Speaking to the dead is really nothing new. You see it all the time in movies and television. Of course, in most of these depictions, the ghosts in question have some “unfinished business” that they need help taking care of, some task that was left incomplete in life or some mess that they need someone to tidy up. It is a trope that, in its overuse, has become quite cliché. It’s also pretty much bullshit.

I have been speaking to the dead for as long as I can remember. As a young child I would be greeted by strange people I had never seen before, and most of the time, would never see again. It was a while before I realized that I was the only person in my family that could actually see these people. My mother would often ask who it was I had been talking to while I was out in the yard. When I would tell her that I had been talking to a pilot that had crashed his plane in the woods near our house twenty years ago, or that there was a baker who had accidently burned up along with his bakery downtown, a few summers ago, My mother would just ruffle my hair and remark on how fine an imagination I seemed to have. From then on, I pretty much kept my conversations with the dead to myself. I never really felt the need to tell anyone, as I knew, most likely, not a single person would believe me.

I learned that the dead don't really have any lingering regrets about their lives, or have something left undone that was causes them unrest. The simple truth, is that many of them are incredibly lonely. Most of the conversations I have had were simply about how my day was going. Did I have any plans for the future? What was the last thing I had eaten? Was that old bat Mrs. Gerrinson still ruling the third grade classroom with a bee-hive hairdo and an iron ruler?

I’ve said all this so that you understand that thirty years later, when I woke up one morning feeling a presence sitting on the foot of my bed, it was really not very surprising to me. It wasn't until I saw the thin black mustache that used to be famous for the actor who wore it, before it was infamous for the dictator that burned it into the history books.

When I first opened my eyes, he was just sitting, staring at the floor, but as I stirred, he turned and looked straight at me. "Oh, you are awake!" I was surprised again, to hear him speaking in English, albeit with a very thick German accent. As he spoke a little flap of skin jiggled just below the very obvious gunshot wound in his head. For some reason, I was just as astounded by this small detail as I was by the fact that the father of the third Reich was sitting on the edge of my bed.

"Um, hello ... Adolf?" I stammered.

"Oh, you know who I am, dear boy? Good, good. I was a little nervous about introducing myself."