First of all let me introduce myself . My name is Steve Buckner , married 22 years , father of three lovely daughters and I live with my wife and twin girls in beautiful Asheville , N.C.

Yes as the title says I've seen dead people . I've also seen a UFO up-close and a little more personal than I wanted . But I will save that for another article.

I was raised in a very old country house that had at one time been a church . That house was also in the shadow of a church that my great grandfather had founded and of course there was two graveyards easily seen from our house . One behind the church and the other across the road.

My first experience with a spirit came when I was a small boy on our front porch . We had an old porch swing that I would swing on sometimes for hours . This particular day I was about 5 , not old enough yet for school in those days so I was sitting on our old swing and let me add I had just gotten in trouble with my mom for writing on the wall with her lipstick . I swung for a little while and I remember getting kind of sleepy . Being a warm fall day I decided to lay on the old swing cause I didn't want to go back inside . I knew my mom was still angry at me and I heard her verbalize that as she worked to clean up my mess.

I guess I had laid there in the swing for 5 or so minutes and then it began . Now sometimes the breeze would gently rock the swing but believe me when it started rocking this time it would have taken a hurricane . I half jumped out half thrown out of the swing and as I stood there watching I could hardly believe my eyes . Id seen my older cousin make the swing act like that but there wasn't anyone there I could see yet the swing chains were actually getting slack in them like someone was underneath it pushing it up . It was making lots of noise and actually starting banging off the house and two old 55 gallon drums that we had for fuel oil . Naturally my mom began to yell again and this time I beat her to the punch . I was running through the door totally scared to death and she followed me outside and watched the swing for a moment as it rocked and bucked up , down and from side to side.

Then my mom totally shocked me . She yelled at the swing ; " Stop It Oscar ! I am not in the mood for you today " and as suddenly as it had started the swing immediately stopped as if someone was stopping it.

When I was a little older I found out that Oscar was a man named Oscar Head who was roofing the old house a year or so before I was born , had a heart attack on the roof , fell off and was pronounced dead right there in the yard.

That was my first experience with Oscar but certainly not my last . I will share some others with you all very soon . I hope you have enjoyed this memory from my youth.