About eleven years ago ,a girlfriend Helen and I got permission to hunt 'The Crazy Mans "property. For years,this old character had come in and out of the small town where I was living,stopping at the local cafe and would tell unbelievable tales .Anywhere from that he was with the CIA and was personal bodyguard to Roosevelt to the fact that he had a UFO landing strip on a lake behind his home. His property was at the end of a logging road about six miles from anyone and consisted of a two story run down house ,several sheds,old semitrailers,tons of old cars from the 30's. He had the entire property encased in barbwire with No Tresspassing signs and Keep Out was painted on everything. His wife had died years before and his children moved away. Far away.
One time he came into the cafe and had a envelope that he had put green fourleaf clover stickers on and said he had just received a letter from the Queen of Ireland....(Maybe DG can enlighten us here.
) and that we were to call him Lord Harry. He would greet new people and tell them he was the sheriff of the town.
Anyway ,the property was about 80 acres and crammed full of everything a person could think of .When he died,his son from Chicago inherited it. He wanted nothing on the property and asked my girlfriends husband to bulldoze it.This was about five years after the old man died.My girlfriend Helen and I were in heaven....the son said we could take anything. The house was really scary looking,overgrown,but we put our fears behind us as we laughed about all the money we were going to make.
Half of the house was caved in ,wet and had alot of water and animal damage. It was dark,filthy and looked like a rotted mess. But cripes ....you cannot believe the stuff that was there. Old guns,one room(8x8)was just filled with cases of bullets,bullet reloading supplies,knives,sabers,huge artillery shells.The house was crammed with dishes,BlueWillow,pottery,china ,silver,old German pitchers and wine mugs....antique furniture,dolls,toys,sheet music,jewelry...you name it ,it was there. We knew a guy that owned a auto yard, so we had him come pull the cars out of the yard. The semi trailers were full of auto books,parts,tools. We found cast iron toys ,lead soldiers,and old army uniforms. Police badges, and surprisingly a photo album full of Roosevelt in the Whitehouse days.
It was like hitting the jackpot. The area was very wooded and dark with all the trees.You had to wear boots and basically wade through paths in the house to sort through stuff with a flashlight. Dark damp and smelly. The girlfriends husband would park his trailer out by the road and we would pack it,then he would take the load home for us and bring back the trailer.We had been working about four days straight ,laughing and just having a good time over our fortune. It was about five O'Clock pm and her husband had just left for home with a load and said he would be back in an hour. We figured during this time that we would check out the back sheds. When we were done,we went back into the house and to start carrying boxes to the road. The shadows were really looming in by now and we were both getting a little jumpy. I started to lift a box that I had set on the staircase,when I saw a shadow on the steps. I looked up and at the top of the stairs I could see the shadowy outline of a man. I just froze.Helen looked at me and then at the shadow. Just then this raspy voice whispered down the steps....Christtttty
......Thats when we both wet our pants.... It always took me a good ten minutes to wade from the road to the house , but I can tell you I covered that distance in about 10 seconds and kept running.Helen, who is about half my height outran me. By this time the old road was casting shadows and I was having a heart attack from running. We stopped about a half a mile from the house and we were both shaking so bad we couldn't talk. Then we started laughing. Fear probally . Just then we saw the lights and ran up to her husbands truck. He told us later we were so white and we were both talking so fast he couldn't understand us. He got us in the truck and drove back up to the site. We followed him back in like stick tights. We heard banging and clanging at the top of the stairs and Mike called up there. Thats when we heard hysterical laughter and stomping feet come down the steps.Helen and I tried to bolt,but not before Mike grabbed us by the back of the neck.Here it was his two brothers ,who had parked farther down the road and snuck into the house. They hadn't known that Helen and I were in the back and when they whispered down the steps my name they were just trying to see if it was us ....they said as soon as they heard the screaming they knew it was.
It was funny later...but not that day! Even after eleven years everytime I see one of the brothers..they say 'Boo"
I have often thought about going back and metal detecting that property and this story jogged my memory enough that I just might.
We found no money in that house ,but it had stood empty for five years after his death,so who knows who else went inside.
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Gotta love it (the honesty) and admire him for it (the honesty).
Plan a good one & when they least except it.You know what they say "revenge is a dish best served cold" 
