# Keep smelling familiar perfume but no one's here



## JuliaAnn

This is becoming quite distressing. I'm alone, have been since last night. DH and boys at the deer camp. I am not wearing perfume. I don't have any right now, what I had got old and stale and I threw it out about a year or more back. I don't use fabric softener on our clothes, my deodorant is unscented, haven't used hand lotion or anything more than Suave shampoo that removes buildup, which doesn't have much scent, and I washed my hands with Palmolive green dish soap.

I am smelling a very familiar perfume, it literally keeps wafting in front of my face. Been going on for about half an hour. It's not my clothes or my hair, it's nothing on or in the desk, I've looked. It's nothing in this immediate area or the house. I cannot account for this fragrance.

It is driving me crazy. I know this smell. I want to say L'air du Temps, or White Shoulders? Something soft, floral, slight hint of rose and baby powder. I KNOW this smell.

I am thinking it is the perfume that one of my grandmothers wore, my grandmother who is in a nursing home in another state, lost in the last stages of Alzheimer's.

Suppose I should make a phone call to my parents, to see if everything is ok.


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## TJN66

Might be a good idea.


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## unregistered65598

Maybe she is just looking out for you, reminding you she is near?


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## Helena

Every once in a while I will smell a cigar smell in our old home. No one has or does smoked in this house the 30 years we have been here. Perhaps, it is the smell of old wood but ..don't think so. It gives me a comforting feeling to think that possibly "someone" is watching over this old house and us in it. 
don't believe in spirits...or do I. ??


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## chickenista

I would acknowledge the smell.. if you are alone, it is ok to talk to yourself or whatever.. if there is anything you want to say it wouldn't hurt to say it.
It seems a very loving type thing you are experiencing..


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## JuliaAnn

I called my parents, spoke to my mother and as far as they know, both grandmothers are alright, they haven't had any phone calls from anyone.

I feel like crying, and I don't know why. This is so strange. If I didn't feel perfectly normal, I'd think I was having a stroke or aneurism or something. Maybe I'll just go to bed, try to sleep.


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## Tracy Rimmer

When DH and the boys are out, I often take the opportunity to get some cleaning done that isn't "normal" type cleaning, often using cleaning products I don't often use. Have you taken advantage of your "alone" time to do something like this? Might be a scented cleaner, or just the absence of scent that you've cleaned away that your nose is interpreting as a "new" scent.


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## uncle Will in In.

Brush your teeth and blow your nose. LOL


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## Texasdirtdigger

Have you hugged anyone recently......who may have been wearing a scent that transferred to you?
Do you have a pet you have recently groomed?
Do you use any of those plug in room freshners?

FYI...When I smell lilac and lavender....I get the same feeling you are describing. My mama wore it.......she passed when I was a very yound child.
Scent can evoke much emotion....happy and sad.
Cry if you need to......It's OK.
Sorry you are feeling unsettled and disturbed.
Just in case...like another poster said.. acknowledge the scent outloud.....what can it hurt?
Hope you find peace soon.
Bless you.


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## Horseyrider

My mom passed away thirteen years ago. After she died, I would periodically smell roses. It'd be right in the middle of nothing, with no explanation. It would bring with it a sense of overwhelming peace. The most amazing one was when I was walking across the yard one subzero January night to do chores. There was no way to be downwind from someone else's perfume, nor anyone else's clothing. It was rich tea roses, like on a summer's morning with the sun shining down from a high blue sky and drying the dew on the petals. And again, that sense of overwhelming peace. It got to where whenever it happened I'd say "Hello, Mom," and smile.

Gotta tell you this one though. I'd been smelling this really strange smell in the house lately. Not all the time; just sometimes. Kinda vanilla-ish, like someone baking a cake or something. I hadn't made anything like that, nor did I have any candles like that. Out of nowhere one morning at breakfast when the grandsons had spent the night, I smelled it. I asked the boys if they smelled it, and one said no and the other said yes. He said it smelled to him like fruit.

Then I realized; the furnace had kicked on, and I was drinking a blueberry cinnamon coffee. He was smack between me and the cold air return.

I hope you get to the bottom of your smells. I'm not at all surprised that you want to cry. The emotions these smells evoke can be powerful; tears are a release.


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## hoggie

Not wanting to sound alarmist, but unexplainable smells can have a neurological cause - I used to suffer from petit mal epilepsy, and would often smell marmite before I had an "attack"

Lots of other causes too I am sure, but just to add i ntuppence worth 

Hope you're better this morning

hoggie


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## deaconjim

Hoggie is right. It could be something as simple as your house being haunted by a ghost wearing perfume; but it could be something more serious, such as phantosmia.


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## Our Little Farm

If it is just a smell, talk to whoever it might be. I do!

There is sometimes a smell in our bedroom of baking. Burn toast, or cakes or something like that. Part of it used to be the kitchen and the smell is very localized in there. I am not the only one who smells it. 

We have other happenings that tell us we are not alone here, possibly why our house has been through a lot of owners. But they do not concern me, the house has a nice 'feeling'.

I always think that they were here before me, so who am I to want them gone?

Hope you are ok.


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## Jenni979

I get migranes and weird smells is almost always a "sign" that one is coming...


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## ecbreed

I also get the smell of Cigar every once in a while. My grandfather and I were very close and he died right after I had oldest DD. He was never without a cigar in his mouth. When I get that wiff, I know he is just checking in on me. I usuallly smile and give a "Hi Pop".


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## Rita

Do you have any dept. store flyers or magazines around? They sometimes have those little scent strips and even if you don't open them you can still smell them.


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## TheMartianChick

Jenni979 said:


> I get migranes and weird smells is almost always a "sign" that one is coming...


This is what I was thinking... I used to get migraines regularly and read of examples of this.


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## AverageJo

We get various smells every once in a while. The most remarkable two that I can think of are the following. DH had burnt the hair off the back of his hand and a few minutes later he smelled a linament smell, very old fashioned linament that you'd use on horses, that's how he recognized it. Another time he went to the horse barn and smelled tobacco, like it was drying not being smoked; turns out the horse barn had been used to dry tobacco a long time ago. 
I'm glad you checked on your grandmothers. I'm also glad that you connected a smell to someone you love. You've had a lot of great ideas to check out, too. Just talk it out to yourself or 'whomever' is there. You'll be OK.


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## jill.costello

Could your DH have bought you a bottle of perfume as an early Christmas present and hidden it? Or one of the children?


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## JuliaAnn

Thanks to everyone for the kind and thoughtful replies, I appreciate them. 

Our closest neighbor is about 1/2 mile away, and while it might be possible for a fragrance that delicate to travel such a distance, I kind of doubt it. Unless there was a perfume wearing prowler? I once detected someone standing in the woods behind our property I assume watching the place because I could smell cigarette smoke, and later found several butts by a tree.

No perfume at all, haven't purchased any. DH hasn't been shopping, and if he somehow bought me a Christmas present I'll throttle him as the agreement was no presents for eachother this year. No cleaning has been done--to be honest, I've been loafing since the men of the house have been gone. Like Hears the Water, I don't like a lot of strong smelling household cleaners. I use just a few things to clean with.

Haven't been out in public to hug anyone, no magazines (well, DH won a free lifetime subscription to Americn Hunter years ago and we still get it, but I don't think they put perfume inserts in them. I also have a few Country Sampler laying around but they don't have inserts either.

I even smelled the dogs, thinking they had somehow gotten into something. Nope. 

Just can't account for the smell.

Unless I do have a tumor, eek. One of my grandfathers had a tumor on his pituitary gland, which affected his olfactory bulb and he would smell what he called 'fumes', and they even had an entire new furnace installed because he thought the furnace was faulty and giving off fumes. Of course, nothing worked, even after he had surgery to remove the tumor, he experienced phantom smells the rest of his life. 

I guess I could have a tumor or aneurism or something. I feel fine, though, no headaches or odd feelings. Just that perfume fragrance.


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## beccachow

I believe God allows our loved ones to watch over us from time to time. Of course I also believe that animals go to heaven. 

Surprisingly, scent is the strongest sense when it comes to recall. Certain scents will waft me back to another time and place. Scents can comfort, they can irritate, they can make us cry. 

Keep us posted!


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## cindy-e

People can also have sense memory - for no apparent reason - but because the back of your mind is trying to bring something you need or want to think about to the front of your mind. Like, has it been a while since you talked to your Grandmother, and if so, do you regret that somewhere deep down? It could be something practical like that.


Cindyc.


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## Ann-NWIowa

Ads in magazines and newspapers can have perfume samplers in them. I'm also one who will smell weird non-existing smells just before a migraine.


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## motdaugrnds

Strange things are often occurring in this world .. some appear comforting; some do not. I have no doubt we have Guardian Angels watching over us in this earthly domain; however, I always judge what is heard, smelt, felt, sensed or seen by Scriptures. 

Hope this helps.


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## Ravenlost

Some of the strange scents I smell in this house are coffee brewing, cigarette smoke, wood smoke and cinnamon. No one else ever smells it. We don't drink coffee or smoke cigarettes so there is no explanation for them. We do have a fireplace and use cinnamon a lot, but that still doesn't explain why I smell these things out of the blue. 

I find it quite weird, but I don't let it bother me.

The other day hubby had been cutting fire wood. He was at the computer taking a break and I leaned over to kiss the top of his head and burst into tears. He smelled just like my Daddy used to...a combination of sweat, wood and chainsaw oil. The reaction was immediate and unexpected. 

If the smell makes you feel like crying, what's stopping you? Crying will make you feel better.


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## SquashNut

I had a bad experience when I was a kid. Some one pushed me down in a tub with the water full force in my face. Every time I thought about it, I could smell the water, till I told some one what had happened and confronted the culprit. The smell is gone now, and I don't think about it very often, like I used to.


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## soulsurvivor

JuliaAnn, if it's any comfort to you, I'm standing beside you worrying about this too. Last Monday there was a faint smell of perfume here in my office. I tore the place apart trying to identify the source. I smelled outside everywhere. I still have no clue where it came from, but it smelled like you described with the floral (not roses, maybe orchids) and baby powder, very faint but distinctive in its' smell. It reminded me of an old perfume from high school, Wind Song or maybe Cotillion.


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## JuliaAnn

Oh. It's Windsong. No doubt, I know it. My grandmother in the nursing home here used to wear it (both grandmothers are in nursing homes; the one here has dementia and late stage Parkinsons, and the other in another state has late stage Alzheimers). Thank you for the hint--that is definitely which perfume it is. I hope you can figure out where your perfume smell came from! 

My grandmother here wasn't able to be with the family for Thanksgiving as she was having a 'bad day', in other words nonstop, horiffic hallucinations. She was given something to try to stop the hallucinations and make her sleep, I don't know what drug, but she was groggy and incoherent when my mother went to see if she was up to spending the day with the family. 

Maybe she was visiting me last night. And I did cry, it came out like a flood, big, wracking sobs. I felt so sad and yet felt flooded with love. I don't know who the love was for, or why I suddenly felt it, but I loved whoever it was so much I couldn't contain it. Had to put a washcloth rolled up with a few pieces of ice in it on my eyes last night, they were so swollen from crying. I did feel better.


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## unregistered29228

After my Nannie died, my mother would often smell Ben Gay or mentholatum rub in her house. She looked everywhere but couldn't find where the smell was coming from. It often happened when Mom was having a cry over her mother. Nannie had arthritis and used Ben Gay all the time, and we felt she was trying to comfort my mother in her grief. She hasn't smelled them in several years, but she's also come to terms with her mother's death.


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## Texasdirtdigger

Bless your heart, JuliaAnn. I have ben thinking about you all day.
Sometimes we just feel melancoly(sp) and pensive.....Glad you had your cry. Sorry you where alone. ((((((hugs))))) 
Anne


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## Trixie

There are lots of unexplained things in this universe.

My Grandmother used Ivory soap for everything - bathing, her hair, washing dishes and washing clothes. From time to time, there is a heavey scent of Ivory and I just say, 'I Love you, too, Granny'. 

I hope you are better today.


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## JuliaAnn

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the kindness!


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## secretcreek

Well,hmmmm I wear amber, patchuli, sandalwood...but more often than not, Windsong. I use the body spray every day. Have loved it since I was 8 yrs old and I'm 48. It's now a signature scent for me. But I promise, I've not been traveling to sneak around anyone's places. 

Memory scents can indeed strongly affect a person. I had a most wonderful, strong great-great widowed, retired teacher aunt, named Mae. She lived in W. TN and all by herself she farmed her fields of cotton, gardened, had beef and milk cows, made souse, headcheese, canned, and made all her foods from scratch well up into her '80's. She made a huge impression upon me although she was never real lovey to me- I was just in awe of her. She smelled of the outdoors, and of a hard working woman and ...shoot... I'll bet she wore Windsong now that I think about it! But her home smelled of fresh milk...cows, and old books, and hot Tennessee summers. Years later after she passed, I followed my husband to a home he had to visit for his job. We walked into the old folks back porch past their barn coats and (((!!!BAM!!!))) I was hit between the eyes with the memory scent...it was just like my aunt Mae's home. I could ~not~ stop tearing up. It really hit me both in joy and sadness. My husband asked me what was wrong, and I assume I seemed a bit "tetched" to the people who lived in the home LOL...I wasn't upset- it just took me over. It still does. I'm dripping tears now. wow.

Hmmmm. bet that's why I love Windsong. My young adult adopted daughter who's been quite the rebel ( left home angry...is now ready to return) totally connects that scent to this mommy. The first time I got to meet her as a 5 yr old, she climbed up into my lap and said "You smell good." and that was that. 

-scrt crk


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## JuliaAnn

How sweet! Hope your daughter comes home soon. I bet she'll be a new person, if she's ready to come home and the two of you can share the rest of your lives being close.

My husband had an elderly aunt who was a lot like your great aunt Mae. Annie Leah could do just about anything a man could do, and sometimes better. No kidding, she could frame up a house and burn out a den of rattlesnakes and steer a hog around by it's hind legs, but she could cook the best coconut cream pie I've ever had in my life, before or since, and she could sew and knit. She went through husbands regularly, but lived the last several years of her life alone, and seemed content. No money to speak of, but she never ever lacked for good food and a comfortable house. My dh was, I believe, her favorite nephew, and the only adult male relative in the entire family who would do things for her. When we'd visit (she lived next door to my MIL) he would fix her car, or work on her house, plumbing, electrical, fix her washer, whatever needed doing, he'd do it for her. He loved helping her, and she felt blessed to have him help. He even found her teeth once. She had somehow lost her dentures when she was boxing up about 50 boxes of misc. household stuff and junk. The boxes were stored at a storage unit. He thought they might be in one of the boxes, and we went up and started going thru the boxes. And he found them, in a box of bathroom stuff. She was so happy to have her teeth back, she cried and cried. When she died, she was cremated, and dh was the one who buried her ashes on top of her mother's grave.


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## bugstabber

Were you anywhere that your coat was close to others? Like on hooks or the pile on the bed/table? Years ago a coworker used to hang his coat on mine instead of laying it somewhere else. One day in the car I told my husband that his aftershave smelled good and he wasn't wearing any! Soon after I put some perfume on the collar of my coat and after one more time he hung his coat elsewhere. 

Out of place smells annoy me too. I came home one day and could smell something different, never did figure out what it was.


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## SageLady

I have a couple times out of the blue smelled the scent of my Grandmother's perfume and my Dad's combined scent of aftershave and cigarette smoke. It was a very comforting feeling. They both passed many years ago and I think they were visiting me or letting me know that they are still with me.....


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## suzfromWi

I believe our loved ones that have past have energy that passes in and out of our lives. My sis and I were talking on yahoo the other day about our mom. We remembered all the good things she did for us. Later when I was making bread the cups hanging from my cupboard started to swing. No reason at all. Even after the rest stopped the middle one continued to swing. Now my mom loved coffee. She drank it all day long..so I asked her if she wanted a cup and poured one for her. She didnt drink it of course, but the cups stopped swinging. Ive tried over and over to replicate this happening, but cannot...We made her happy thats all, and she wanted to let me know that.... I'm glad you got the feelings out. Some of us are recepticals for this kind of thing.....


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## Texasdirtdigger

It has been a few days, JulieAnn...How are you doing? You have been on my mind alot. Please check back. ((hugs))
Anne


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## Catk

JuliaAnn said:


> This is becoming quite distressing. I'm alone, have been since last night. DH and boys at the deer camp. I am not wearing perfume. I don't have any right now, what I had got old and stale and I threw it out about a year or more back. I don't use fabric softener on our clothes, my deodorant is unscented, haven't used hand lotion or anything more than Suave shampoo that removes buildup, which doesn't have much scent, and I washed my hands with Palmolive green dish soap.
> 
> I am smelling a very familiar perfume, it literally keeps wafting in front of my face. Been going on for about half an hour. It's not my clothes or my hair, it's nothing on or in the desk, I've looked. It's nothing in this immediate area, or the house. I cannot account for this fragrance.
> 
> It is driving me crazy. I know this smell. I want to say L'air du Temps, or White Shoulders? Something soft, floral, slight hint of rose and baby powder. I KNOW this smell.
> 
> I am thinking it is the perfume that one of my grandmothers wore, my grandmother who is in a nursing home in another state, lost in the last stages of Alzheimers.
> 
> Suppose I should make a phone call to my parents, to see if everything is ok.


Same thing happened to me last night I kept smelling my mom’s perfume in between 3 and 4 AM felt like somebody was in the bedroom with me. It happens to me from time to time where I smell a waft of perfume and nobody else does. But last night it was distinctively my mothers perfume so I called them first thing in the morning since there is a time difference here we arBut last night it was distinctively my mothers perfume so I called them first thing in the morning and she was fine but not feeling well.


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## Esteban29304

I always had a great sense of smell & superb eyesight. I lost quite a bit of my hearing in service & now, I am about 75% deaf. I have notice that my sense of smell is even better than it used to be. I can go out in my yard & smell perfume, soaps, dryer sheets, even though my neighbors are not that close. I can walk into the woods & smell animal urine. In certain atmospheric conditions, odors can travel great distances, but of course, this is not happening all the time.


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## nodak3

What has your weather been like?

I ask because I've had smell issues. Part of the year, some years, I have to use one of those cortisone nasal sprays which tanks my sense of smell. I go off it and my sense of smell comes back. I spent most of my life in drier climates. I did not realize just how much humidity increases my sense of smell. But it does. One of the delights of moving to the Ozarks for me has been the increase in my sense of smell due to the moisture in the air.

But at first it baffled me since I smell so many things now. I realized I could smell trees or weeds or flowers blooming from a mile or so away sometimes. Or smell a chocolate cake cooking when the nearest house to where I am picnicking is at least that far away, maybe more. I can smell what they are cooking down at the school. I know when the church 1/4 mile away is having a pot luck. I know if the mail person was the guy or the other person, the gal, from the way the mail smells. I can smell a cigar from about 2 miles away, and having lived in Colorado, I can smell pot from 2-3 miles away and tell it from skunk spray, a very similar smell.

But I also get visual migraines and am realizing sometimes before one I smell stuff that just is not there. I don't get headaches and have been checked out--just a form of migraine.

Taste is affected by smell, so food usually tastes extra good here except for ragweed season when I need that pesky spray.

And last January. That month we both got the stomach bug a week apart from each other. DH got a strange fever and chills with it, I did not. But after I threw up the first time, which I definitely could taste (tmi but UGH!) I got my standard remedy, a candy cane. Could not taste it, and went about 3 days with no sense of taste. But it came back.


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## Forcast

unregistered65598 said:


> Maybe she is just looking out for you, reminding you she is near?


Its called the kiss of an angel.
Mine is the smell of my dads cigar


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## Sierra Nana

JuliaAnn said:


> This is becoming quite distressing. I'm alone, have been since last night. DH and boys at the deer camp. I am not wearing perfume. I don't have any right now, what I had got old and stale and I threw it out about a year or more back. I don't use fabric softener on our clothes, my deodorant is unscented, haven't used hand lotion or anything more than Suave shampoo that removes buildup, which doesn't have much scent, and I washed my hands with Palmolive green dish soap.
> 
> I am smelling a very familiar perfume, it literally keeps wafting in front of my face. Been going on for about half an hour. It's not my clothes or my hair, it's nothing on or in the desk, I've looked. It's nothing in this immediate area, or the house. I cannot account for this fragrance.
> 
> It is driving me crazy. I know this smell. I want to say L'air du Temps, or White Shoulders? Something soft, floral, slight hint of rose and baby powder. I KNOW this smell.
> 
> I am thinking it is the perfume that one of my grandmothers wore, my grandmother who is in a nursing home in another state, lost in the last stages of Alzheimers.
> 
> Suppose I should make a phone call to my parents, to see if everything is ok.


Someone paying you a visit. Be open to it.


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## muleskinner2

Years ago my wife and I moved into a old adobe house on a ranch north of Tucson. We were twenty two miles from the nearest neighbor. One night she woke me up and ask me if I saw the old man standing at the foot of the bed. As she was talking, she said he disappeared. I had not seen anything, but I could smell old leather, like a saddle.

A few months later a car pulled into the yard, and a young man got out and walked over to where I was working. He said that he had lived in the house when he was a child. He had his mother with him, and he wanted to know if it would be all right if she could look around the old house. We all went inside, and I poured them some lemon aid in the kitchen. The old lady stood there and looked around the kitchen, and in Spanish said that it looked just like it had in the 1960's. As we walked through the old house she pointed to the nail holes in the adobe walls, where her pictures had hung. When we came to the bedroom door, she stopped and asked if my wife had ever seen the old man. She had seen him, but her husband could never see him.

The room that was the bedroom, had been the original house. As the original family had grown, they added on. You could see where the adobe walls had been built at different times. The original homestead had been added to the ranch in the late 1800's. And the house had been a stage stop between Tucson and Phoenix, at one time. I often wondered how many people had lived, died, and even been born in that old house.

The next time I am down that way, I think I will stop at the old place for a visit. Maybe who ever is living there now, will let me walk through the old place, and offer me a glass of lemon aid. I'll ask about the old man.

I just noticed how old the original post was.


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