Ghosts of Punderson

Spent a lovely weekend at Punderson State Park with my daughter and the Medina Guides. The cabins were nice enough. The lodge perfectly Gothic in places.

We walked down a narrow, low hall and into the library. The library is a small, round room at the top of the rear tower. Opposite the stained glass windows was an oddly deep set bookcase. A line of books, six inches deep, were balanced at the front of a three-foot deep shelf.

Out of curiosity I reached behind the books and felt another. I was a thin volume of ghost stories. I turned to page twenty-four and began to read to the people with me the ghost stories of Punderson Manor. Set on the bank of a small, glacial lake the manor has had several reported ghost sightings and incidents.

I, for one, do not believe in ghosts. I could easily understand them given a spooky old building, with its sketchy plumbing and electrical systems, creaks and groans of its old timbers and shifting stone, the tricks of light through billowing curtains and small panes of glass. All manner of things could cause a person, alone, to believe that there were others, unseen, with them.