Dr. Stephen Arnold suggested that with Halloween approaching I ask my newsletter readers whether they had any spooky stories. Did they witness something they could not explain? Had someone who died returned in some form to give them a message? I didn’t know what to expect, but several readers responded with some chicken skin experiences.
Diana Kutsunai said: “My father, Alexander Hee, promised my mother, Ellen, on their 50th wedding anniversary that he would take her to China to see where he spent his teenage years. But he suffered a heart attack and passed away before they could go.
“My mother is a devout Taoist, and we followed the Taoist tradition. The doors were opened and an altar (candles and incense) was installed. Between the hours of 6-8 p.m., conversations were prohibited.
“My three brothers were on one side of the parlor; we three girls were across the room. My mother was sitting near the kitchen.
“As time went by, I happened to look in Mother’s direction. I noticed a honeybee flying above her head and down her arm. I tried to alert my siblings, to no avail.
“My mother and I both noticed this phenomenon (my father always called her ‘hon,’ short for ‘honey’).
“I believe this was his way of saying goodbye since he passed unexpectedly and wasn’t able to say farewell to her.
“When the time was up, I went looking for the bee but couldn’t find it. I never heard of a bee flying into a house at night. I never saw the bee enter or leave the parlor!
“As time went by, I decided to take my mother to China since my brother was working in Beijing,” Kutsunai continues.
“When we were traveling around in some of the remote places in China, my sister-in-law, Amy (our tour guide), was driving an old jeep, and we encountered a honeybee flying near us. It surprised Amy. She said that there were no flowers around here.”
Gov. Burns’ cigar
Sharon Hamura said spooky stories are a favorite subject of hers. Sometimes she hears the distant music of night marchers in the very early morning in Kaimuki. “The sound is really faint but melodic with maybe some flute and drums.
“I loved Glen Grant, and one year my extended family and I went on one of his bus tours, where he told ghost stories of the area at each stop.” Grant wrote several books on the subject.
“One of the first stops was at the state Capitol where we sat on the steps facing the Queen Lili‘uokalani statue. Glen started telling stories of unexplained happenings at the Capitol, when he stopped and asked if we smelled smoke. We all could smell cigar smoke.
“Being dusk, there was no one around us, walking or otherwise. He pointed to a gentleman in the back of our group and said, ‘You, the skeptic, go take a look and see if there is anyone around smoking a cigar.’
“When the gentleman returned from walking around the Capitol, he reported that there was no one nearby. Glen explained that Governor Burns loved to smoke cigars and oftentimes the deceased return to their place of work. Now, that was chicken skin.”
The princess
Barbara Jurkens told me, “In the late 1980s, when the Moana was undergoing major restoration to her former glory, uniformed employees were provided temporary lockers in the far end of the basement in her sister property, the Princess Kaiulani Hotel.”
The hotel occupies part of the grounds of what had been Princess Ka‘iulani’s Ainahau estate.
“One night, not too late, say, 9:30 p.m., I went to change into my street clothes. As I walked back down the empty corridor, which would lead to the lobby, I passed a number of locked mesh-lined storage areas, furniture, boxes, cleaning supplies, etc. As you do, I looked into the areas as I walked by.
“Passing the cleaning supplies, I saw a young woman, her hair fashioned into a knot atop her head and wearing an empire-waisted gown, standing silently in profile in the storage area.
“I thought, quite calmly, ‘Oh, there’s the princess.’ Then I realized what I had just seen, stopped and turned my head back to the storage area. She was gone.
“I was not at all frightened, just surprised. My next shift, I asked my co-worker, Genny, a longtime employee, if she had ever heard of anyone seeing the princess at the hotel.
“‘Lots of times,’ she replied. She did not doubt my story at all, and she was just the type of person to give me grief if she had!”
Blinded by the light
Rick Fell wrote, “It was April 1990, and my young friend, Tony, had lived eight years with leukemia. The usual life expectancy was three years, and when he made five, he asked his doctor how long he had. He told Tony that ‘every day is a gift.’ And so it was.
“Anyway, Tony always credited his long life to his doctor at St. Francis, who oversaw all aspects of his care and consulted him on all decisions. It was a coach-quarterback partnership.
“On the day Tony died, at home, I went to the phone to let the doctor know of his passing.
“He answered, and when I told him, he said, ‘I know. He was just here.’
“It seems he was out in his yard, pulling weeds, when he was blinded by a bright light. Then he heard Tony’s voice say, ‘Thank you.’
“With that, he went into the house to await my call.”
White dog
Wayne Shiohira said, “I worked with Alan Medeiros, the resident custodian at Radford High School in the early 1990s. He told me about a white dog he saw after the passing of Radford’s legendary football coach, John Velasco, in 1981.
Alan lived in a house on campus that was situated on a hill right above the practice field. He took great pride in keeping his area clean, which included the yard around his house and the upper field.
“Radford has two football fields; the upper field was for everyday practice, and the main or lower field was only for game day.
“Coach V, as he was called, was known to be a strict disciplinarian who expected and received the respect of all who knew him.
“One day after hanging her laundry, Alan’s wife called out to him, ‘Alan, there’s a dog running around the house. You better go look for the owner, before get a mess in the yard.’
“His wife pointed toward the upper field. ‘I think he went down there.’
“Alan walked slowly down the hill and saw the dog. He watched the handsome white canine as it trotted toward the middle of the field, as it slowly … disappeared!
“Alan stopped, shook his head and blinked. The dog was gone. Then he recalled stories of old Hawaii, where spirits sometimes come in the form of an animal to say goodbye to friends and family left behind. There must be some truth in those stories, Alan realized.
“Goodbye, Coach,” he said.
On that note, I wish all my readers a spooky Halloween. Let me know if you have any chicken skin experiences.
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The Rearview Mirror Insider is Bob Sigall’s now twice-weekly free email newsletter that gives readers behind-the-scenes background, stories that wouldn’t fit in the column, and lots of interesting details. Join and be an Insider at RearviewMirrorInsider.com. Mahalo!
