Derek recreates the Mama Borden crime scene.

I like Ghosts.

Despite the various bumps in the night (and day), the inexplicable flying coffee cups, and the shenanigans of a mischievous Civil War soldier evidently unclear about his death status; I actually enjoyed working in MindZoo’s 200-year-old haunted office in Leesburg, Virginia prior to my move to Naples, Florida.

My partner Derek and I even spent an entire night at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast in Fall River, Massachusetts in the late 1990s.

“No, Derek. I am not walking upstairs with you just because you have to go relieve yourself. I’m sure dead Lizzie still understands the concept of urination and won’t Lorena Bobbitt you.”

And okay—it may be true that, after viewing Jamie Lee Curtis in the original Halloween at age 16, I made my mom accompany me downstairs, open my closets in search of swinging dead bodies, and assist in moving my personal belongings to a maternally protected upstairs habitat for the next six months.

Thank you, mommy.

And though just the theme song from 1973’s The Exorcist caused a 10-year-old me to often awaken from projectile-pea-soup-occupied nightmares, I am proud to report that my son, Kevin, recently purchased the restored film, sat me down and forced me to face my latent fears and finally watch it at age 48.

We are now trying to teach my dog, Tony, to walk down the stairs both backwards and upside-down.

However, let me amend my first statement slightly, I like ghosts unless they take a special interest in me specifically—then, not so much.

The Leland Hotel, San Francisco

In October of 2006, I attended a birthday celebration for my dear friend, Karin, at the former SNOB Wine Bar at 1327 Polk Street in San Francisco. Located on the street level of San Francisco’s antediluvian and, at various times, nefarious Leland Hotel building, the bar was situated in a structure that had certainly been part of the San Francisco landscape long enough to have plenty of skeletons in its closets.

Karin’s beloved mother had passed away just one year prior to this event but was well represented by, as Karin refers to them, “the Ya-Yas,” her mother’s posse of best friends.

Though Karin’s guest list included an assemblage of folks from all walks of life, I was soon to discover that “life” wasn’t a prerequisite for attendance.

A few glasses of vino and some strategically placed, self-esteem-enhancing Ya-Ya cuddles later, I met Lisa.

Lisa, the Visionary. Lisa, the Medium. I-See-Dead-People Lisa.

“There is something special about you,” she offered.

“That I can still stand up after drinking so much,” I suggested.

“No. You have been noticed and you don’t even know it.”

Damn, I need to learn to wear a wedding ring to these events.

Now, not surprisingly, the spirit of Karin’s mother would be present at her Annual 40th Birthday event. I am quite sure Karin’s mother had attended all of her previous 40th birthday celebrations so there was really no reason to stop now. Besides, Karin would never allow that kind of maternal negligence.

And knowing Karin as I do, in all probability she negotiated some sort of deal with Soothsayer Lisa to send her mother a calligrapher-inscribed, spirit-world-approved invitation complete with a mandatory RSVP component.

However, it was Lisa’s next pronouncement that left me even lighter in my loafers: “Besides Karin’s mother, there is another spirit here who appears to be inexplicably drawn to you.”

Holy Patrick Swayze, Batman, what did Whoopi Goldberg just say to me?

“She’s right over your left shoulder.”

As I spun to my left, narrowing missing a wandering Ya-Ya with my glass of Pinot Noir, I discovered nothing but another tipsy straight female inadvertently hitting on yet another gay man.

So tragic when that happens—especially in San Francisco of all places.

With the knowledge that I was now being stalked by a ghost, I wasn’t so keen on them any more.

A true visionary, Lisa deftly provided a very meticulous description: a passive-acting, raven-haired beauty approaching mid-life. With a piercing look of intelligence combined with an uncommon curiosity of all-things Randy, my 1930s-era spirit was evidently content standing (aka “hovering”) quietly in her flowing, light-colored evening gown observing my every move.

At least my ghost had the good sense to dress for a party.

I continued my interrogation, “Uh—does my spirit know Karin’s mother? Are they ‘hanging out’ or anything?”

Karin and the Ya-Yas.

“Oh no, she seems happy to just follow you and observe from the sidelines and besides, Karin’s mother is far too busy making sure the Ya-Yas don’t visit the bar any more than absolutely necessary.”

Lisa’s depiction was so detailed that an almost instantaneous sense of déjà vu embraced me.

Add goose bumps here.

I immediately recognized the woman Lisa described from the memory of a very old family photo found in a box just a few years earlier.

Having now acquired as much information as I was able (or willing) to absorb, I came to the conclusion that Lisa was referring to my Great-Aunt Vickie—my only relative from that generation who I was fairly positive had been to San Francisco before.

With previous residences in Fort Worth and San Francisco, Aunt Vickie had clearly followed an urge to buck the “Missouri Born, Missouri Bred, Missouri Dead” system.

Come to think of it, so did I.

As fascinating as it was to be in the presence of a young, refined and (uh) dead Victoria Yates Davenport, whom I had spent countless hours visiting as an octogenarian when I was a child in Missouri, I still had my reservations about this unexpected reunion. “When I leave to go back to my hotel does Aunt Vickie stay here or go with me? I only ask because I may have to pee later and Aunt Vickie doesn’t really need to see that.”

Now cut to SNOB Bar exterior, three minutes later:

“Dad, I am correct that Aunt Vickie lived in San Francisco at one time, right?” I inquired into (ironically) my Star Trek Communicator (aka my Nextel flip phone).

“Yes son, why?”

“Well, I’m at a party in San Francisco and, according to this sprit woman, Aunt Vickie’s ghost is following me around a bar.”

“Well then, tell her I said ‘hi’” and he hung up.

Additional proof that I am no longer able to shock my father.

When I returned to my hotel later than evening, I found myself enormously anxious to go back home to Leesburg, Virginia. I desperately wanted to dive into my box of old pictures to find photographic proof of Lisa’s vision—the same box that just a year earlier had revealed the heretofore unknown existence of Georga, Vickie’s younger sister.

I also wanted to go to the bathroom really bad.

Back in Leesburg, I retrieved the box, found the photo and lo and behold, the image staring back at me was exactly as described by the prophetic Lisa. Flipping it over I found the following identifier: “Vickie.”

Thank God my grandmother, when she was not serving me my pets for dinner, had the good sense to inscribe names on the majority of her photos.

For a few years, I went on believing that my dearly departed Great-Aunt Vickie had visited me in a bar in San Francisco. After all, she knew me as a child. But it would soon be my son, Kevin, whose astute observation would make me question this theory.

Vickie or Georga?

“Dad, this says the photo was taken in New York. Wasn’t it Vickie’s sister Georga, the one you write about, who actually lived in New York?”

Smart lad—proves his mother was faithful to me after all.

I sat there stunned. Yes, she did. For all I knew, Vickie was never even in New York. But Georga also lived in Los Angeles while Vickie resided in San Francisco. And the bar was located in an old hotel in San Francisco—one that was possibly home to Vickie and/or a visiting LA-based Georga.

Could it be? Is it possible I had actually found myself face-to-fog with Georga, my ATTACK BUNNIES muse?

Further examination of the surviving photos of both sisters lead Kevin and I to the same conclusion—while Vickie was thin and wiry, Georga was more robust and matronly. Is it possible someone had mismarked the picture?

Lisa’s wine-bar apparition, as described in such glorious detail, just may have been Georga after all.

Of course, it could also be argued that alcohol played a role in this unexpected reunion—that my consumption of spirits begat my assumption of spirits.

But I think not. As I had somewhat recently feared for the almost-lost memory of Georga’s extraordinary life, I must believe her purpose at that point in her spiritual journey was to inspire me to do more with my life—and inspire me she did.

So my dear Georga, allow me to say here and now, if that was you floating around that San Francisco bar in 2006, it was nice to finally “meet” you.

*****

Despite my newly formed literary classification of Confessional Development, and my explicitly expressed fear of becoming historically extinct myself, there are still people who ask me, “What is the purpose of ATTACK BUNNIES?”

Randall Kenneth Jones circa 1963

On many levels, the process of writing this exposé has forced me to revisit a number of metaphorical ghosts from my past. Even as I gaze into the face of my childhood counterpart, those early days are now so distant that the eyes looking back at me appear almost as a ghost of a version of myself I don’t even remember—a phantom of those innocent days before the advancing years took control.

So my purpose? If I have the courage to look inside myself and tell it like it is: the good, the bad, the ugly and the bunny, then so can you—with honesty and humor yet without fear, regret or unfair judgment.

Likewise, if this process has afforded me a heightened awareness that every person we meet, and every situation we navigate, influences the one multi-faceted person we ultimately become—at home and at the office—then I have, with any luck, opened an intellectual door for others to do the same.

In reality, each of us has the power to be our own best teacher.

Oprah would be so proud.

So wake up and smell the legacy people—why should any of us allow the memories of our lives, loves and libations drift away into obscurity. Personally, I’m making sure that, when I go, as long as the bits and bytes of the world wide web are still disseminating world wide, somebody is going to know I was here.

And if I ever do become a forgotten photographic memory in the box of a future Jetsons-Jones clan, I have a plan. In my next life, I am going to team up with Georga and Shirley MacLaine to return as a trio of celestial ninja warriors ready to kick some absentminded-living-ancestor space-ass.

Make no mistake; if I end up meandering through the afterlife because of some sort of unfinished business, I am going to be on a mission.

Just think about it: an anal-retentive, manipulative, goal-oriented, Type-A impaired ghost?

Be afraid…be very afraid.

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