[Sidney Lanier]

We had friends in our town in the Hudson Valley (now retired and moved away) whose house had a ghost. He (former IBMer) never saw him, but she (musician, church organist, my fellow Hospice volunteer trainer) and all their three sons frequently did to the point that they named him 'Flash' for his penchant to suddenly appear and disappear. He appeared to be an older, white-haired man dressed in a red flannel shirt and jeans, never said or did anything, was just visible and then not. The house is next door to our local library where we held our Hospice training sessions and we would often walk to their house to view training films as the library did not have a TV/VCR at the time. I never saw Flash.

They once had another couple visiting to play bridge, and at one point the woman went upstairs to use the only washroom in the house, came back downstairs and gave the homeowner a playful smack on the back of his head as she walked back to her seat. 'What was that for?' he asked, and she replied, 'For scaring the heck out of me upstairs.' All three swore to her that no one had left the room during her absence, so it had to have been Flash, following her description.

After they sold the house, they came back from time to time to visit. My former fellow volunteer told me that the first time their buyers saw them, they took them aside and said, 'There's something we need to talk to you about....' Evidently Flash belonged to the house rather than to our friends who had sold the house. He's still there!