Ghost Trails

Ghost Trails

Noel Laflin

7-6-15

When I was a kid we often played a lingering-twilight game called ghost trails.  It used to be big for a while in our neighborhood, back in the summer of 1964.  I suppose there were dozens of variations to the game being played throughout America - when it wasn’t considered unsafe for children to be out after dark - when a well-known sharp, distinctive whistle of a parent or the chiming of the nine o’clock church bells from downtown Anaheim were all that was needed to bring youngsters scurrying back to a well-lit home on a warm summer night.

And even though it’s been fifty years since we last crept around neighbors’ moonlit homes, giving wide berth to dark corners, peeking cautiously into dense shrubs, or nervously looking up into trees – listening for the soft rustle of windblown leaves, the screech of an owl or the cawing of an old crow - always on the lookout for the kid chosen to be the ghost - I have never forgotten that feeling of edgy anticipation as we followed the trail just waiting to have the bejesus scared right out of us by one of our own.

Lingering summer twilight and a couple of chance conversations with neighborhood friends this past week have got me thinking about our old childhood game on this warm July evening.

It all started when my friend Sam, a native of El Modena – and our old barrio of Paloma, in particular - made mention of the ancient Mexican legend of ‘La Llorona’ – The Weeping Woman.

I had met up with Sam last Wednesday as he was feeding the ducks at the neighborhood pond down in the ancient tree-lined ravine. As we kibitzed, I made mention of the fact that I was going on a ‘Ghost Tour’ of old downtown come Friday.   Pointing at the pond, Sam reminisced how his parents, along with other elders in the old community, would scare their kids from sneaking out after dark with the creepy tale of The Weeping Woman – the story of a demented mother who drowned her own two children in a river, died of guilt, and was forced to seek her children – or replacement children - along any old waterway forever after.

 

“Now, that scared the bejesus out of us,” Sam concluded.  We never came down here after dark.  We soon parted under the glow of the warming day.

On Thursday I met up with another friend and local of the neighborhood. She walks her dog along the pond’s pathway every day of the week.  I asked her whether her parents used to tell the legend of “La Llorona.”

“No,” Vickie said, “Although I do know the story,” she conceded.  “But my father was the caretaker of the old Santa Ana Cemetery and he had plenty of other tales that made us think twice before creeping out at night, especially into this old dark ravine.”  I dwelled on that a bit as we walked the path under a bright, sunny sky.

The following evening, beginning precisely at the nine o’clock chiming of the old church bells, a small group of us wandered the still-warm summer sidewalks of the plaza.  Occasionally we would stop and strain to catch every gruesome detail being bandied about by Charles, our ghost tour guide.  There seem to be quite a few spirits still lurking about old downtown Orange.  And unlike the childhood game of yore, this ninety minute ghost trail seemed all too real - despite being creepily fun.

On the drive home later that night, I glanced at our dark neighborhood pond – and the deep, quiet, old tree-lined, moonlit ravine in which it rests.

In my younger days I would not think twice about taking a midnight jog along the old stony path, listening for the screech of an owl, the cawing of an old crow and the occasional rustling of dried leaves blown about by a warm summer breeze.

But after this last week, I think I will stick to daytime excursions - at least for a while; I don't suppose the Weeping Woman is going away anytime soon - being cursed for eternity and all.

After all, there are no longer parents with neither sharp, distinctive whistles nor church bells within hearing distance to remind me of the time and the reassurance of a well-lit home by which to return.