My brother Curtis married a nice young lady by the name of Joy Highlander. They live in Phoenix, Arizona, which means we don’t see Curt and his family very much since they live so far from us here in the Mississippi Delta.

But a few years ago, Joy’s parents, Walt and Jean Highlander, bought an antebellum home down close to Port Gibson, Mississippi, about an hour’s drive south of Vicksburg. Their home is not far from Lorman, located out by a little spot called Red Lick. A lot of Civil War battles were fought in that area. As a matter of fact, I believe General Grant landed his troops at Port Gibson and moved north to take control of the city of Vicksburg.

The Highlander’s home is called Ross Wood. It’s a very stately home. The gentlemen who built Windsor, the largest home of this kind in the world, also built Ross Wood.

We have made several visits to their home, but I don’t go any more. I don’t like associating with things that go bump in the night. And the bumpers tend also to drift in and out of this world. I believe most folks refer to them as spirits or ghosts.

There have been strange goings-on in that old house. Jean told me she saw a huge fireball roll down the stairway. The front door was thrown open by some force, and the fire ball rolled right out the door and left the area.

The original diary came with the house. A Dr. Wade had the home built, and he kept a daily diary of everything that went on at the big, old house. During the battle of Vicksburg, Ross Wood was used as a hospital. Documented proof in the diary says there were two wounded men lying on the second story porch, both badly wounded at different times, and they tell of seeing nurses in uniforms who came to minister to the sick. Problem was, there were no nurses there at the time these were seen.

Joy said she’d call her mom and dad from Phoenix to check on them; strangely, someone would pick up the phone but wouldn’t say anything. This was especially interesting since she found out later no one was home when she called.

Our family was invited to share a weekend with Joy at Ross Wood.

We headed south for Port Gibson and the stately manor known as Ross Wood. We arrived close to dark, and Priscilla, Joy’s maid, was heading home. I stopped and said hello, and she told us there was no way she would spend the night at that house. Too many strange things happened at night.

But we’d traveled a long way, so I said to myself, “You have got to do this.”

Joy had our beds fixed upstairs, but I told her we would sleep in the new den on pallets on the floor. OK. We all settled in for a good night’s sleep.

I was awakened around 12:30 by a sound I couldn’t explain. Whatever it was was sharpening its fangs on the arm of the couch on which I was sleeping.

Now, being the protector of the family, I slowly raised my head with clinched fists, ready to strike out at the ghost/monster, ready to save the family from this hideous thing. Just as I raised as high as I dared, Joy’s big fat cat jumped up on the arm of the chair.

As Fred Sanford would say, I felt I was having the big one.

I believe I actually yelled loud enough for half the folks in the surrounding area to hear me. I guess you could say everyone got a big laugh out of what happened .

Everyone but me and that cat.

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