Haunted Toys R Us
DATE: Thursday, 18 May 95 14:51:39 CST
TO:
FROM: Richard L Foster
Subject: COVER NOTE - Is this Toys 'R' Us a haunt
I found this on UT-Austin's library database. Enjoy.
Richard Foster
Is this Toys 'R' Us a haunted house? A 'ghost' tramps the aisles see
king his lost love? (ghost reported terrorizing Sunnyvale, CA branch
store) (American Pulse).
Koeppel, Dan
Adweek's Marketing Week.
June 10 1991, v32, n24, p17(1)
in
Academic Index (database on UTCAT PLUS system)
COPYRIGHT BPI Communications Inc. 1991
A `ghost' tramps the aisles seeking his lost love
The children have left, and the din has subsided. Another hard day's
shopping is history at the Sunnyvale, Calif. branch of Toys `R' Us. Yet
there might be activity inside the vast, silent emporium this midnight,
none of which has to do with the straightforward business of retailing.
Inside, it is said, toys topple from the their shelves. A skateboard
rolls down an aisle, clanking aimlessly into a wall. But nobody is in
this Toys `R' Us this midnight. Or anyway, nobody alive.
In the tony heart of high-tech Silicon Valley, could there really be
such a thing as a haunted retail outlet?
"I'm a skeptical person," says Toys `R' Us assistant store director
Jeff Linden. "But something's definitely happening here."
In the past few years, store management has tried to get to the bottom
of several curious developments. Linden recounts stories of objects
flying 20 feet through the air and hitting employees. Shelves left neat
in a locked store have been found in disarray the next morning. And
then there was the talking doll that cried "mama" over and over-but
would only do so when put in a locked box.
If nothing else, it's attracting curiosity-seekers. "My daughter
insisted we visit when she came here from Hawaii," said a woman (who
declined to identify herself) at the local Chamber of Commerce.
But that doesn't mean that store workers laugh off the matter. "Some of
our employees are spooked," Linden says. "They won't go into certain
parts of the store alone." He hastens to add that the "ghost" hasn't
affected day-to-day store operations in any tangible way. Yet the
incidents were taken seriously enough that management let a local
psychic visit the store.
"I thought they were seeing things," says `private psychic counselor'
Sylvia Brown. I usually find ghosts in old houses. Not in a modern-day
retail store." But Brown changed her mind when she walked into the
store. "I felt something," she says. "Especially in the last aisle on
the left."
It was in that supernatural aisle that Brown got permission to conduct
a seance, a summoning of spirits.
Brown says the whole problem comes down to one scenario, namely that
"Johnny is waiting for Beth." The ghost, she says, is one John Johnson,
a circuit preacher who set up his tent in verdant Sunnyvale at the turn
of the century. In those days, apples grew on the current site of the
store. "Beth" is Elizabeth Yuba Murphy Tafee, daughter of a prominent
rancher. But his love went unrequited. So poor Johnson-or "Yonny," as
the employees have dubbed him-is doomed to tramp the aisles of the
orchard qua toy store. He is reduced to bewailing his plight, searching
for his lost love and occasionally beaning employees with a package of
rubber ducks.
Of course, many observers consider the ghost about as real as a Ninja
Turtle.
"My response is `Skeptics `R' Me,'" says James Randi, a prominent
debunker of psychic phenomena. "There are lots of silly people who make
all kinds of declarations."
But Brown can produce a photograph (see above) from the seance that she
claims includes old Johnson. He is looming in the misty background,
leaning against a store shelf. Brown says there was nobody in her group
standing anywhere near that location during the seance.
Such "proof" doesn't cut much ice with Randi. And some of Brown's
claims don't stand up too well when checked.
Brown says police are "constantly" responding to alarms at the store.
Lieutenant Andy Pate, of the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety,
says the store has "no more alarms than any other large retailer." But
the stories persist. Local papers and TV have looked into the lovelorn
spook.
"That's part of the hype," Randi says. "Why don't they install a video
camera? Why don't they put the place under surveillance? Call me, and
I'll get rid of the ghost in three days," says Randi. "Of course, I
don't think they'd like that."
That may be the point. "Sales go up after reports of the ghost," says
Linden. "A lot of people think this is a great thing."
So maybe nobody's in any great hurry to smoke out Old Yonny Johnson.