Watching CH 2 TV this morning, I saw the OXFORD TAVERN pictured by a video camera across Main or First Street, Snohomish (WA). From the Story it is supposed to be "haunted" yet by latecomers who own or occupy the place and by the ParaNormal "experts" who know about such things. First of all the OXFORD TAVERN is said by the TV media to have been a brothel years ago. It is amusing to me the way this has come about, after my being born in Snohomish 1924 and having grown up playing as a kid various places in our quaint town of old. I say this because living at 806 - 2nd St. (later years altered to 812 ) I was 3 blocks away from the Oxford Tavern ( or Saloon ). We as a group of kids had friends who lived directly back of the Oxford Tavern along an alley which extended at one time from extreme S end of Ave A easterly to the extreme S end of Cedar St. When visiting our friends near our age of say age 10 we would see the "ladies of the night (& nite)" occasionally come out of the upper story rear of the Oxford Tavern on a scaffolding type place where they would come out for a smoke. They were dressed in their negligees, fully and completely sometimes alone and sometimes with a "trick" or male customer or two. I can recall them waving at us as we waved back at them. We kind of had an idea of what we were seeing enhanced by some of our older friends who kept us apprised of what we were seeing. Little did I realize that in a few years this area of our small town including Ave A, Union, 4th Street, Maple St. and Cedar Streets would become my Everett Daily Herald paper route, and that there were other places that were similar in nature - one in the rear of the tavern in the rear of the Eagles Hall in Snohomish at the S and dead end of Cedar and First, or Main St. I won't mention the others farther down Main toward the bridge near Ave D. This was a rough, tough logging town and it was common for the lumber jacks or loggers to come into town full of pitch, dirty and needing a bath, shave and haircut after they stopped at another Tavern (saloon) about 4 buildings E of the Oxford Tavern for their friendly sport after a few, a good fist fight in which they could wreck a tavern easily - but their tavern was designed for such fights and they never let up. After the fight and after they "got their bearings" they might get a bath, a shave , and a haircut, if needed ! Such a barber shop was a three chair barber shop owned by Herbert O. NESS who came to Snohomish in 1908, married in 1912, lived in the house next to what is today The Cabbage Patch restaurant. Herb Ness' barber shop was often known as NESS & FRASER BARBER SHOP as Harry Fraser was his partner for many years in Snohomish. The location of this barber shop was to the immediate LEFT of the Oxford Tavern. Attached to the Tavern and next to the barber shop was a Shoe Shine shanty where a black man attended to the shining of the shoes. Herb Ness provided the man known as "Fri with a place to live above the barber shop. Today, there is a void, an open space to the Left of the Tavern, caused by a FIRE that burned down or gutted the 3 chair barber shop and the restaurant owned by Homer White, a very good friend to Herb Ness. Herb Ness was not only a barber, but he became Asst. Chief of the Snohomish Fire Dept. a volunteer dept. just up Ave A nearby on the corner of 2nd St and Ave. A. However, the fire that took the Ness & Frazer Barber Shop and Homer White's restaurant (affectionately known by the "town" as The Greasey Spoon, but that was not the official name of it) happened in the wee hours of the night. Herb Ness was called on the phone and told that his barber shop was on fire, about the time that the town's fire whistle kicked into wailing the event. I can recall going down Union St from my home on 2nd St, seeing huge flames and smoke and feeling the heat from that huge fire. I wish to state that the so called "ghosts" that newcomers, and the paranormal would like us to believe is simply not so among the experiences we as earlier Snohomishites experienced. The Snohomish Library was not haunted by Catharine McMurchy (my/our very good friend over many years; nor the Oxford Tavern "ghosts" that have become a figment of some newcomer's imaginations. Wouldn't these aparitions have taken place in earlier times, when we all lived here and we knew the town inside out. Of course, on Halloween we'd drum up so called haunted places in town, or even when it wasn't Halloween. These were concocted to "take people in" as a way of having fun. Squirt guns (from WEEDS VARIETY) taken to Brown's Theatre and discharged from the balcony was another diversion. When the Everett Theatre was said to have been haunted, I checked these stories with two projectionists at Everett Theatre, Ed McMurray, and his understudy, Al Oscoecisz (spelling atrictious!) and both laughed when I called their attention to those stories that had cropped up among those who were taken in by the phenomena. There is a CLARK house on Meriden Ave. Southington, CT built by my ancestry. It is said that house which was located on what was formerly CLARK FARMS Road in SE portion of Southington is said to be haunted by as many as 11 chosts, but a little girl ghost is the most "active" one who "moves things" there. If there are ghosts, I have yet to experience this phenomena - I just keep it all up on a "shelf" until I EXPERIENCE this phenomena. I wonder if there are any "ghosts" at SNOHOMISH CEMETERY which is being dug up and hopefully remains accounted for decertifying the area to become a Snohomish Senior Center, and possible low incom housing where parking will be a problem because of s p a c e . Maybe someday Snohomish will be able to find and build a much better Senior Center like neighboring towns have been able to realize, but in the meantime the Snohomish Cemetery site will have to "do" after it is decertified as a cemetery within the town of Snohomish. Carroll in Snohomish b. here 1924 on 2nd St. In 1947, I was able to get back to that home after 2.5 yrs of complete bedrest fighting my lung disease. It was a RAINY OCTOBER 31st, 1947. My little dog just wimpered, and was so Happy to see me come home again. I was afraid she might die before I would get well enough to be with her. Amen! <><><>30<><><> -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.12.5/150 - Release Date: 10/27/05