by Steve Kamrud

     I’m going to tell you all a little story that happened to me back in 1981. I believe that it was truly a paranormal experience. I’m going to leave it up to you The Reader to judge for yourself whether it was a true paranormal experience or not? This was way back before I ever heard of the group, and at that time I didn’t know how or have the equipment to document anything paranormal. As a matter of fact, I was pretty skeptical.

     In 1981 I lived in a little house next to my brother’s house in a little bitty town called Croton, Ohio. Croton is about 50 miles northeast of Columbus. At that time my brother worked for a company that was contracted to the phone company as an engineer. Part of his job as an engineer was to design plans to route telephone cable through different towns and cities. He also had to make measurements between the telephone poles and measure the distances between the electric, cable TV and existing phone cables. Once in a while he would take me with him to measure these footages while he sat in the car and drew up the plans and took pertinent notes. This was way back before they put everything on computers!

     He had been working on a job in Steubenville, Ohio for about a month at this time and had become good friends with the man that owned the tavern there. He took me with him over to Steubenville one weekend.

     We left Croton about 4 a.m. and got to Steubenville at about 8 am that morning. My brother decided to stop at this tavern and have coffee before we went out into the city to do the job. Because he was good friends with the owner, all he had to do was knock on the door of the bar and the owner let us in even though he was not officially open. After about my second cup of coffee and a four hour ride I had to excuse myself and use the restroom. The owner told me where the bathroom and the light switch were because I had never been in the building before. He had shut down the bar like normal the night before and knew very well that the bathroom light was off.

     I headed for the men's room. When I went into the men's room, the light was already on. I thought this was strange as the owner had just gotten through telling me that he had shut off everything--including that light--the night before and that he hadn’t been in there yet that morning.

     I stood there reading the graffiti on the wall and a scrawl right in front of me caught my eye. It said, “Who will be the fool tonight.” I thought, “Okay, people get drunk and make fools out of themselves every night.” I didn’t think much more about it.

     I went back to the bar for another cup of coffee. When I got back to the bar, I mentioned the light being on to the owner. He grinned and said was that it must have been the ghost that haunts this bar. All I could say was, “hah?”

     Then he told us a little story about how his son had decided to prove that the bar was not haunted. His son had long scoffed at the ghost that others had been experiencing.

     The owner’s son got to the bar one night after it had closed at about 11 a.m. with his two dogs. The dogs refused to even go into the bar. That didn’t deter the owner’s son, he decided that he would stay alone all night in the bar. After all, there is no such thing as ghosts--or...

     At about 3 a.m. the bar owner got a telephone call from his son. The younger man was excited and was trying to tell his father that something very eerie had happened to him and that he was leaving the bar and would not go back in there again--ever!

     I thought, “Well, that’s a pretty interesting story.” But I also thought about that writing on the men’s room wall. I had already had two cups of coffee, so I had to go back to the men’s room.

     When I got into the bathroom, my eyes sought out the graffiti once more. The words were ringing in my head for some reason. I can not explain it, but those words had made quite an impression on me.

     I scanned the wall again.

     “Who will be the fool tonight?” I remembered the words, but they were no longer scrawled upon the wall. I looked everywhere thinking that maybe I had misjudged where exactly on the wall I had seen the words. The graffiti just was no longer there!

     I know what you are thinking, but I was drinking coffee only!

     What happened to that graffiti scrawl? I honestly don’t know. I only know that no one had been in the bathroom between my two visits. You will have to be the judge of this story, but don’t judge it or me too harshly. Someday you may have a paranormal experience of your own, and then you’ll hope that those who judge you will do so knowing that you are basically an honest and unflappable person.

Editor’s Note:

Having known Steve for nearly two years now, I have to say that he’s a truly honest person.

• If I were judging this story only based upon the merits of the character of the man telling it--well, I would have to judge it to be true.