I have a ghost story from the 1970s. I purchased a log cabin with 5 acres of mostly wooded land on Roanoke Mountain in late 1974. It was built on Bent Mountain, disassembled, and moved to Roanoke mountain in the mid-’50s. I bought it from a widow whose husband had died in it in ‘72.
My best friend at the time (Mike) moved-in in ‘75. Within a few months, we had six dogs and a reputation in the immediate, extremely redneck area for loud parties and perceived eccentric behavior. During one of the parties, Mike started goofing on my date about the previous owner dying in the house, claiming that “Jimmy” had died in my bedroom and would be spying on her if she got naked. No harm as she turned out to be somewhat of an exhibitionist.
Odd things started occurring shortly after that. Lights and radios would come on or off at random and stuff would get rearranged in both bedrooms. I chalked it up to the old electrical system and the herbs we were consuming daily, but Mike kept playing the “Jimmy the ghost” card. Over time, I realized that strange shit tended to occur after Mike talked about Jimmy. I suggested to him that if there was a ghost, he was provoking him and that we’d probably be free from his influence if we just ignored him. Mike didn’t buy that and the oddities escalated.
A couple of events stand out:
I put up a 4 foot fence to make a huge dog play area that included one of my two open garages and the front door of the cabin (the back door was much more convenient for us and any guests). For some reason, I didn’t put a gate in the fence, so we and the dogs just used the front door to access the area.
We changed the water bowls and washed down the garage daily. To do so, one of us would climb the 4-foot fence at the garage to turn on or off the hose outlet at the pump house (the faucet had a significant leak when open). One night Mike told me that I should ask Jimmy to turn the water on for me. After climbing the fence to get to the hose outlet I found it had been turned open, but it wasn’t leaking. I assumed Mike had figured out how to repair the faucet and was messing with me, but he denied doing so. I was startled 10 minutes later when I climbed the fence to turn the water off and it was already off. Mike and I were inside the pen the whole time, cleaning dog poop, so someone or something else had turned the outlet off. The hose outlet started leaking again when open the next day and continued to do so until Mike moved out.
Shortly before Mike moved out we picked up a couple of gals at The Coffee Pot roadhouse in Roanoke and took them up to the ‘bin. Mike had started his usual ghost routine when his gal asked for directions to the restroom, so he pointed down the hall. Of course, the hallway light and the bathroom light were immediately turned on. Both girls freaked out and demanded that we take them back to their cars. Both lights turned off after I locked the door on our way out. No joy that night.
I started dating my future wife after Mike got his own place. Although she believes in the paranormal and sometimes seems to have a sensitivity to sort of understanding future events, she accepted my thoughts about ignoring Jimmy after another lighting event when Mike was present. She moved in and there were no more events until one day when I was at work and she was home (she is a nurse and was working 11-7). She had cranked the wood stove up pretty high and was exercising in the main room in front of the double window. As she grew warmer, she was shedding clothing until she was down to the bare essentials. The room darkened and she turned around to find that the curtains, previously open for light, had been drawn closed. She opened them again and told Jimmy she liked the curtains open. The traverse curtain rod then froze in the open position and remained that way until I replaced it.
Not ghost related, but I have several interesting stories about the cabin - the hang gliders and the babe, the hang glider vs a tree, the pack of wild dogs, don’t pull the trigger, rattlesnake mountain, my sheepdog vs a concrete anchored 4" post pipe, the refrigerator vs an idiot with a 9mm, BFRs (big fucking rats), and a connection to the book “Bitter Blood”
rvaghosts.com
