A True Story - Joe Boots

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A special story for Halloween - Joe Boots

We moved into the little farmhouse in the mid 60's in Silicon Valley. The farmhouse was painted barn red.  The frontage road was lined with bushes and it had a long dirt driveway.  There was a huge loquat tree in front of the farmhouse, you could not miss it.  On the other side was a willow tree and a greenhouse.

We started unpacking the truck and mom decided to open the basement door to air it out. She was planning to store miscellaneous items in the basement.  We continued unpacking until dusk. We had dinner then watched a little TV.  Mom decided to go down to the basement and organize the items she put near the doorway.  Mom walked down about 10 cement steps and found a ceiling light switch and turned it on.  As she looked around, the basement was big, and it had a cement floor with cedar wood walls.  Far off to the left was a few shelves that looked sturdy enough to hold her boxes.  Mom made her way over to the shelves with the boxes.  When she put the boxes down, something caught the corner of her eye.  Mom walked towards the corner and found an old wooden brown trunk.  As she came closer, she felt a cold breeze shoot through her body.  Mom figured it was the wind from the open basement door, so she zipped up her sweatshirt and continued walking towards the old wooden brown trunk. It had black leather straps with metal buckles on each side with a skeleton key lock in the center.  Mom kneeled and released the black leather straps and opened the metal buckles.  She could smell a stench but was determined to open the old trunk. Mom opened the skeleton key latch and then had to push with both hands to open it because it was heavy.  Inside she found a dark

blue military uniform nicely folded along with a pair of boots.  Mom picked up the dark blue coat that was heavy and walked over to the light to see if she could find a name.  The name had been torn off.  Mom yelled for dad, and he went down to the basement.  They both looked at the uniform and dad said, "it was a confederate uniform."  It was double breasted with gold buttons with a high neck collar.  The pants had yellow stripes going down the side leg area

The boots were old and worn with small nails with large heads.  Some were missing. My dad said, we should put these back in the trunk.  Mom agreed, and walked over to the old wooden trunk and folded the uniform exactly the way she found it.  That night dad left for work around 2am, he was a baker.  My sister woke up and could not sleep so she jumped in bed with mom.  Just when my mom went to doze off.  We heard a boom then heavy footsteps coming from the basement.  It felt like it lasted for hours but it was only minutes.  Mom jumped up looked around and did not see anything.  She drank a glass of water and went back to sleep. 
My dad arrived home early morning and mom told him about the boom and footsteps. He said, it is an old house. The following evening came along.  We were watching dark shadows and heard the boom then heavy footsteps, coming from the basement, again. My mom decided to go down to the basement and my big brother went along with his bat.  He said, in case I have to hit a home run and laughed.
We were bunched together on the couch waiting for mom to come back.  We heard the basement door open and then nothing after that.  It was quiet.  You could hear the crickets and coyotes that night.  Mom found the old wooden brown trunk open.  She looked at the trunk puzzled because she knew she locked it.  My brother said, “you must have left it open.” As they both closed the wooden trunk, mom whispered we will call you "Joe Boots."
They came into the house and Mom said, “everything is OK.” That night mom decided to call our ghost “Joe Boots.”  Whenever we heard the boom and heavy footsteps we would say, “Joe Boots is out stretching his legs and keeping us safe.”

Let me leave you with this quote – “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the LIVES OF OTHERS.”

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