Ghost from a blizzard past

I sit in the quiet of a magnificent building in Asheville that dates back to the zenith of the 1920s. The creaks I hear could be related to some ghosts that others say they have seen or heard here, but I doubt it. I have had no such supernatural experiences here. Yet.

It does, however, take me back to a time in Asheville that I most definitely saw a ghost. It was early March 1993. Nineteen inches of snow dumped on Asheville during a storm the national media dubbed as ‘The Storm of the Century.’ It heavily affected the entire eastern part of the country. Power was out throughout the Asheville area and the city literally shut down for about a week. We may live in the mountains, but we do not have the machinery to keep streets cleared when it snows 4-5”, much less more than a foot.

At the time, we lived in the historic district, known as Montford, a neighborhood on the edge of downtown, dating back to the Victorian era and filled with shabby homes that had not been cared for in years.  Most were occupied by creative folks who needed cheap rent. Those homes are no longer bargain deals, and most have been renovated to the grandeur of their beginnings. People looking for rental deals these days look elsewhere in Asheville.

Back to 1993. We were lucky. We didn’t lose power, but we did lose cable and were more than bored. The snow had stopped and we’d run out of milk, kerosene and that most valuable of all necessities in a snow storm - beer. Having been able to find convenience stores to replenish our goods, it was time to pay a visit to a friend who lived about 12 blocks from us.

We traipsed there fairly easily but did not stay too long. We had to make it back home before dark. Snow had begun to fall once more and the wind had kicked back into high gear. We bundled up yet again and began the journey home, but not so easily this time. It felt to me like the winds were topping out at 100 mph, but it was probably closer to 40. I just know that it was difficult to walk and those of us out, were fighting to push one foot down in the snow, followed by the next foot, and keeping every inch of skin covered by some sort of material. My husband’s mustache froze. It was that cold.

About a block and a half from our apartment, we were grumbling through our scarves, realizing we had waited just a tad too long at our friend’s house and were hoping to get home by our own two feet and not blown around the corner by the whipping winds.

I looked to see how much further we had to go and noticed a woman about 20 feet away from me coming down the steps of one of the old homes. She was clothed in a dark green coat that stopped just above her black, high-heeled boots that were laced up and tied neatly in a bow just above her ankles. A black hat sat atop her pinned up hair and her hands were stuffed in a black muff. She appeared to be a character straight from the Victorian ages itself. She walked effortlessly. Key word here - effortlessly. We were struggling against the winds, but she seemed to not pay it a bit of attention. She walked down those steps, straight out to the middle of the street, turned to her left and walked lightly on top of a foot of snow as if she were gliding. Indeed, when we checked, there were no footsteps belonging to a pair of high heeled boots. Only the tracks of hiking boots or tennis shoes - the chosen footwear of that storm - were to be found. She went down the street for about 30 feet, made a right turn and walked down a set of steps that led to nowhere. Yes, we checked that out also.

Now before you think my brain had frozen, or I’d enjoyed one too many Coronas (my beer of choice at the time, and long before Asheville had much of any other kind of beer to offer, except Budweiser), I looked at my husband who had stopped in his tracks. His mouth was agape and looking as if - pardon the cliché - he’d just seen a ghost. It was not, nor do I expect it will be, the only ghost I come in contact with in Asheville.

I do love a good ghost story, don't you?