Giving Up My Ghost

It is the longest day of the year.  Nope - every day is 24 hours (sans days with correction seconds).
It is the day with the longest length of daylight of the year.  Maybe, but if it is really cloudy and/or rainy early or late in the day this might not be true.
It is the day where the sun is not below the horizon for the longest period of any during the year.  Correct.

The neighbor had a party yesterday.  As I was walking my dog past, I noticed the balloons, tinsel and a sign announcing a graduation.  I don't know the neighbors well enough to be invited which is just fine.  On seeing the sign though, a historic shudder went up my spine.  Even though I've lived in this house now for over three years, I recall the neighbors at my former house (the boys) having parties nearly every weekend accompanied by noise and unruly behavior a near guarantee.  The graduation party must have happened since I did see lots of cars parked in their yard, but never heard a peep.  Life is good here.

It is about four years now since I started to think about moving.  The hootenanny bar down the road from the old house had two weekends in a row where they hootenanny was really too much and this was coupled with a general inability to sleep; this is not a good combination.
As I occasionally did, I perused the MLS listings more out of curiosity than anything else.  The difference was, I could actually see something in some of the listings.  I knew real estate listings lie, but wanted to see what some of the listings within a certain price range actually looked like.  After doing some drive-bys and stopping at a few open houses, things were set in motion that led to 10 acres.

There have been a few surprises in the not-so-new house, but most minor.  Whereas I used to go to the big box home store every few weeks, and the smaller hardware store even more often, it is now pretty rare.

Both of my first two houses were old Victorians.  To be honest, while I see some benefits to the new house's open floor plan, I love the Victorian look.  Tall imposing ceilings, woodwork that is both ornate and understated.  Rooms are separated by walls and doors; as life was similarly compartmentalized in the 19th century.  A heaviness to the construction that ends in exquisite detail.  The Victorian Era is named for an English Queen, but it is the time period where The United States became more defined.
 "Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy." - Margaret Thatcher

Both of my previous houses were largely utilitarian, with ornateness only in the rooms originally designed for receiving guests.  As with many other utilitarian structures, they had over a hundred years of "other people's bad ideas."

I don't believe in anything paranormal, but houses wear their history.  While preparing for increasing the insulation in my first house, I went up into the attic.  Despite limited access, previous occupants of the house had obviously used the attic for storage and along with the lath ceiling and years of dust and coal soot I found evidence of the previous lives.  A library card.  A letter requesting employment.  Newspapers and playbills.  Advertisements and magazine cut-outs used as children's doll-toys.  I researched the previous occupants of that house back through the years, until the early 20th century; prior to that, houses were cataloged by occupants names, not addresses so further research was not practical.
The former owners had owned the property for decades.  The woman who lived there died on or near the front porch.  I could hear and feel the history of the house, especially after I moved in.  So maybe there are ghosts, not as bodiless beings, but something we don't comprehend.  Those letters and newspapers were left there by someone and part of them remains.

In his book Giving up the Ghost, Eric Nuzum writes of a girl he saw in his house.  He ultimately attributes this to mental issues.  It was but maybe, just maybe...

Evidence of former owners was also found in my second house, but its history was more scattered since there were many more owners.  There were a few interesting tidbits found, but icky plastic curlers from the 70s and deteriorating hardware form the 50s was more prevelant.  The most interesting thing were the names scratched into nooks in the Victorian woodwork, the hisotry etched in a name on the windows.

While looking for a new house four years ago, the saddest ones to look at were those that had many recent sales.  Thankfully, the county records make finding this information easy.  Every sale seems to bring at least some cosmetic changes and these are not always done with longevity in mind.  In multiple sales, these feed off of the last to create a house that appears held together by a shoestring.

I'm glad the hootenanny bar prompted me to start to look at new houses.  No, the new house doesn't wear over a hundred years of history like a heavy cloak.  There was a small tin in the back acreage filled with playing-card sized paper, it appeared to be something secreted away by some previous boy so there is at least some history to build on, I can delude myself with that.  That history went into the sky as it was burned before I noticed it while cleaning up the acreage in preparation for farming though.
And when I'm honest with myself, geothermal central air conditioning, doors that all close with a satisfying click, and neighbors who have a party that I wouldn't know about if it weren't for some tinsel on the mail box is worth a lot more.