TENNIS ANYONE? Book lists locations of restless spirits

Halloween is over. And it’s time for candy bars – and impending dental visits.

Oh, yes – health problems from eating too much sugar.

If you are like me, you have probably spent the past few days gently swiping your kids’ trick-or-treat candy, whenever they’re asleep.

You are probably also still scratching your head about ghosts.

After all, we have been bombarded with spooky stories for a solid month.

So, now – are ghosts for real?

Well, for answers, and sheer entertainment, I am currently reading the revised edition of Jeff Belanger’s “Encyclopedia of Haunted Places” (NewPageBooks, $19.99). In this, not a single spooky entry lies in Northeast Tennessee or Southwest Virginia.

But it’s curious to know that the place where my wife and I spent our honeymoon – St. Augustine, Fla. – harbors restless spirits at the fort called Castillo de San Marcos.

More ghosts can allegedly be found at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge in Nashville, Tenn., the Rose Hall Great House of Montego Bay, Jamaica; and the Tuileries Gardens of Paris, France.

Belanger, the author, enlists help from paranormal investigators from around the world to compile this ghost-hunting guide.

It is neat to read about what might be seen or heard in Asia and Nova Scotia.

But, once, I simply had to travel no further than home to be freaked out by something spooky.

That is, I have never seen a ghost.

But I have – or at least think I have – been visited by the ghostly spirit of Missy, my beloved guinea pig.

This pet took her name from an obscure Lynyrd Skynyrd song.

Sweet little Missy lived for about five years. She looked like a white fuzzball. And she loved to squeak.

Any time we opened the refrigerator door, Missy would squeak, or squeal, just knowing that we were headed to her cage, with carrots or a chunk of celery.

And what happened when she died four years ago?

Well, call me crazy. But Missy continued to squeak.

I would open the refrigerator door, and I would hear this phantom sound – this squeak or squeal – like Missy was still begging for food, a few rooms away.

Of course, I didn’t want to believe it. But how could I not?

I could hear it!

Then, one day, I tested the floor.

I stood at the refrigerator and noticed that, if you stepped the right way, you could hear the floorboards make a squeaking sound.

Only, now, I cannot get the floor to make that sound anymore.

All is silent.

Just like the ghost of Missy.

The squeaking went away a couple of months after Missy died – about the same time our cat, Bob, purred his way into our hearts.

Maybe, then, the spirit of Missy felt like it could leave – and move on to that great vegetable tray in the sky.

| (276) 791-0704