I've recently had the pleasure of visiting what I consider one of my favorite cities in the US, New Orleans. Arriving just after Mardi Gras, where the streets all smell like puke, I went to work for a weekend event. The last evening I was there, we spent the evening with a couple really cool people- one a jazz musician and a cool manager of some up-and-coming musicial groups (not of the heavy metal variety, sorry Slade and MW).
After a drink at a really cool neightborhood bar (the coolest little place with the freindliest people), we walked over to one of our hosts houses which happens to be right in the middle of the Uptown/Garden district. This area of New Orleans is noted for old houses. When I say old, I mean that it put Massachusetts to shame. We think that the Pilgrims were the first to settle, boy we were wrong. Anyway, a whole area of really old 1700's+ houses. Complete with high ceilings and the character of New Orleans to match.
We were in the front room chatting. The entire rear of the house was dark behind the door with it's hanging curtain. The jazz musician scruffled that he had to go take a leak. The owner of the house told him it was at the back of the house, beyond the doorway, where the lightswtich was.
The lightswtich was not found but he made it blind enough to make it to the bathroom where the lightswitch inside the bathroom was found. He returned minutes later asking the strangest questions: "So.. Who's the girl back there?".
We all stop the conversation we were in. The owner of the house responds, "What do you mean?. "I went back there to piss and this girl was wandering around in the back room.. all looking at me. Pretty weird", he says.
He saw a ghost. Skully put his IB hat on. I had a rush of questions flowing through my mind-
1) What did the ghost look like?
2) Did you just have too much to drink?
3) Has the owner, whom we were with, see the ghost herself?
I probed a little what it looked like but couldn't contain myself. I got up, walked to the doorway and spread the curtain aside. Beyond is mostly darkness.
I walked into the area. Looking around, feeling like there should be a movie soundtrack playing or something.. I unfortunately, saw nothing.
Having a seat again with the living, we had a long conversation about how this area of New Orleans is well-known for sightings. So much so that it's no big deal. In fact the owner of the house was upset that "her ghost" revealed itself to a stranger not her the owner!
Apparently New Orleans has got some skeletons in the closet, LITERALLY! Being a city below sea level, early residents found that they could not bury bodies below ground. The water table would rise and fall, resulting in bodies and coffins popping out of thre ground. Early attempts were tried to keep the coffins down by punching holes in the caskets themselves. By doing this, the casket would rise, fill with water and then fall again (hopefull never to rise again). This did not work well. Inside coffins, body parts would jam up again the holes and the coffins would stay above ground. Yuck. Finally they decided to build little crypts above ground. When you're in New Orleans you'll find the vast "cities" of tombs above ground. From this New Orleans got the name "City of the Dead".
Back to the house... Around 1853, New Orleans fell damage to it's worst epidemic, yellow fever, carried by mosquitoes from standing pools of water around the city streets. Upwards to 8,000 people died in the city. Nowhere to put the bodies. Many people simply placed rotting bodies under their houses! Spritmania in the Garden District where so many people were taken so early in their short lives are commonly seen walking around inside buildings around that area. Cool visit to say the least.