The Naughty Ghosts Of Asheville

...Continued from yesterday:

     Our lovely, awesome friend Sharon,

                                  ...who organized the University of Dayton Appalachia Club reunion

     in beautiful,

...funky,

...downtown Asheville, North Carolina,

...home of O. Henry, by the way,

     ...also arranged for us on Monday night a ghost tour of Asheville.
    Now, I was thinking, as I'd imagine the others in our group were, that we'd be riding around in a bus while being told ghost stories connected to specific sites around the town.
     Which is basically what the tour turned out to be.,,but with a twist.   Kind of a twisted twist.

     First of all, there was the exterior of the  tour bus,

...and the interior, which was unexpectedly colorful,

...as was the wiry, nimble-limbed,   youngster who was our emcee,

...and who right away had us all in stitches with his
hilarious  and low-end- -of- raunchy  comedy stylings.

   At one point he handed me this piece of dental floss and told me it was for me since it was almost bikini season.  That was about the cleanest joke of the evening

     However after his opening act he exited the bus and scurried away, his movements evoking a silly over-sized spider.

   He was replaced by our tour guide, a "mad doctor" with a Count Dracula accent named Dr. Choparmsandlegsoffsky (or something close), and our driver, whom The Doctor  introduced as Cyborg Randy.

    The Doctor then gave us a hilarious R-rated tour of Asheville's historically creepy, purportedly ghost-inhabited sites, stopping now and then at the sighting of a resident ghost who would then  climb on board the bus to crack some funny, baudy jokes,

...such as the Pink Lady who is said to still haunt Asheville's Grove Park Inn,

...whose original owner, Wiley Grove, made a fortune in the early 1900's selling his health "tonic":

   Then we met the ghost of Zelda Fitzgerald, who died in a insane asylum fire in Asheville (and who shared with us that she used to F. Scott Fitzgerald),

...and an angry Raggedy Andy, who we picked up as he was stomping down the street near the site of a defunct doll asylum (where years ago people would bring old dolls they no longer wanted - go figure).

     Turned our he'd caught Raggedy Ann with G.I. Joe.

    Comedy aside, it was an interesting, enjoyable tour, though surely not for the easily offended.
    Tom and I agreed that our favorite leg  of the tour was through the historical Montford area,  a neighborhood of palatial old homes with spacious porches that used to be tuberculosis sanatoriums, the belief being that it was beneficial for patients to sit outside on these porches, called "breathing porches",  to take in the fresh air.  Of course tuberculosis being a bacterium, the fresh air was no cure and most of the TB patients died, thus this neighborhood, according to legend,  being the site of many ghosts.
   Also in this neighborhood was located the asylum in which Zelda Fitzgerald died,

...here was her "ghost" doing an interpretive dance of the event on the site of the old asylum - tasteless, I know,

     We also passed the haunted-castle-looking residence of the asylum director.
     So much did Tom and I like this part of the tour that the following day, though we'd considered visiting the Biltmore Estate outside Asheville, said to be a must-see area attraction, our enthusiasm waned big-time when we learned that the admission price to the estate was $60 per person and  we decided instead to return to Montford for another look - for free - in the day light at the gorgeous homes that used to be  the TB sanitoriums.

     And here's the spooky  former residence of the director of the old insane asylum.

    We did enjoy seeing these buildings in the light of day.  Still, we had to admit it just wasn't the same without the creepy commentary and the dirty jokes. ;)
     To be continued...