When I was growing up there were family stories and jokes about our “family” ghost, Mr. Brown. He was mentioned in passing, half in jest, whenever something was out of place, or if someone heard an unexplained noise. I was never quite sure if these explanations were meant to be true, or if they were just little jokes. I am still not sure about that, even in my own mind.
For the first year of my life, we lived in a little old farmhouse in Novato, California. The building had been built by my mother’s family and was located on a family farm not far from town. At some time prior to our moving in, the house had been used as the local post office. According to our family story one day a dead man, Mr. Brown, was found floating in the water trough in front of the post office. Mr. Brown had come to a violent end, either being drowned or possibly murdered and then thrown into the trough. In any case, he ended up dead in the front yard of the building. The murderer was never caught. After Mr. Brown’s death, stories were told around town that the house had become haunted by his ghost. Apparently, those stories did not stop my parents from purchasing the house and associated ranch for their new family.
When I was about one year old, my folks sold the ranch in Marin County and we moved to the small town of Sierra City in the gold country of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. At that time, Sierra City was a real old-time mining town – complete with the 85 year old lady, Myrtle, who would sit on the front porch of the grocery store telling stories of the old days when the gold rush was on. She kept a loaded 45 caliber revolver nearby for protection.
We lived in an apartment over the grocery store, next to the fire bell that was mounted on two tall poles. The fire bell had a pair of ropes hanging down with “D” handles that were used to ring the alarm when needed. Those ropes were just right to make a swing for us kids, which was okay as long as we were very careful not to pull harder on one rope than the other, because that would cause the bell to ring. This created a “false alarm” and was definitely frowned upon by the adults of the town. My folks ran a small dry goods store that shared a building with the post office. In the winter months, they ran a rope-tow ski slope that featured an extremely steep and short slope that ended abruptly at the banks of the Yuba River. You had to be a good skier to avoid going into the icy river at the bottom of the hill. In his free time during summer months my father was a carpenter. This was a wonderful little town for a young child. During this time, whenever something odd would happen, such as an unexplained noise, or a door shutting by itself, it was explained as being the works of Mr. Brown. When I was very little, this made sense to me and I believed that he was nearby. I just assumed that there was a friendly ghost hanging around most of the time.
We moved to the town of Sonoma when I was almost five years old. Apparently the ghost moved with us, because my parents kept talking about Mr. Brown doing things. They explained that he seemed to like our family and had moved along with us. This was a pretty easy way to account for the many odd little things that happened, always half joking and half-serious. I think my folks almost believed in their story of Mr. Brown.
Every Christmas we had a bell-shaped music box that would play a Christmas song if you pulled down a string hanging from the bottom. It was kind of fun to pull the string down now and then to get a little Christmas cheer. One year a few days before Christmas my father was sitting by the fire reading a book around 5:00 o’clock when the Christmas bell chime went through its song without being started. That was the first evidence that I am aware of “Mr. Brown” doing anything more than opening and closing doors, moving papers around, and other things that could easily be explained away as the wind and the actions of children. I didn’t really believe in Mr. Brown, but I kind of liked the idea of having a friendly ghost around the place. It can be fun to have an imaginary friend.
A few years after the Christmas bell incident, I saw Mr. Brown one evening in my father’s shop. I was about ten or twelve years old at the time, and was working on a project in my father’s garage shop. It was early in the evening, not quite dark, when I “felt” a presence with me in the room. At first I thought it was my older brother, father or perhaps a friend – but when I looked up from my work, I was alone. I decided that I was just imagining things, so I went back to working on my project. Then I felt really weird and the hair on the back of my neck rose. I was really feeling something this time. I looked up again, and there was a person standing in front of me, floating a foot or so above the floor. It was a thin man, in his early thirties or so, standing in front of the workbench watching me work. He didn’t make any large moves, or acknowledge my noticing him, he just seemed to watching me work. However he wasn’t a normal man, he wasn’t solid – I could see though him. He was more like what I would now image a hologram to look like. Very clear, easy to see, but obviously just made of light, not made of a solid substance. We stood watching each other; I was transfixed by seeing Mr. Brown for the first time. After a few minutes of this I decided that I should go get my brother and let him see the apparition. I told “Mr. Brown” to stay where he was, I would be back in a minute and that I wanted to introduce him to my brother. I went into the house to get my brother to come see this, but of course by the time we got back the ghostly man was gone.
It seemed like he stayed around my family for quite some time after that, and always felt like a friendly, comfortable being to me. I was never frightened of him or the idea of him. I kept hoping for another chance to see him – but never did. When we all moved out of the house and my parents sold the place he seemed to finally go away. For awhile it seemed that he had followed my brother and me to Arcata where we went to college, but then he just faded away. I have not felt his presence for many years. I kind of miss him. I liked having him around – looking after us from his secret place.