Page 30 - October 2022
P. 30
GLEANINGS FROM THE GROVE
A Myth? Or A Legend?
Paul C. Fanning, DTM
They say he is never seen, but he is heard several unexplainable events, happenings, or
moving about—the pitter-patter of tiny feet, the phenomenon that, well, let us just say before
sound of a cow bell, or the laugh in the middle the men in white coats arrive to take me to
of the night. Some feel he is the embodiment of the asylum, caused me to question that which
evil, many proport he is something of a trickster I believed, or had been “taught” by society as
causing mischief, rearranging furniture, or “truths.” My brother reminded me as recently
making possessions disappear one night and as last month about a dramatic incident in his
mysteriously returned the next. Others say he childhood we shared. It was in the California
is no more than a benign creature, doomed to Gold Country in an old pre-Gold Rush Hispanic
roam the earth in the darkness from twilight town that my brother had a “visitation” of
unto dawn. As for me—the jury is still out. He someone from the early days appearing in
may be nothing more than a myth, or a legend a non-threatening manner. He introduced
of Spanish culture of the early 1800’s. himself as working there, giving even his name
I am not superstitious or anything. Nope. which later we used to determine the facts, and
Not me. I only have both Cornish and Irish I know that some 50 years later my brother still
blood running through my veins, good old thinks about this event. We were told by the
Celtic heritage. Ghosts, “the little people” and owner of the store who was with our parents
spirits both benign and evil notwithstanding. that he did not have any employees, and that
If one is not superstitious, then one does no one else but the two of us had entered into
not believe in the supernatural, the unseen or the back bookroom that day. Yet my brother
unexplained, or even the unfounded legends insisted he saw “Mr. Escobar” and that he was
of fantasy and myth. At least that is usually real. It turned out that one of the early owners
what the first victim in any good horror story of the adobe store was indeed an Escobar, who
or movie will say- “I don’t believe in no ghost.” my brother would not have ever known in
But again, that is not me. Not even close. advance. Myth? Legend? Or Truth?
I do admit I have seen with my own eyes Back to the tale I am about to relate. I have
30 ONE COMMUNITY
