One morning, I was heading down toward the bus stop. It was one of those days where the fog seemed so thick you could cut it with a knife.

The bus stop was only a block away. I walked past the Johnson’s house and there at the corner, as I walked, I heard the sound of a pogo stick. The thought struck me as funny, that some idiot kid would be using a pogo stick in the dense fog. Just then, I saw him pass me. It was a boy about my age. He paid no attention to me and continued to hop down the hill toward the bus stop. I surely didn't recognize him.

I got down the hill and there were all the other kids were already lined up; there were at least ten kids there.  I asked if any of them had seen the stupid kid on the pogo stick (you really couldn't miss the sound).  I was met with blank stares. No one had. Not a single one of them had seen the boy or heard the pogo stick.

One older boy mentioned a kid would have to be stupid to be using a pogo stick to go to school in fog like this. In fact one had been killed a couple years ago that tried doing it.

I didn't say anything about the boy being a ghost, it still didn't really click for me at the time. The bus pulled up and off we went to school.

One foggy day the next year I heard the pogo stick again. This time, I approached the sound as it was a good ways down the opposite direction. I saw the boy and he looked back at me. He grinned and continued to hop along. His face was hard to see
in the fog.

I asked him what he was doing. As he hopped away he remarked that he was
going to school on his new pogo stick. Arriving at the bus stop, it didn't surprise me that once again, no one had seen or heard the boy. The thought sent shivers up my spine.

After taking my seat in the old bus, along the window, the bus pulled away. My thoughts were jumbled. "Could this kid be a ghost?"  Not very far down the road, to my amazement, I spotted him!  There he was, shrouded in the fog hoping along down the
busy road.  He disappeared into the fog, as quickly as he came, never to be seen by me again.

The sound of his pogo stick still echoes in my head to this day. I don't think I'll ever forget him. The sound of a pogo stick always bring me right back to those days of my youth there on Fraser Lane and the boy who tried to take his new pogo stick to school.

Chaos