by James Douglas Doorsman

Created on: February 09, 2009   Last Updated: June 17, 2010

I guess I wouldn't believe in ghosts had I not met quite a few in my journey through life.  Believing isn't an option anymore because either there is a spirit world or I'm nuttier that a Christmas fruitcake.  There have been times when I've entered a buillding and my hair stands on end and a wave like a cold breeze sweeps over me and I know I'm going to have an experience. It used to frighten me as a youngster but I grew to treasure the gift I was given.  They say left handed people are the only ones in their "right mind" but I firmly believe that being in the "right" side of my brain opens up a world for me that might not exist otherwise.

I remodeled the "Old Fort Wayne Cigar Store" on the Northside of Pittsburgh , Pa. into office space and was told that they couldn't keep a tenant there because there was a smell they couldn't get rid of.  Being the man I am I accepted the challenge and attributed the smell to termites.  I removed the entire floor and replaced it but the smell persisted.  Re-routed the vent pipe for the sewer  and the smell persisted.  For the life of me i couldn't figure what caused this odor.

I was working in the basement one night and had a vision of a man with his skull crushed laying in a pool of blood on the dirt floor adjacent to where I was working.  I investigated  thourougly and found nothing and attributed this to an avid imagination.  Each time I entered the basement a chill would come over me and I could sence someone was there to the point where I would call out for them to show themselves.  Again there was nothing and I shruged it off.  The following week I was working alone again and I could hear a voice telling me it was time to leave that I was disturbing them. 

I laughed and continued my work  and felt a shove.  There was nothing there and i become a little frightened but ignored the prod. The vision of the man swept over ma and then a lightbulb exploded then another and then a third right beside me and I heard a voice scream, Go!  I ran outside and stood looking at the place and could see wghat looked like a figure moving about.  I went back in and the place felt like a refrigerator which wouldn't have bothered me but it was August and the air conditioning wasn't on.  I just closed up and left the place wondering what had just happened.

I never worked there alone again and a few weeks later was finishing up and loading garbage onto my dump truck.  A group of teachers from the near-by college were walking up the street and commented on my working on the place.  They mentioned the fact that there were so many tenats in the one space where the store was and how many times it had been remodeled but that no one would stay. I asked if they wanted a tour of the place and the one woman in the group said, "I'll never enter that place a man was killed there.  A drug addict robbed the place and crushed the man's skull working there for less than $2.00. Left him dead in the basement, they didn't find him for three days because no one went into the basement until his body started to smell"

I knew I had met that man.  Do I believe in ghosts? Yes I do.

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