Thursday, May 24, 2018

Seeing Seaweed Charlie

When I was finishing up grade school, one of my older brothers was a student at University of Illinois-Chicago (known back then as "Chicago Circle"). There were four of us siblings, and as far as I know, all of us had a draw to the unearthly even when we were growing up, though my brothers were less likely to discuss that sort of thing.

However, my brother Edd made an exception when he told me about the night he saw Seaweed Charlie. Edd was driving home late one night after a party, as college students frequently do, coming south from Evanston into Chicago via Sheridan Road. When you follow that particular route, Lake Michigan will be on your left, and right where Evanston and Chicago meet, Calvary Cemetery will be on your right. He was alone in his car, making his way back to home and bed, when he saw something ahead of him on the road. In the dark, with only intermittent streetlights, he could just discern a human figure shuffling slowly from left to right. In other words, from the lake toward the cemetery.

He slowed down as he drew closer since the figure appeared to be in no hurry to avoid getting hit by any oncoming traffic. In fact, the figure's gait was slow and shuffling, although deliberate, as it made its way across the street. Now, Calvary Cemetery dates back to the 1800's around the time of the Civil War. It is a fairly large piece of land, enclosed by a tall wrought iron fence, and Edd couldn't figure out where this slow-moving pedestrian was headed. Until he saw it reach the cemetery fence and then,,,disappear. Even as he looked around to see if perhaps this person had taken a left or right to continue along the roadway, he realized there was no one in sight.

There was no other traffic on the road, so he actually pulled the car over at the spot where he had seen this mystery man cross in front of him and disappear at the cemetery, and got out to look around. He did find wet tracks leading from the lake to the fence, and he also found bits of weed and debris, the sort of thing you might find if you went digging around in the lake.

Puzzled, not sure what he had seen, he got back into his car and drove home. He told me about it some time later and I could still hear the bewilderment in his voice. He had come to the conclusion that he must have seen a ghost, because he couldn't explain how a living person could have disappeared through wrought iron, or vanished into thin air.

Being the avid ghost story collector that I was, I filed the tale away and was thus surprised when I ran into it as an adult.

The late (great) Richard Crowe, Chicago ghost-tour pioneer and avid ghost story collector himself, included Seaweed Charlie in his book Chicago's Street Guide to the Supernatural. No one knows who exactly it is that clambers out of Lake Michigan and vanishes into Calvary Cemetery, but there are suggestions that he might be a naval aviator whose plane crashed in Lake Michigan during a training exercise mid-twentieth century. The plane was recovered but the aviator never was. (You can Google Seaweed Charlie - AKA "The Aviator" - and find all manner of stories about him, from possible background details to witness accounts.)

Of course, I didn't find out about all of this until years after I first heard Edd's story. But back in those days, as a kid, whenever I was in the car and was being driven along that route at night, I would close my eyes until we were well past Calvary Cemetery for fear of having my own glimpse of Seaweed Charlie. I've heard that sightings of him have calmed down, recently. Apparently he was seen most often during the 1950's and -60's. But he's still included in most ghost story books about Chicago. 

Now that I've moved out of the city, I don't pass that way at all. But I sometimes wonder: if I did, would I have a chance to see him for myself? 

Unlike my brother, though, I don't believe I would get out of the car and go looking for that wet, seaweed-covered track from the edge of the lake to the cemetery fence. No, I think seeing him would be quite enough for me.

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