Many of us have a favorite spot on Dixie, now Livingston Place.
Mine is just east of the George Evans house. On it surrounded by a low white picket fence rest the gravestones of great Dixie bird dogs and retrievers, field trial and hunting, for Mr. Gerald, Mrs. Eleanor and Miss Geraldine.
I did not believe in haunted houses until I stayed in the Evans House during the Continental Derby Championship in the late 1990s.
Dwelling there with me were judges Wallace Sessions and John Milton. I was suffering severe saddle soreness from what would soon be twenty-eight straight nine-hour days in the saddle, results of record entries in the Florida and Continental Derby and All-Age Championships, running back-to back seven days a week.
My nightly routine in the Evans House and the motel where I stayed during the following All-Age Championship was to soak in the bathtub filled with hot water and Epsom salts.
While we were eating supper in the Evans House nightly the screen door at the back would repeatedly slam loudly every fifteen minutes or so. There was no breeze to cause the slams and no persons. Had to be the ghost of George Evans who died there of a self-inflicted shotgun wound or Miss Geraldine who was nursed there in her final days, or both.
Those twenty-eight days conferred on me a special unexpected benefit. Afterward, I was never again saddle sore.