I had a hankerin’ for fried fish. I like to eat fried crappie (that’s pronounced like “croppy”) but you have to catch crappie for yourself, and I don’t fish. I did until Daddy made me bait my own hook and take my own fish off the line. Those squishy worms were nasty, but I didn’t want to kill them. I didn’t want to kill the fish either, but I’m happy to eat them if someone else does the dirty work.

Since you can’t buy crappie at the store, and I’ve never seen it on a restaurant menu, I had to settle for catfish. We decided to go to Waxahachie, Texas to visit the Catfish Plantation. It’s a restaurant housed in a historic Victorian home that was built in that quaint little town in 1895. They have a reputation for their excellent fried catfish, but they also serve fried pickles and fried ice cream! It’s Texas; we fry. Catfish Plantation has a reputation for something else, too: it’s haunted. No lie.

I had been to the restaurant years before with a friend of mine. She wanted to go with me, because she knows I’ve had experiences with those of the Other World (and I’m not talking about the teenager upstairs). I’ve seen ghosts when I was alone and when I was with a group of people who also saw the entity. My friend was hoping we would have an “experience.”

However, nothing out of the ordinary happened on our visit. On the drive back, she was visibly disappointed. After a few moments of silence, she blurted out, “Shelly, it’s my fault we didn’t see a ghost! I was born in the Chinese year of The Rat, and the Chinese believe that people born in a “rat” year deter ghosts!”

“Honey,” I said, “I don’t think it was a Chinese ghost.”

This trip, I did see something odd. We were seated in a corner next to the front wall of the “parlor.” On the other side of that wall was a glassed-in porch where people entered the building. The door into the parlor had a window pane through which the sunlight streamed, creating shadows on the opposite wall. I sat mindlessly munching while I watched the shadows of the people as they approached the door to enter the room. There was also a window next to our table where I often glimpsed the people as they approached.

I saw a shadow on the wall, the figure of a large person, but I couldn’t distinguish if it was a man or a woman. I waited for the door to swing open—-but it didn’t. I glanced out the window at the porch, and there was no one out there. I even got up and went to the door to look, but no one was near. The shadow was gone, too.

I laughed when I told the waitress what I had seen. But, she nodded in a very matter-of-fact way and asked, “Was it a man or a woman?” I told her I couldn’t say for sure. She replied, “You saw Will.”

She explained that there are three entities haunting the restaurant. One is a woman in the kitchen, who evidently didn’t like to cook. She throws things and slams things, but isn’t seen very often. One of the ghosts is a young girl who was strangled in the house on her wedding night, but usually when she is seen it is at the window, and her features are recognizable. The other entity is “Will,” who usually stays on the porch and likes to change the stations on the radio. You can read more about them at the link I gave you above.

We finished our meal in peace, but I do believe I might have had another one of “those experiences.” I have a friend who told me once, “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.” Actually, I don’t mind it a bit.

Raise your hand if you have seen a ghost, or if you have a story someone told you about a friend of a friend who saw a ghost. We all want to hear. At least, I do.