My first two and a half years working in the park I averaged 90 hours a week. When I was training officers April through October I worked 1st and 2nd shifts. During non op, November through March, I worked 2nd and 3rd shifts.
It is March. Wrapping up several months of construction, hundreds of contractors roam the park, putting on finishing touches for opening day. I was wrapping up a night shift of patrol and about to head back to "Station Zero", when something catches my eye. Walking south to north, a man in a brown suit is going through the park. I decide to follow him to see what he is up to.
The reason the man caught my attention is that his suit is at least thirty years out of date. Not only that, he's wearing a hat. Who wears a hat anymore? It's not a fedora; it's a trilby, reminding me of the old Clark Kent character in the 1950's Superman TV series.
I followed him for about two hundred yards, from the Mexican section of the park to the Oriental section. He's walking in general areas, not having to navigate doors or gates. Finally, when he made it to the Oriental section he is either going to have use a gate or a door, instead he walks up to a wall on the side of a restaurant and vanished into the wall. The wall is on the east side of the restaurant. What I saw made absolutely no sense. I never saw him again.
The park has been open today. I only went home to sleep during day shift. It is very warm and humid outside as summer has made an early appearance. Evening shift had been relatively uneventful. I need to sit down. Its two hours into the night shift and the Assistant Shift Supervisor has been running me. I bought a soda from a machine in the Mexican area. I'll take a break, and then head in to do some paperwork before resuming my patrols.
The Oriental restaurant runs its air conditioning full blast during the day. At night, the building retains its coolness. I go in and sit down. I'm a couple of sips into my drink when all of the windows and doors rattle-as if the entire building is being battered by a category three hurricane. The banging and rattling go on for ten seconds, then stops. My neck hair on end and my nerves rattled, I get up and head back to station zero.
Kelvin is the longtime night shift supervisor. He has been with the park since opening day twenty five years earlier. He is a good man who will hear you out when you have something to say. When I got back to station zero, I told Kelvin about the incident in the restaurant and the vanishing into the wall of the same restaurant sixteen hours earlier. Kelvin considered a moment, then reminded me that the park and the stadium across the freeway was built on reclaimed swamp land. He adds that in the 1950's and 60's that there was "cigarette wars" waged in the city. Cigarettes were BIG business back then due to a national addiction. Organized crime had installed cigarette machines all over the city and anyone that installed their own cigarette machines was targeted by organized crime. There were shootings, kidnappings, disappearances and even a couple of explosions. It was not out of the question that there were bodies buried in the swamp as the swamp was just south of downtown-where the most money was made in the cigarette business.
This was my only ghost encounter in the years I worked in the park.