A GhostStory
By Sonja Passi Seamon

It was an eerie, windy fall night in the year 1955. My brother Leo and I decided to go to Johnny Koskela’s house after supper. Of course, we didn’t tell our parents we were leaving.

Leo was nine and I was eight. Johnny was sixteen. He lived across the street from our house in Podunk. When we got there, Johnny wanted us to go upstairs to his room to play Monopoly. We thought this was kind of strange because Leo and I had never been allowed upstairs to Johnny’s room before. Well,Johnny got the game out and we started to play. And then Johnny started telling us ghost stories. The wind was howling outside and the tree branches were scraping the sides of the house. It was getting darker out and the stories were spooking me. I wanted to go home...NOW!

Johnny said, “Come on...let me just tell you one more story.”

Before we had a chance to say anything, Johnny asked us if we had ever
heard of the ghost arm in the sky. Leo and I just looked at him. We didn’t
have a clue what he was talking about.

Leo said, “There’s no ghost arm in the sky!”

Johnny kept saying there was and that if we ever saw it, RUN! As Johnny stood up, he held up his arm and waved it slowly in a large, wide circle. He told us that if we looked up at the sky at night, we’d see this big glow in the sky. It travels in a circle and sweeps the sky. When it comes to you, run as fast as you can, otherwise you’ll get scooped up by it. That was enough for us!

I looked at Leo and said, “Let’s go... it’s really dark out and Daddy and Momma don’t know where we are.”

With no hesitation, Leo said, “Let’s go.”

We got outside and the wind was blowing so hard the leaves were swirling all around us, attacking us from every direction.

Then we saw it! There was the ghost arm going on the upswing just like
Johnny had described it. It was on it’s downward swoop, heading right towards us. Leo grabbed my hand and we ran like the dickens... screaming at the top of our lungs. The front door seemed to be miles away! We just kept on running. After the longest run of our lives, we finally reached our house.

Daddy heard our screams and we saw him rushing to the door. He screamed,
“What’s the matter?”

We breathlessly told him about the ghost arm. Daddy went outside to see what we were talking about. He came back in within a few minutes with a big grin on his face. Daddy told us what the ghost arm was. He explained to us, as he was laughing, that it was the beam of light from the airport, which directed the planes to the airport's new location up on Warren Road. The airport previously was located in downtown Ithaca on Taughannock Boulevard (where the Hanger Theater is now). We told Daddy, “That’s not what Johnny said.”Momma just shook her head and said, “Että Johnny poika on ilkeä.” (That Johnny boy is mischievous.)

Now we know why Johnny wanted us to play Monopoly!

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