Picture With the Bell Witch

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Steve Plonk
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Picture With the Bell Witch

Post by Steve Plonk » September 30th, 2011, 4:07 pm

PICTURE WITH THE BELL WITCH
By Steve Plonk

Let me tell you another "crooked bridge" ghost story I heard a decade ago from my “relative” , Al Plonk. Here it is told to you below. It is based on fact…
“It was a decade ago and I crossed a crooked bridge headed into the town of Adams, Tennessee. It was right after I went Dragon hunting in Todd County, Kentucky, with Uncle Penn’s Ghost, namely, Robert Penn Warren, the late great southern writer. He wrote about caves, as well as a friend of mine, in Johnson City, Tennessee. I suppose that the readers may have heard of the Bell Witch Cave in Adams, Tennessee, in Robertson County? Well, this is the tale I tell of my own visit to the Bell Witch Cave and subsequent photos.”
“When a person visits a place of supernatural renown, first, one has to have respect for the history and the occurrences in the place. I did my homework before I came and had a respectful attitude. When expecting to meet up with ghosts, you have to have an open mind. A medium-sized gray-haired man was my guide and the handler of the admissions money to the cave. Back then, it was cheaper--three to five dollars—depending on whether or not you were taking pictures in the cave. Yes, kind folks and gentle people I was definitely taking pictures. I was even thinking that the “most photogenic ghost” in the U. S. A. would deign to have her picture taken with little old me.”
“First, I took a picture of the proprietor and guide at the entrance after a test shot at the entrance. (I took a cheaper camera, just in case something happened to it.) Then we went inside and I took a picture of the grave of a mother and child which was inside the cave. The bodies had been removed. The Bell Witch terrorized a family around 150 years ago. Even Andy Jackson had an encounter with her. The Bell Witch is definitely a ghost or – if orientals were telling it—a hungry ghost. I do believe in ghosts. My reasons are quite simple. I have had encounters with unexplainable entities. I do not think that the Bell Witch ghost is an avenging angel, but that she was and is a misunderstood ghost. Here I am, talking like a ghost buster. However, once a ghost gets respect and understanding, in my belief, the ghost starts helping, instead of hurting. A ghost can be, according to the literature, caught either by the dark side ,or the light side, or can just be confused and not realize he, she, or it is dead.”
“About five years after I visited, a couple of student reporters, from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, spent the night in the Bell Witch Cave and “did not experience a thing” according to their reports. Too bad, and so sad. They didn’t have any respect, as Rodney Dangerfield, and the Bell Witch might say. Why would the Bell Witch appear to a couple of yahoos who didn’t know anything to begin with? You have to be respectful like you are before a judge, and then, if the conditions are just right you might have a visitation, or you might be surprised about other things that happen in conjunction with your visit. So let us tell of the visitation. There were several other people coming into the cave with me. They were caught up, as I was, by the fog and the dampness in the cave. There was a tinkling sound in the back of the cave. They promised to step over and look. While they stepped into this other little alcove of the cave, I asked the guide a question : “Since you were telling me that this ghost has been photographed—I found it very suprising—where would a respectful person have to stand for the Bell Witch to appear by chance, in a photograph with them?” “Right over there in front of the cave wall, in this chamber.” The guide motioned.”

***
So, I followed his directions and stood on the spot. The guide snapped my picture. As he was snapping it, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I had a big shit-eating grin on my face, as though my life depended on it. I felt an icy breeze over my left shoulder as I smiled, and I had a flash of things to come. The ladies and kids came back momentarily. I didn’t tell anyone what I had experienced. “You know,” said the ladies, “there appears to be the tinkling of sleigh bells in the back of the cave.” We all agreed. There was a tinkling of bells. A distinct tinkling of bells. “There is a creek,” the guide said, “which flows through the back of the cave and sometimes overflows and goes out the entrance during floods. We had an overflow not too long ago which went into the falls below here.” “The entrance had to be mucked out and fans were used to dry the chambers which tourists use.” I said that “We all noticed the humidity and coolness in the cave and the mist which hung in the air near the church ,the cave,and also next to your house.” All agreed how humid it was that morning.
Then after visiting the nearby cemetery—the path through the woods was being reconstructed—from the highway and taking pictures of the church and historical markers, I left Adams and proceeded back to Guthrie, Kentucky , where I usually went from Clarksville, Tennessee, to play the lottery. I had the distinct impression that I should stop and play the lottery before going back to Clarksville, where I was living at the time. I did, and won a free game and twenty dollars—enough for a meal and gas fill-up. So, I attributed it to luck. I immediately went and got the pictures developed at the Clarksville Mall at a one-hour photo shop. Sure enough, to my further great surprise, I was pictured standing right next to the Bell Witch apparition. She was an old crone with a kerchief over her head and a long dark coat on, holding another apparition of a baby in a blanket. I heard, at that moment, a tinkling of bells, as I glanced at my newly developed photos, I thought, “What a lucky find!” Then, at that moment, I heard a tinkling of bells, as I reveled in my discovery, “Humph…just like we heard in the cave.” I mused. Since I was next to a gift shop, which sold little dinner bells, I didn’t think anything about it at the time.
***
“Later on that Friday, I withdrew a hundred dollars in small bills and decided to visit Port Royal State Park’s Covered Bridge on Saturday. I finally slept , that night, after a traumatic experience. (It was early 1992, and Clinton had not yet been elected president. The Elder Bush was still president.) The ghost appeared to me in a dream after nearly drowning me in the shower. Yes, the shower head caused some sort of vacuum around the spray and I temporarily couldn’t breathe. (So after a night of that, I was generally apprehensive about the upcoming visit to the state park.) I thought I saw the Ghost in the hall through the crack in the bathroom door. She was shaking a broom at me and the papoose was attached to her back this time. I wondered how the Ghost could’ve hitched a ride in my car. She usually didn’t appear outside of Adams—except with Andy Jackson’s stagecoach. Why did she choose to haunt me? I was respectful and prayed over the unknown graves and the family burials. I had no reason to be haunted, except that I had dead Cherokee relatives who were psychic and had premonitions. Then mine started. During the dreams, I had visions of a tornado hitting Clarksville, which I couldn’t shake. I dreamt I was in Wendy’s Hamburgers and there the Bell Witch was pointing upward to the sky and then toward downtown. I saw angry black swirling clouds heading toward down town Clarksville. Next, I saw a burning compound and more than a dozen women and children screaming to get out. After that, I saw governor Clinton taking the oath of office in 1996. Then the final dream was seeing Clinton being sworn in as President in 1992. It looked like to me that the premonitions may be backwards as foretold. All the dreams were accompanied by a tinkling of bells like a sleigh bell harpsichord. My “luck” was just beginning.”
***

“Well, that Saturday, I did go to the state park and walk down the hill and see the covered bridge. The day was chilly and overcast. I made out a figure at the entrance to the covered bridge. It looked like an elderly lady in a brown coat and kerchief carrying a baby in a brown pack on her back.”
“The Bell Witch again! Oh Nnoo! Was I going nuts?” She was pointing to the covered bridge entrance. I ran down the hill to the entrance and she was gone to the other end of the bridge. I was in no hurry to follow her. I looked out from one of the windows in the side of the bridge and suddenly it turned into a viewing screen like on a television set. “We interrupt this program to bring you news of a bombing in Oklahoma city,” Connie Chung said on CBS News. I pissed my pants. I was scared to death. The Bell Witch cackled at the other end of the bridge—still pointing straight ahead—and vanished. I, once again, was not eager to follow but was in some kind of a trance, so I doggedly did. As I walked, every large wooden opening turned into a viewing screen as I approached and a vision appeared in each one. So many visions came that my mind was boggled--I heard a tune: “…Proud to Live, too proud to die…Cherokee People, Cherokee tribe…” (Yes, Port Royal Historic Park was a part Of the “Trail of Tears”.)”
I staggered to the end of the bridge and was zapped back inside the cave at a later hour. The Bell Witch with her baby on her back , confronted me again with that hellish broom which was pointed at the empty graves mentioned earlier. I looked at the empty graves and they were no longer empty. There were skeletons wrapped in shrouds. One had the cloak beside it and the smaller grave had the shawl beside the baby. I heard the both ghosts wail this time: “The Song of the Dead Twin must be sung!” “What do you mean by that?” I exclaimed, oblivious to the fact that I was back in the cave.
Then the wailing turned into a chant in an Amerindian language—could it be Cherokee? I saw a screen appear at the entrance to the cave and I saw settlers—the Bell Family relatives—moving the bodies through the screen. I was afraid to follow them through the entrance. I was thoroughly frightened and numb by now. I looked at my watch and it said 11 PM at night. I decided to try to chant along with the ghosts. I had once learned some Cherokee songs from a relative and this seemed familiar somehow… “This is the Cave of the Winds & you have been called by the Great Spirit to set this curse right. Otherwise, said the Baby ghost, named Marie, we will have to appear again in twenty-five years to haunt others.” “The settlers removed our bodies,” said Marie, “thinking that the hauntings would cease, but only delayed the hauntings for a generation. We keep haunting every generation until some lucky soul gets the ‘Song Of the Dead Twin’ right.” I thought that I remembered that one of my great grandfathers told me that his great great grandfather was a surviving twin. I wonder if I am the ‘lucky soul’. I had to think fast because of the urgency in Marie, the baby ghost’s, voice. Am I allowed to try again? “Yes,” said both the ghosts in stereo. “You have three chances to get it right, or you will not be able to get out of this cave alive.” I prayed the “Lord’s Prayer” to myself. I also remembered that my ancestor was adopted by a white family after being found wandering in the woods. He later married a white step-cousin.
“Am I allowed to sleep on my knowledge so that I may be better prepared for this ordeal?—thinking that the Bell Witch was the ghost of a conjurer or high priestess. “Yes, initiate, you are so allowed,” said the Bell Witch. I lay down beside the open graves and slept, singing to myself. The ghosts gave me a break.
***

In the morning, I heard a rooster crow and I woke up with a start. Magically, I was back on the other side of the bridge, sleeping in a pile of dead leaves. I could hardly see two feet in front of me because of the fog. I walked back through the covered bridge and saw that my car was gone. It must have been towed. I started getting really worried. I found a note on the park bulletin board which read: “No overnight camping. Violators cars will be towed.” Then I saw a phone number listing. I found a piece of charcoal and copied the phone number on a leaf. I put the leaf in my pocket , and went off looking for a phone somewhere nearby. I found a phone booth and called the number. It was a local garage in nearby Port Royal. I asked how much the towing charges were. “Thirty dollars, sonny boy”, the man at the other end of the line said. “You’re lucky I just stepped in.”
“Well, sir, I happen to have the thirty dollars.” I exclaimed. “Where are you located? I am stranded at the state park.” He gave me directions and I hoofed it on over to town—about five miles. I wearily paid the towing fee and picked up my car.
“There is also a fifty dollar fine for illegal camping which is payable at the park headquarter when it is open. Otherwise, you will have to appear in court.” the Garage Owner explained.
“Thanks for the tip, and sorry about that” I retorted.
“The Park opens at nine?” “Sure,” said the Garage Owner.
“I got in my car and drove it back to the Park. By this time it was nine. (Good thing that the Garage owner was just “stepping in” and was available. I’d hated to be stranded this far out.)
That was some weird dream I had that night. I wonder how I ended up sleeping at the other end of the Covered Bridge. I paid the fine and was lucky not to have to appear in court. I drove slowly and carefully home to Clarksville and arrived around ten that Sunday morning. I showered and shaved, and got into my church clothes. Then, I went to church—feeling an extreme need for prayer. I must’ve sung that song two more times and lifted the curse of the Bell Witch and her dead baby. Perhaps, I sung the “Song of the Dead Twin” correctly in my sleep! I put my last twenty dollars in the offering. --The End--

Steve Plonk
Posts: 2483
Joined: December 12th, 2009, 4:48 pm

Re: Picture With the Bell Witch

Post by Steve Plonk » October 19th, 2011, 2:03 pm

Just a little chilly hearth tale for autumn... 8) A Tale to heat up that spiced cider by...

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judih
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Re: Picture With the Bell Witch

Post by judih » October 20th, 2011, 12:46 am

getting the cider on, and hustling down for the read
thanks, Steve, for popping this back.

Strange and cool tale.
Read this, people.

Steve Plonk
Posts: 2483
Joined: December 12th, 2009, 4:48 pm

Re: Picture With the Bell Witch

Post by Steve Plonk » November 11th, 2011, 12:49 pm

Judih, Thanks for your praise on my ghost story. :D I hope others appreciate
it, too.

Steve Plonk
Posts: 2483
Joined: December 12th, 2009, 4:48 pm

Re: Picture With the Bell Witch

Post by Steve Plonk » November 25th, 2012, 3:07 pm

Time for this horror story to be recirculated. Think of this as a second printing.
More folks will get an opportunity to read this little gothic tale. 8)

creativesoul
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Re: Picture With the Bell Witch

Post by creativesoul » November 26th, 2012, 11:41 am

loved this- nice
reason is over rated, as is logic and common sense-i much prefer the passions of a crazy old woman, cats and dogs and jungle foliage- tropic rain-and a defined sense of who brings the stars up at night and the sun up in the morning---

Steve Plonk
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Joined: December 12th, 2009, 4:48 pm

Re: Picture With the Bell Witch

Post by Steve Plonk » November 27th, 2012, 12:57 pm

Creativesoul, Pleased that you liked my gothic tale. :)

creativesoul
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Re: Picture With the Bell Witch

Post by creativesoul » November 27th, 2012, 1:47 pm

always liked goth- punk etc- nicely writing! :o
reason is over rated, as is logic and common sense-i much prefer the passions of a crazy old woman, cats and dogs and jungle foliage- tropic rain-and a defined sense of who brings the stars up at night and the sun up in the morning---

Steve Plonk
Posts: 2483
Joined: December 12th, 2009, 4:48 pm

Re: Picture With the Bell Witch

Post by Steve Plonk » March 8th, 2013, 12:17 am

Creativesoul, Thanks again for reading... :) 8)

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still.trucking
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Re: Picture With the Bell Witch

Post by still.trucking » March 8th, 2013, 2:33 pm

a good read steve, thanks


Ever been to Joelton?
"Natural selection, as it has operated in human history, favors not only the clever but the murderous." Barbara Ehrenreich

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Steve Plonk
Posts: 2483
Joined: December 12th, 2009, 4:48 pm

Re: Picture With the Bell Witch

Post by Steve Plonk » March 9th, 2013, 12:47 pm

Still Trucking, glad you like my gothic tale... Yes, I've passed through Joelton, TN numerous times. I think I even stopped at a Union 76 truck stop, near there, to eat meals several times. 8)

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