Pakistan Magazine

Only famous families who once lived in famous residences return to haunt. If you’re not famous and if you don’t live in a famous old house,worry not. No ghost will come after you.

“Anything is possible” says Obama. Going by the same mantra, here’s my take (albeit ghoulish) on the deluge of spirits descending upon the new inmates of the White House.

Instead of daytime fairytales woven around Obama girls with grandma in tow (Michelle’s mom); or the First Lady’s fancy closet choking with designer clothes; or the president telling the star-studded artistes at last Sunday’s Lincoln Memorial “Yours are the voices I’ll take with me every day I walk into that Oval Office,” let’s focus on the nocturnal voices and spectral sightings he’ll carry to the Oval Office.

I’m afraid of apparitions. I’m sure you must be too. Still with all the media hype of the new inmates moving into the 209-year-old White House, we need to worry about the first family and their guests coming face to face with Abe Lincoln! Nearer home, let’s begin with the president who just left.

Will the spirit of George W Bush haunt the White House? Don’t be silly, you’ll turn around and say. Yes, I know he’s alive. But don’t you know that our spirits roam around freely when we are asleep and happily snoring?

Welcome to the real world! Picture then, Bush-in-spirit prowling around the Oval Office wondering why he was the most “misunderestimated” (sic) president as he recently whined to the press. You may not agree with me but most of us want to get under the skin of people we love to hate and are terribly jealous of.

We want to know why they succeed and not us. I’m sure Barack Hussein Obama or BHO now that Americans have reluctantly accepted the ‘H’ word, will have a bed-full of unwelcomed spirits each night when he goes to sleep with wife Michelle. All would like to snuggle with him, including G W Bush.

There will be a traffic jam in the presidential suite, what with the spirits of all 38 dead presidents and their wives falling over each other to get on the presidential bed. Among them will be the souls of the living four presidents. Two being father and son -- 41st & 43rd.

Abe Lincoln is a permanent fixture at the White House. Use your sixth sense. And if you don’t own one, then use your ESP. Now don’t ask me what that is all about? Surely you know that extrasensory perception makes you feel weird -- as if there’s someone invisible in the room. The new 44th is obsessed with president 16th. He lives and breathes Abraham Lincoln. I am sure BHO’s wish to be in constant company of his hero will come alive. Especially if he ventures out in the middle of the night to the second floor and winds his way down the corridor into the famous Lincoln bedroom. Poor Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands who was staying at the Lincoln bedroom is said to have fainted when she heard a knock at the door, opening it, she came face to face with the dead president causing her host, the red-faced President Franklin Roosevelt, a diplomatic pratfall.

We all know how Lincoln was gunned down in the prime of his presidential life. His body lay in state downstairs in the East Room before burial. They say whoever dies a violent death never rests in peace. Several White House staffers have had sightings of the dead president. They have heard echoing footsteps and knocking on the doors in the middle of the night. They have seen lights of the chandelier in the Lincoln bedroom come on after being duly switched off. They have felt an icy cold spot in the room. They have on a very early morning seen Lincoln lingering outside his former office. They have seen him pacing pensively posed with his hands clasped behind his back.

Mary Todd Lincoln, the first lady, is said to have held several séances in the White House to try and connect with her dead son, Willie, who died in the presidential mansion. After her husband’s assassination, she tried and succeeded in contacting her dead husband through mediums and séances of people calling spirits. (Didn’t we all do that in youth? Sitting before an alphabetical board with our 2nd finger on a lid or an upturned glass calling spirits and by Jove they’d come!)

Calling spirits is unnatural. They hate being summoned. I suggest you don’t dabble in it. Trust me it can scare the daylights out of you. My laptop just let out a weird sound… I have never heard this groan before… maybe I’m imagining. Let me quickly be done with this column.

Back to the ghosts of the White House.

Gary Walters, a former chief usher at the White House says he had an “experience” he cannot explain. He and three other policemen were standing next to the staircase coming up from the ground floor. “We all felt a cool rush of air pass between us and then two doors that stand open closed by themselves. I have never seen these doors move before without somebody specifically closing them by hand. It was quite remarkable.”

Walters who has served presidents from Nixon to George W Bush says all have felt the presence of their deceased predecessors. “They have remarked about their personal feelings of sharing the same space as previous residents back to John Adams. The presidents talk about walking the same halls as Lincoln, Roosevelt, Jackson, etc., and the bonds that they share through their common experiences.”

That may be so, but two former first ladies: Abigail Adams and Dolley Madison are unwilling to give up their turf. The Adams were the first presidential couple to live in the White House. It was drafty and damp, with the exception of the East Room where Abigail hung her wash. She’s still seen scurrying to the East Room, arms full of laundry. Dolley Madison’s, wife of the 4th president planted the original Rose Garden. A century after Dolley’s death first lady Mrs Woodrow Wilson decided to remove the garden. Dolley’s ghost appeared to the workmen dismantling it and upbraided them. They fled and the Rose Garden remains. She’s still watchful of her roses.

Only famous families who once lived in famous residences return to haunt. If you’re not famous and if you don’t live in a famous old house, worry not. No ghost will come after you. Sleep easy!