Triangle House?

The teller shuddered when I handed her the check, which I was depositing to cover the cost of renovations in the kitchen our Bridgewater home. When we bought the home in 2002, we arranged for structural repairs in the kitchen before we even moved in. The collapsing ceiling had, in fact, made our purchase of the house possible: we later found out that many of our friends had been interested in the house until they saw that ceiling. Once the major work was done, we turned our attention to the rest of the house, eventually making it a "rainbow house" inside, as we steadily remodeled each room.

Our kitchen, the "before" picture

Finally, our attention returned to the kitchen and its Full House-era cabinets, and this involved some banking. Back to the teller ...

I never really watched this show, but when we did catch an episode a few years ago, Pam noticed the cabinets right away.

The reason she was startled, she said, was that she had grown up in the house. Her family had owned it for 22 years, and they had sold it to the woman from whom we bought it. I mentioned our current project with the cabinets, which she of course remembered. I was pleased to meet yet another person connected to the house -- I think it might have been her mother who had a similar reaction to a check I wrote at the local grocery a few years ago, and we have bumped into a number of former residents over the years.

And then she asked if we had noticed anything happening in the house. I am not a follower of the paranormal, but somehow I immediately knew what she meant, and said that we had not. Because that is what I thought.

The teller -- who was training a new teller at the time, a man who stood silently by as we had this discussion -- related stories of her family's experience. Most notable was her brother, who slept with a baseball bat for fear of the ghosts in his room. The family had eventually hired a medium to put him at ease.

I reported this to Pam when I got home, and she found it interesting, repeating that she does not believe in ghosts, and had not seen any. Whenever I think of ghosts, I am reminded of C.S. Lewis, who asserted that seeing and believing are not the same thing. He had seen ghosts and did not believe in them, while a good friend of his was a firm believer who had never seen one. I have never seen one and do not believe in them (I think), but I do not doubt those who see them.

When I mentioned all of this to our kid -- 20 years old and home for the holidays -- they reported having seen one when they were about age 7. If they were sleeping in our room (which was often the case), they would see the ghosts walking back and forth in the upstairs hallway. JUST WHERE THE TELLER TOLD ME HER BROTHER SAW THEM.

We have since reconfigured that space, so that no wall divides the hall from the room. And we have a light fixture there that is new and professionally installed but sometimes simply does not work. Inexplicably. I am not sure I believe in ghosts, but I do believe in pranks.

As I was wondering whether the ghosts looked like my most consistent mental image of ghosts -- from the Alfred Hitchcock book ghostwritten by Robert Arthur -- Pam reminded me of the obvious: whatever kids in the house have seen, we are deep in the Bridgewater Triangle, and only a few steps from a famously haunted dormitory.

Maps: Paranormal Encyclopedia