OK, this deal didn't happen in the outdoors, but Claremore is a small town, or was a small town not too many years back, kind of a rural place, so maybe that's close enough.
I had spent a few years being what might be considered a free spirit, traveling light, being a heart breaker and a home wrecker, and all I owned I could load in my car and move with one trip.
I'd been living in a fairly large city and got myself in a jam or two and had a couple of husbands that were gunning for me. Those adventures were about to catch up with me, and I'd decided that I needed a change of scenery and to maybe get back to being a country boy so I packed the Grand Prix and headed back to Rogers County.
I rented an old house in Claremore that had just been re-done by the Mayor's son. It was old, but nice looking, and the rent was only $125 a month.
I had no furniture, I slept on a mat that rolled up into a pretty small bundle, had a blanket or two, had a little portable stereo with a stack of LP's, a small black and white TV, a box of cooking stuff, my clothes, an old shotgun, and a rod and reel. I never did get completely away from the outdoor lifestyle.
Now this is when things got interesting. I would sleep on that mat, wherever I rolled it out, sometimes in the living room by the stereo speakers, sometimes in the bedroom, and a strange thing would happen.
There would be an explosion and a flash of light in my face, and I would be removed from the mat a few feet, not many, just two or three feet away from it. I can't really describe the feeling of the force that moved me off the mat. It wasn't harsh, but rather like when a strong wind blows against you, but with enough force to move you a couple of feet.
The first time it happened....the sound and the flash, I thought I'd been shot, but when I laid there a few seconds I realized I was alone, I was alright, and I was in the middle of the room off the mat. It was really wierd.
It started happening often, sometimes a couple of times during a night, sometimes not at all for a few days. It never happened if I happened to be sleeping somewhere else, and never happened if someone was sharing my mat.
I was with one of my buddies from those days one afternoon, and decided to lay it on him about the strange stuff going on in my house, and he seemed interested. Neither one of us was one to believe in the so called supernatural, and we were both thinking that I just might be a little damaged, or maybe crazy.
My buddy was a good friend of the mayor's son...remember, that house was owned by the mayor, and one night while they were out and about he told my story to him. He was bothered by it, and told my buddy something that I didn't know.
It seems that an elderly woman had died in that old house, and it was days before the body was discovered. The house was a mess, and that's the main reason that it had been remodled. The son had done most of the work during his summer off from college. He said that it took a long time to get the smell out of that old house, and that it always gave him the creeps while he was doing the work.
That story about the recent history of the house got me to thinking some funny things, like maybe that old woman was still in there in some kind of spirit form or something. One night after the flash and explosion, which I had determined were probably only seen and heard by me, as I gathered myself from the center of the living room floor I had an idea. Maybe I needed to have a little discussion with my house mate.
That's just what I did. I crawled back to my mat, sat up and had a little chat with........whatever. I said, "Hey, I'm here, I'm paying the damn rent, and I ain't leaving. You are welcome to stay, but ya need to leave me to hell alone."
It never happened again.
You make the call, I can't explain it.
I just read this to the little redhead that came into my life right after all that strange stuff happened around 30 years ago, and she said that this is just the way I told it to her back then. We shared that house for about a year and a half, and nothing strange ever happened again.
