Ghost Children of San Antonio Essay -- Urban Legends Ghost Stories

Ghost Children of San Antonio The legend of the Ghost Children of San Antonio dates back to the first half of the 20th century, with the majority of accounts placing its origins within a period extending from the 1930’s to the 1950’s. The story is based on a supposed freak accident involving a school bus full of children. As the story goes, the school bus stalled over a set of train tracks and was subsequently hit by an oncoming freight train, killing everyone on board the bus. (Weiser) Not soon after this grisly event, it was said that, should anyone park their car on the very same train tracks and place the gears in neutral, the car will roll uphill (seemingly defying gravity) off of the train tracks to a safe distance away. According to legend, the ghosts of the dead children from the bus accident push one’s car to safety (seemingly uphill) so they may avoid a similar fate. (Mikkelson) This story was recounted to me by a 20 year old female student at my University. She is a Communications major, coming from an upper middle class family in the rural suburbs of New Jersey. I interviewed her in her apartment sometime in the late afternoon in an informal setting. Although she is skeptical about things such as urban legends and ghost tales, she explained to me that this story always unsettled her in an inexplicable way. Yeah, there’s one [story] that’s pretty scary that comes to mind. My one friend [name omitted] – I think you met her once – well she moved to Jersey from Texas about 3 years ago and told me about this place kids would go when they were drunk or just looking for something to do. I asked her if she’d ever been there, but she told me she’d only heard it from a friend of a friend kind of deal. Well, an... ... that the story is representative of how all ghosts behave. Society prefers to consider ghosts as â€Å"protectors† or â€Å"helpers† rather than as â€Å"frighteners† or â€Å"killers.† Works Cited Juliano, Dave. "Haunted Places in Maryland." The Shadowlands Ghosts and Hauntings. 09 Apr. 2006. http://theshadowlands.net/ghost/. Lane, Stephanie. "Cry Baby Bridges." Dead Ohio. 09 Apr. 2006 www.deadohio.com. Mikkelson, Barbara. "Helping Hands." Snopes. 24 Mar 2003. Urban Legends Reference Pages. 09 Apr. 2006. www.snopes.com. Sceurman, Mark. Weird U.S. Weird NJ, Inc. 09 Apr. 2006. www.weirdus.com. Wagner, Stephen. "The Haunted Railroad Crossing." About Paranormal. About, Inc. 09 Apr. 2006. http://paranormal.about.com. Weiser, Kathy. "Lone Star Legends: Ghostly Children." Legends of America. Oct 2005. Legends of America.com. 09 Apr. 2006. www.legendsofamerica.com.