It's that time of year again. Every store is stocked full of jack-o-lanterns, fake spider webs, grotesque masks, and everything a demented mind needs to scare people half to death. Who doesn't like to sneak up on someone and startle a scream right out of them.
When I was a teenager, my friends and I loved to be scared. Back in the day, before I knew there really was a dark side, we dabbled in all sorts of ways to communicate with the dead. Everyone I knew had a "Ouija Board" in their game closet. We would sit for hours asking questions and letting the "spirits" spell out their answers back to us.
Of course, we could always tell when the magic eye was being guided by one of the sets of fingers that were on either side. But, there were also the days when there really wasn't an explanation as to how it was gliding across the board. There were a few times the eerie answers that were spelled out, sent chills up our spine. Is it possible there really was some supernatural activity taking place?
If I knew then, what I know now, I never would have participated in all the seances my friends and I used to have. We would sit in a circle, with nothing but the light of a candle flickering in the middle. We would hold hands and start calling out to the "other side" to give us a sign that a spirit was in the room. We would eventually start hearing things, but it was usually attributed to someone in the group, trying to scare us by making a noise with their shoe or something.
Although we would laugh at the joke of being scared, there was still a heightened sense of anticipation in the room. The accelerated beats of our hearts, and sweaty palms told the person sitting next to us, we were wondering if a spirit really would contact us.
There were several occurrences that couldn't be explained. Once when the candle suddenly went out and a bottle crashed to the floor, it sent all of us screaming and running for the light switch. No one was close enough to blow the candle out, and we were all holding hands... so what was it?
The story was if you went there at night, and threw something in one of the windows, a faint light could be seen inside. No one had lived there for years, and there was no electricity. There never was a logical reason for the glow coming from inside the dark house. After we would throw the object, we never could stick around long enough to watch for the light to come on. We would get so scared we would take off as fast as we could go. Could the glow have appeared and we never saw it?
Living in southeast Texas there were a couple of scary roads that all the kids knew about. It was almost like a rite of passage to go to "Goatman Road" or "Bragg Road", sometimes known as "The Saratoga Lights".
Goatman Road was a very narrow, country dirt road that lead through the woods. As we would slowly drive down the twisting and turning road, we would come to what looked like a make-shift wooden bridge. The bridge was barely big enough for one car to go over and looked like it wouldn't be able to support the weight of a vehicle. The bridge had no sides, and was basically some lumber pieced together to go over the small creek. After we would pass over the bridge, which was a scary feat in itself, we would stop the car. There was no way to pull off the road, because directly on either side of the dirt road were trees and brush.
The ritual was to park the car, turn off the headlights and turn off the car's engine. There were two different versions of how to make the "Goatman" appear. Some people would say to honk the car's horn three times and wait, and others said if you howled loudly three times, "it" would come running toward the road. I've been in a car that has tried it both ways. We didn't see or hear anything the night we honked the horn but, nevertheless it was very scary sitting on a dark, dirt road waiting for someone... or something to appear.
The time we went to "Goatman Road" and decided to try howling, we had a carload of teenagers. We were laughing so hard, no one could get a howl out. Finally one of the boys, stuck his head out of the car window and howled so realistically, three times, it made all of us freeze. You could have heard a pin drop. The woods were so dark, we could barely make out some trees by what little moonlight was shining that night.
There we all sat... waiting. Suddenly someone whispered, "What is that to the left of the car... is that a pair of eyes?" We all turned and saw them. The eyes by the edge of the woods reflected what little light there was. Needless to say, it was time to go. There was so much commotion and noise in that car, I don't know how we got the car started, headlights on and backing down that road so fast. The eyes we saw were about five feet off the ground. It could have just been some sort of forest creature in a tree... but we'll never know for sure... will we?
The legend of "Bragg Road" or "The Saratoga Lights", is based on a story that supposedly happened long ago. The Santa Fe Railroad owned the property that is now known as Bragg Road. It is said that a railroad worker lost his head in an railway accident. Due to the sudden and violent death of the worker, he never accepted his passing. So he continues to this day, walking the road, lantern in hand, looking for his head.
There have been many people that have reported seeing a glowing light moving along Bragg Road. It is said, if you go to Bragg Road at night, park your car and wait, you just might see the light of his lantern. As you sit on the road watching for the light, it slowly appears toward the end of the road. As you watch, the light grows larger as it appears to get closer. One reported sighting said that the light never stopped until it came directly to their car, and then instantly disappeared.
I have been to see "The Saratoga Lights" many times. Unfortunately I have never seen the lantern light of the headless railroad worker. But, I have talked to others that promised that the light they saw was real and could not be explained away. Just because I was never there at the time the light was on the road... does that mean that it isn't true?
As Halloween gets closer, make time to have some scary fun. Just beware of things that go bump in the night... things are not always as they seem.
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