Thanksgiving ghost story

With the heavy snowfall here in western NY so close to Thanksgiving, I'm remembering another snowy Thanksgiving many years ago when I was 6 years old.

We lived in Erie, PA. My mother's cousin, Wilford (whom we called Willie), and his wife, Jenny, drove to Erie from Buffalo for Thanksgiving dinner with us. They planned on staying overnight with other Erie relatives. Willie would not stay in our house after dark because my parents bought the house from an old family friend whose husband, Joe, had died in an upstairs bedroom. Willie was a firm believer in ghosts and haunted houses.

Erie (not Buffalo that time) got hit with a lake effect storm on Thanksgiving day. By the time that Jenny and Willie realized how bad the storm was, they were too close to Erie to turn back. No expressway between Buffalo and Erie then, and no cell phones in those days (1956 - yes I'm that old). They arrived 2 hours late.

By the time we finished dinner, their car was totally buried, visibility was zero, and all streets were completely impassable. They had no choice but to stay overnight with us. My brothers offered their room, said they would go to the living room with their sleeping bags. But Willie refused to sleep on the second floor so he and Jennie took the couch and a lounge chair.

Shortly after we all got into bed, I heard Willie go into the bathroom, which was next to my bedroom. He had passed my brothers' room on the way, so my oldest brother, the family prankster, stood in my doorway, outside the closed bathroom door and called out in a spooky voice, "Wiiiiiiillie, Wiiiiiiilie."

Willie, who was over 6 feet tall and had a deep, gruff voice, snapped back, "What? Who is it?" My brother used a whispery voice to say, "Willie, it's your friend, Joe." I struggled to hold back the giggles while my brother held his finger to his lips to silence me.

Willie ran out of the bathroom yelling, "He's here! I heard him!" Everyone ran into the hall and my brother blended in, acting innocent and curious. My father insisted that it was "mind over matter because there's no such thing as ghosts."

At breakfast in the morning, Willie and my father were still arguing over what had happened. I could not hold back the giggles, even though my brother kicked me under the table. My father noticed and said, "Willie, I think I found your ghost." Jenny burst out laughing and told my father that it was too funny and harmless to punish us.

The snow had stopped but we could not open our doors because it was drifted halfway up them. We had a detached garage and the snow shovels were in there. The prankster brother dropped into the snow from a dining room window where it wasn't drifted so high. He had the kitchen broom and pushed aside just enough snow to open the back door. Willie and my father joined him to make a path to the garage and clear enough snow to open it.

But the side streets like ours were still impassable, so a relative with a 4 wheel drive jeep met Jenny and Willie at the corner of our block where a major street had been plowed and took them to his place.

For many years afterward, we kids would say, "Wiiiiilie," and laugh our asses off.