Everyone across the globe became unnaturally aware of the silence that took hold during the early days of the Covid pandemic and its associated lockdowns. The familiar noise of travel, industry, and human interaction were suddenly brought to a whisper. A report in the journal "Science" noted that the lockdown was "the longest and most coherent global seismic noise reduction in recorded history."

It was a memory that stamped itself into my eight year old brain with a magical, almost mystical quality. Certainly I couldn’t have totally comprehended the significance of the moment at that tender age, yet I knew instinctively that this night was wrapped with portentous meaning. It was Saturday, October 5th, 1957. Twenty-four hours before, the Soviet Union had shattered the psyche of the entire world with the successful launch into space of mankind’s first satellite, Sputnik. The news had not reached the U.S. until this following day, partly due to Russia’s concern for secrecy in the event of a failure, and partly because back then confirmation was not an instantaneous process. But nonetheless, the news was in fact true. America had been beaten in the challenge to conquer space.

I was living in Springfield, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, and our house was abuzz with this startling development. My father worked at the Philadelphia Bulletin, the area’s most widely read newspaper, and naturally he was on top of whatever was news-worthy, and this news was monumental. My brother, Joe, who is ten years my senior, was in his sophomore year of college, majoring in electrical engineering, and had dreams of working in the emerging field of rocket science.

The bold-type headline in the Bulletin read: “U.S. Scientists Tracking Satellite Launched by Soviets.” As soon as the news hit the streets everyone was looking to the skies. It didn’t matter that the satellite, as we would come to know later, was no bigger than a beachball or that it would be 139 miles above the earth at its closest point, everybody was flocking to get a glimpse of this wondrous object of human achievement. If the news was accurate, the satellite couldn’t be seen in the daytime, so as evening fell over the neighborhood, I joined Dad and Joe as we hurried up to our third floor attic with binoculars in hand. The attic was large and spacious with plenty of headroom and we walked to the front of the house where we huddled and swung open a rickety, poster-sized window. We each took turns popping our heads out into the air and scanned the sky hoping to see a bright dot moving in the heavens. The news reports said its speed was 18,000 miles per hour, a fact that was incomprehensible to our novice minds. Still we surveyed the night sky and when we couldn’t seem to locate anything that would pass for Sputnik we went to the window at the other end of the attic and repeated the process.

Joe was using his best college-boy scientific vocabulary trying to explain to us what it meant that this device would completely orbit the earth every 96 minutes, and that it was equipped with a radio transmitter that allowed for its tracking wherever it flew. Dad was more concerned with the fact that we were now vulnerable to whatever the Commies (as he called them) might want to do with their missile superiority. I sensed the strange mix of emotions combining, on the one hand, the marvelous achievement of humans conquering space, with also the ominous thoughts of being exposed to a new and possibly horrific danger.

In actuality, politics and technology were a bit beyond my scope. Nikita Khrushchev was the Soviet premier, but still two years away from slamming his shoe in the United Nations and becoming a true evil nemesis to America. NASA was yet to be formed. And JFK’s New Frontier was three years in the future. I was, after all, only eight years old and mostly consumed with Mickey Mantle, Davey Crockett, a cool new TV show called Maverick, and the wrath of Sister Thomas Edward. Still there was something astonishing and inexplicable about that starry night in October of ’57. We never did see anything that turned out to be the world’s first artificial satellite, but the shared excitement, the camaraderie, the sense of being there at a breakthrough moment, was more than enough to preserve that glorious experience in my young brain forever.

Every Summer the town of Ravello, which sits at a lofty 1200 feet above the azure blue Mediterranean along Italy’s stunning Amalfi coast, puts on a classical music festival. On moonlit evenings a full orchestra assembles on the grounds of a 13th century villa perched at the edge of a limestone cliff commanding an unbroken view of the gulf. Against this backdrop of sea and sky the audience watches spellbound to the strains of heavenly violins. I can think of nothing more desirous for my ultimate romantic getaway than to sit there on such an evening with my lovely lady

To be totally forthcoming from the very start let me say that this is a true story. It is not so much a story as it is the re-telling of events. And the best part is that I was not alone but with another person who was side-by-side with me, saw the exact same events, and will corroborate the details precisely as I describe them.

It occurred on a summer’s evening in the early 1970s in the house where I grew up with my family in suburban Philadelphia. The house was a duplex built in the 1920s and located on a tree-lined street in a quiet neighborhood. My close friend, Rich, who was with me at the time, is my same age and we were enjoying a late-night snack in the kitchen. Rich and I had grown up together in the neighborhood but had gone off to different colleges and we were catching up during our summer vacations.

It was about 11 o’clock at night and my parents had already gone off to bed. No others were in the house. A summer storm was beginning to develop, and thunder was rumbling. Rich and I decided to move from the kitchen table, turn off the lights in the room, and stand by the windows over the kitchen sink that looked out on our back yard to observe the storm as lightning was starting to occur.

At this juncture I need to digress for a moment and give a description of the house’s layout so that the reader can picture the precise scene of the location. The first floor of the house consists only of three rooms: a living room, a dinning room, and a kitchen, laid out in a straight sequence one after the other, with each room separated by an arch opening. You can walk in the front door of the house and walk in a straight line through each room directly to the back door of house. At the time of this story’s events, the only light that was on in the first floor was from a single table lamp situated in the living room. The dinning room was totally dark as was the kitchen.

Rich and I watched as the storm began to intensify with rain and bolts of lightning streaking in the sky. It was an exciting and somewhat scary scene as nature put on a dramatic show. Then something totally incredulous occurred. As the two of us were standing there in silence watching the storm unfold, the window in front of us flashed the reflection of a man’s silhouette standing in the archway behind us. And at that simultaneous instant the unmistakable creak of a floorboard was heard by the both of us. Unmistakable because for years whenever someone walked through that archway between dinning room and kitchen that floorboard would creak with that identical sound.

The two of us spun around in unison at the sound without saying a word. I looked at Rich and he looked at me in stunned silence. Excitedly I said, “Tell me what you saw!” Without pause Rich replied, “I saw a man’s reflection in the window.” “And you heard that floorboard creak, right?”, I said. “You bet I did,” Rich replied, continuing, “What the hell was that?” I asked Rich again what he saw. He said he saw reflected in the window in front of us the distinct dark silhouette of a man bordered by the archway, backlit by the illumination from the table lamp a room beyond.

Fright overcame the two of us, but the incident was over. Still we were literally shaking. Together we nervously surveyed the first floor, holding our breath as we opened a coat closet in the living room only to find our aged vacuum cleaner and a jumble of hanging coats and sweaters. We talked for another half hour convincing ourselves that we both saw and heard the exact same thing, trying to understand the incomprehensible. Finally we decided it was time to get to bed. Rich who lived about two blocks away told me the next day that he believed he covered the distance home in about three steps. I knew what he meant.

Afterward I spent some more time thinking about the bizarre experience trying to find any practical or pragmatic explanations. My parents had purchased the house in 1950 so there had been previous owners. I inquired if it was possible that a previous owner or occupant had died inside the property, but there wasn’t enough data available to determine that. I did some research regarding ghostly phenomenon and discovered two pertinent findings. In instances where ghosts were supposedly observed it was not unusual to also find the presence of a highly charged electrical manifestation (such as lightning). And secondly, many ghost-hunters will tell you that you can only truly observe a ghost if it is seen through a reverse image (such as a mirror or a reflection).

In all the years since that astonishing summer night I have never seen anything else that I would call paranormal. But I will carry to my grave the knowledge that my friend and I indeed had a first-hand encounter a with a ghostly spirit.

By definition, reliquary is a noun and is defined as a container for holy relics. The contents placed in a reliquary may be the purported or actual physical remains of saints, such as bones, pieces of clothing, or some object associated with saints or other religious figures. Growing up in the 50s and 60s in a family that was staunchly Catholic and having attended parochial school for grades 1 through 8, I was familiar with the term "relic" but only in a very obtuse and/or mysterious way. Still I was captivated by the thought that actual pieces of some of the world's most famous people were actually stored in small shrines that were often available for the public to behold. Some reliquaries are said to hold pieces of the "true cross" or the "holy crown of thorns". The reliquaries themselves have become master works of art and are prized and priceless. The only reliquary and relic that I have seen first-hand is the tunic of St. Francis of Assisi that is held in the lower alter in the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi in Assisi, Italy.

Henry had already boarded the dark green Pullman. On the platform, Ingrid’s gaze caught the straight-edge evenness of the tan, canvas shades drawn to eye level on each of the car’s windows; every dangling pullring staring back like cyclopean minions. A thousand days would likely pass until their next rendezvous. Henry lifted his palm to his nostril, Ingrid’s lavender lingered along its length. A small girl peered back over Henry’s yellowed cane seat… her eyes made his mist bittersweetly.