I decided to write part 2 because I'd left some important facts out in the first story as I was trying to hurry (bad idea).
I hadn't submitted the story at first because I was trying to get more history on George (the ghost in part 1) and on the restaurant. It had happened so long ago that my memory on those two things was a bit hazy. It seems George worked for the 'Sportsmans Tavern', as it was originally known, back in the 1940's and 50's. Back then there was a lot of illegal gambling going on and George was the bookkeeper for these events. It was rumored that he was "skimming" or embezzling money from these activities and that his death was either a suicide by gun upstairs in the office OR a murder that went unsolved or was covered up. I tried to find any information about those two theories through the town's Historical Society and local police station but neither one had any more info on it than what I've already stated. All they could tell me was "the rumor".
The Sportsmans Tavern was built in 1946 and was owned by Andy Devine. Andy Devine was famous for his role as 'Jingles' on the "Wlld Bill Hickock" television series. That's all I could get on the history of the building.
One thing I do know, he's (George) not as active as he used to be, that's for sure. It seemed like there was always something going on with that guy when my mom managed the place. One night, when I wasn't working, my sister Sheila was getting ready to refill the salt and pepper shakers and she couldn't find the bag of salt she had just set on the bar. She told me she looked down, and on the floor was a trail of salt leading to the stairs. She got my mom from the back room, where she was doing the breakage count for the bar, and showed her this trail. Mom and Sheila followed the trail to the top of the stairs where the bag was now sitting. This time my mom just laughed about it and they went back to doing whatever they were before that happened.
Another night, I was working the upstairs dining room with one other waitress and I'd just unloaded the clean glasses and silverware from the dumbwaiter. I set both on the long counter top to the left of the open dumbwaiter and walked back out to the dining room to finish cleaning off a table. The waitress was talking to the customers at another table the entire time and besides the customers at the table that she was talking to, there was no one else upstairs. There was only the one set of stairs leading up to the dining room at this time and no one had come up. I returned to get some clean silver and glasses for the clean table and the entire tray of glasses was gone! The silver was right where I'd left it so it made no sense. I called to the other waitress and she said she hadn't been back there in ten minutes. Then she says to check my mom's office because sometimes George puts them there. I walked into the office and there they were sitting on her desk, still on the tray. I picked them up and went back to what I was doing. That's how commonplace the activity was then.
These days they get spooked because the old Sportmans hanging sign above the bar starts swinging on it's own now and then, or a beer bottle falls off the bar for no reason. They've had psychics in, and I guess a local paranormal group has spent a night or two there recently and came away with some interesting EVPs, but nothing like the stuff that used to go on back then. Of course, it has been 30 years.
One last note, I tried to reach the paranormal group that investigated the place. Three emails and two messages on their answering machine later, they still never saw fit to call or write back. Oh well, I say. I tried.
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