This is a true story and a family classic.

The year was 1981 and I had just graduated from grammar school. On that same day we received a phone call that Uncle Frank had died. We went to the wake of which was in the Catskill Mountains in New York, this was in June. That August my family and I went back to the Catskills for summer holidays. My father has a hunting lodge called Lone Pine there with his brothers. Therefore, we would spend two weeks happily away from the city. Nothing happened the first week and all went as usual. On the second Friday it all changed. I was awoken at 4:45 in the morning by a sound. My parents and I had our own room at the lodge on the ground floor by the kitchen. Mom and Dad where on the big bed and I was across the room on a bunkbed. The noises were coming from right above us on the second floor. Heavy foot steps, drawers opening and closing. Now the house we were in is very secluded no one for about ten miles all around. I had thought that perhaps we had a burglar. I listened as the steps went down the stairs to the living room. There I heard the ashtrays being moved about the strong smell of pipe tobacco began to fill the air. Then the footsteps went throught the dining room to the kitchen. At this point I was scared to death! The footsteps reached outside the door the air seemed to change it all felt very strange and I screamed. My Dad jumped up and ran over to me. He then went to the door and opened it. Then it all stopped as if some one shut off a large machine. My Mom woke up and demanded to know what was going on. My Father took me into the living room and tried to calm me. He told Mom that we might have a burglar and told her to stay with me. He got a shotgun and searched the house but come up with nothing. All the doors where locked as was the windows. I said that it must be the ghost of Uncle Frank. My Father said it could not be as ghost they don't come out at 5:00 in the morning. My Mother was really upset. Later that day when I was alone with Dad he told me some shocking news: First, the noises started at 1:00 that morning and that he got up a few times to check it out there was no one there. Second, right after Uncle Frank died Uncle Joey was in the house alone and heard someone calling to him but could never find the person.  Over the years Lone Pine has had a lot of ghostly things happen. People who come up for hunting season have seen and heard a lot of strange phenomena. One morning one of the hunting wives saw a man on the sofa smoking a pipe, when she asked her husband when did he arrive he was confused as there was no one of that description in the lodge. My father showed the lady a picture of himself with Uncle Joey and Uncle Frank. She pointed out Uncle Frank and left that day. My brother Tony has heard the footsteps and door slamming as well. The ghost is still active and every hunting season someone sees or hears something.

The End…