Are There Ghosts at The Riverside?......Conclusion

OK - I admit it.

I’ve fallen prey to the same flights of fancy that I’ve impugned others for ascribing to; i.e. letting your imagination, as it is molded and then overwhelmed by this grand old building, kidnap and stifle your common sense. It could be that I’m simply, and somewhat irresponsibly, letting myself get caught up in the moment; kind of like letting yourself get hornswaggled into going to a KC & The Sunshine Band concert, having a few too many beers and then mid-concert saying to yourself, “hey, this ain’t half bad.” You know better!!!

My nephew used to live at The Riverside when we first purchased the place, and he was full of stories like this one: “I left my glasses out in the lobby, and went to get them at 3:00 in the morning, and in the room above the lobby, I heard someone stomp their foot, and there was nobody staying up there.” So you’re telling me a ghost seized the opportunity of you being in the lobby at 3:00 AM in the morning to stomp his foot, just once, on the floor? I would think a ghost would be a little more, well, creative in its attempts to terrorize the living; maybe rattle some chains, slam some doors, or at the very least, let off with a long, sustained moan of some sort. But a single foot stomp? Pu-leeeeze!

This collision of what we know, what scientific proof exists and what we want to believe is played-out weekly in one of those ghost shows on whatever cable channel it’s on; for an hour they build the suspense, showing nothing of substance, until the end where they've filmed a little flash of light, or a quick blur, the host saying “there!....look closely…there it is...Oh my God, did you see that?....let’s look at it again…there it is…see that blur!....did you see that little flash?”

Did you hear that foot stomp?

We’ve had several guests that have said “this room has a feel”, or “I’m not comfortable in the west wing, because of the spirits; I need to stay in the east wing”, or “I’m not comfortable in the east wing, because of the spirits; I need to stay in the west wing.” So you’re telling me the whole damn place is haunted? Truth be known, some of these people were probably scarier than any ghost you’d ever encounter; lovely people - please come back and visit us - but scary.

To those of you who might read this and say, “No way am I staying at this place!”, please know that in the 100+ year history of the hotel, no guest or resident has been maimed, hacked-up, garroted, disemboweled or beheaded by a ghost. No one has ever actually even reported seeing a ghost. This revelation might be a bit of a letdown for those of you who’d like to visit The Riverside for the purpose of having an encounter with the paranormal; unfortunately, I can’t guarantee you anything ghostly beyond a re-telling of my potentially ‘caught up in the moment’ experiences. And to those of you who shudder at the thought of spending the night in a haunted hotel, let me profess this: there is no bigger chicken in the world than me - if I can live here, and even stay here by myself, then you have absolutely nothing to fear. Except for maybe Lucy, if you're a Bichon Frise. Really!

I saw an old man standing in the hall. Right!
I saw a shadowy figure walk along the patio perimeter. I’ll swear to it!
A bathmat floated down the hall and ended up folded on a bathroom chair. What else could have happened?!
A phantom reached into the shower stall, when my eyes were closed, and turned the water off. Would you have a better explanation?

Are there ghosts at The Riverside? I honestly don’t know.
Are there ghosts anywhere? You tell me.
One side of me desperately wants there to be ghosts; it tells us that there’s more to our lives than this single radar blip of time that we’re here on this earth. In the event that I can come back, I’m going to save some money so I can scatter it about The Riverside for the brave souls who end up as the stewards of this place when we’re gone. I might slip ‘em a bottle or two of gin as well - for as sure as there are ghosts at The Riverside, they’ll need all the help they can get.