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The Old Gore House
The year I was a junior in high school, we moved to a farm called "the
Gore Place." It was three miles east of Ladonia and three miles west of
Pecan Gap. The house was big and had a large screened-in porch, with
windows on two sides. The people who built it called the porch the
"dance floor." Every Saturday night they would have a dance. They
invited fiddlers, guitar players, and a piano player, and danced the
night away. Dad's youngest brother Buster played the guitar and had
attended many of these dances. People came from far away to those
dances. However, the man's main source of income was from the moonshine
he made and sold to some of the dancers.
My sister Gwen and I
felt sure this house was haunted! It was big, had two stories, dark
rooms with spider webs, and paper was falling from the walls and
ceilings. It had been vacant for some time. The boards creaked when you
walked on them--or even when you didn't. We decided to do some exploring
while Mom and Dad were sweeping and moving our furniture into the rooms.
We hoped (?) to "find" the ghosts. There was a dark staircase to the
second floor that made a right turn at a landing and to a room at the
top. With some trepidation, we climbed those squeaking stairs. The stair
at top of the landing made the loudest noise of all. In trying to make
it stop squeaking, we discovered that it was loose at one end. If you
pushed that end sideways, it swung out, leaving a box under that
stair-step. A hiding place! But what was it for? Next we discovered a
wall in that small upstairs room that had a hidden door. If you pushed
in a certain board, it swung inward to a very small room under the eaves
of the house. We could hardly wait to tell our parents about our "ghost"
room. Dad burst our bubble by telling us that what we had found was the
hiding place for the previous owner's booze. The board at the top of the
stairs was where customers placed their money after advising the owner
that they wanted to make a purchase. The owner would remove the money
and place a bottle of booze in its place, then return to the dance
floor. The customer would go back to the top of the stairs to get his
bottle of booze. So much for our ghost!
But one exciting thing
about our new house was an old abandoned silo in a pasture not far from
our house. It was tall, it had a metal ladder, and I loved to climb.
Gwen and I would go through the barbed wire fence and run to the silo.
In earlier years metal rods had been built into the side of the silo to
use as a ladder. This was used to check the contents of the silo.
However, the bottom rungs had been removed to keep curious children from
climbing the silo and possibly falling and getting hurt. I discovered
that I could put an old log under the remains of the ladder, then
stretch with all my might, and just barely reach the bottom rung with
the fingers of one hand. Then I could pull myself up enough to catch the
next rung with my other hand. Once I grasped it, I managed to pull
myself up to catch the next rung. From there it was easy to climb to the
top. I always did like high places. The railing that had once graced the
top of the silo was now non-existent. The silo was made from concrete
blocks which were about a foot wide. Once at the top, I would stand up
and walk around that silo balancing myself by holding my arms out like a
high-wire walker at the circus, singing at the top of my lungs. Gwen
never did like high places, so she would stand on the ground and yell,
"Lowell Ray, come down! You're going to fall!" Then she would cry and
eventually I would leave that pleasurable place, return to the terra
firma, and we would go home.
The pasture did not belong to our
farm, and the owner kept cattle in it, including a very big bull that
had a terrible temper. Ferdinand, the bull with the delicate soul, he
was not! One day we wandered a little further into the pasture looking
for blackberries when we met this bull. He seemed to resent our
intrusion very much. Pawing the ground, he lowered his head and charged
us. We managed to make it from one tree to another, and finally got
through the fence just ahead of the bull. He stood there pawing the
ground and snorting at us. Gwen and I never went back to the silo again.
Lowell McCormack
Gainesville, Texas
Published:
November 14,
2005
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