Roadblocks would be set but the quarry would never arrive.

Once an officer did manage to pull alongside the Plymouth and see the occupants. He wrote that they were “two young men in strangely out-of-style slicked back duck-tail haircuts, with expressions of absolute and abject terror and pain, as though they were seeing Hell and knew they could never escape”.

That’s the ghost story.

Kristina

This is rather similar to the first story although it takes place in Springfield about the turn of the millennium and involves two young ladies. Well, three if you count Kristina.

Somehow a story got around that a ghost child named Kristina lived in a particular house in Springfield, Pa. and that if you called her name, she would appear to you. All that summer and fall youth from throughout Delaware County would pass the house — on feet, in cars, on bicycles, on skateboards — shouting “Kristina, Kristina” at all hours of night and day annoying the neighbors to no end. Of course, Kristina never appeared.

Well, maybe once.

The young ladies — we’ll call them Aimee and Lisa, although they aren’t their real names – – were popular, attractive, and by all accounts, rather mean. They were returning from a Saturday night party early Sunday morning and as they passed the house, Lisa, the passenger, yelled out “Kristina” through her open window. Aimee saw a little girl appear in front of the car and was certain she hit her before managing to come to a stop. As she feverishly tried to figure a way out of the mess, the girl appeared at her window. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Kristina. You’re both going to be dead by this time next week. Prepare yourselves.” She then vanished.

Initially shaken, Aimee and Lisa soon began giggling. They credited the event to the drugs they had been taking. They talked about it all that week at school. “Ha Ha,” they joked. “Say goodbye to us. Kristina said we are going to be dead.”

And while returning from a party early Sunday morning, Aimee drove into a maple tree killing them both.

Some say you can see them in a ’38 Plymouth, the unhappy dates of two unhappy men.

You can be certain these stories are true. They are on the internet.

Copyright 2009 © BillLawrenceOnline.com

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For Anthony and Miranda

The building on Route 252 in Newtown Square is soulless and old today but in the 1980s it was soulless and new and the site of a suite of offices for a software company full of buzz and hope. Dawn was cracking on the PC era, and this small company was going to make millions on the database they were designing as businesses throughout nation replaced their expensive minis and mainframes and downsized to the desktop.

At least that’s what the owners claimed. And they managed to convince some moneymen to cough up enough capital for them to rent their suite and hire some staff, one of whom was a tragically overweight coder named Fred.

Fred did know his code. He was also a generation older than the young owners, had poor personal hygiene and a strong tendency to flatulence especially under pressure, a circumstance in which he often found himself at this company.

One of the owners, whom we will call Brett, liked to think of himself as an expert coder but it was his gift of gab and his aggressiveness as a salesman that provided his value to the enterprise. He was slim with slick backed hair and wore suspenders.

Fred’s existence offended Brett’s sense of aesthetics.

Brett would mock Fred’s physique and dress, often in front of the young and pretty receptionist. He’d make artificial deadlines and start screaming at Fred as they approached. He’d find flaws in Fred’s work that did not exist.

This would often bring on a gas attack much to the dismay of the rest of the staff.

One day the bullying became too much for Fred’s heart and it gave out. Paramedics pronounced Fred dead at his desk.

With deadlines approaching, the loss of Fred increased the load on the other programmers. Late nights became common. One young coder found himself working past midnight. He quit the next day not even bothering to come to the office but calling in his resignation over the phone.

Another coder also quit after a late night never explaining why.

Brett declared he would show them how it’s done. In his cool self-confidence, or perhaps obnoxious arrogance, he said he’d finish the project in a couple of all-nighters. Brett’s body was found by the pretty, young receptionist after the first one. His face was twisted in torment. A wastebasket filled with his vomit was next to him, as if some horrific smell caused him to gag and wouldn’t let him stop.

To this day, it is not uncommon for the unexplainable whiff of something the smells like a cross between rotten eggs and angry skunk to ruin the workday at this particular suite. It has also been scented by the vending machines where Fred liked to graze during his late nights.

Flatulent Fred, Ghost Story 2011

Copyright 2011 © BillLawrenceOnline.com