Ghosts of Lincoln Revisited, The Introduction to the Project
To start off, in the interest of full disclosure, there’s something you should know: I don’t believe in ghosts.
I never have.
I’ve never had a paranormal encounter.
I’ve never heard anything go bump in the night but the sound of my own barefoot toe, kicking a left-behind ninja sword that my son dropped onto the floor like some kind of plastic, Power Rangers booby trap.
I don’t believe in ghouls, or goblins, or sheets with eye holes cut out that seem to float up and around corners at exactly the right time to only leave behind blurry photo evidence and a few non-credible witnesses to breathlessly recant what they saw like a drunken eye-witness to a crime.
Okay, wait. Let me go back. What I should have written was, “I don’t believe in ghosts*.” That little asterisk should have been added on there at the end. That tiny little digital ninja star can make a world of difference.
The asterisk means that I don’t believe in ghosts *yet. Or maybe *that I know of.
Because while I don’t believe in ghosts*, there is one thing that I do believe in: that I am an idiot. I don’t know very much. And, when it comes to ghost-hunting techniques, all I’ve got for a true resource is the internet and the copious amounts of Travel Channel shows I have consumed that involved bros in affliction tees shouting into the spectral abyss of some abandoned insane asylum.
Here is what I do believe: for anyone to claim with any kind of certainty that ghosts and/or spirits and/or hauntings or whatever paranormal thesaurus word you want to use is equally as silly as rocking a faux-hawk and challenging ghosts to a fight (*Author’s note: see above image).
Simply put: we don’t know what’s really out there. Whether you believe in God, or Crypt-keeping ghouls, or that the elevated glucose that gets shotgunned into your bloodstream by your hypothalmus in moments of fear is the only real truth to getting the shit scared out of you in the middle of the night, the simple fact is: I believe that to be 100% certain of anything is to be 100% bored.
The beauty is in the question mark, not merely the period; the uncertainty.
The beauty is in the back corner of your mind suddenly tingling as your synapses ricochet all kinds of doubts and your adrenal gland starts drumrolling a steady beat of “what if”.
What I’m going to try to do with this series is ask those “what if” questions. And I’m going to try to ask them in a different way than maybe you’ve read before, and I’m going to ask them about spots around my hometown in Lincoln, Nebraska; a place that is most known for being haunted by the ghosts of fired football coaches past.
Yeah, I’m going to try to be skeptical. I’m going to be irreverent. But, I’m also going to try to just see what the hell all the fuss is about and I’m going to try to leave myself open to the possibility that I might find something.
I’ll be using A Guide to the Ghosts of Lincoln, a local cult classic written by Alan Boye as my literal Guide.
If you haven’t read it, you should. It’s a fantastically written, creepy, informative look at local legends.
I’ll try to update the journey when I can, since I’ll be bound by But, I would also really like it if you tagged along, too. Know of any haunted hotspots I should look into? Did you totes catch a ghost in your last Snapchat story? Let me know. Hit me up. Slide into the DMs and there will be no judgment. Let’s have some fun.
(Author’s Note: Find me on Twitter at @402Hatch)
