Are there Ghosts at the First Round??
By Wendy Hopping
Many stories have been told over the 10 years that Darlene has owned the First Round; from the feeling of a presence, and moving objects. But first lets go back a ways and bring you up to date on the history of the building, as well as the First Round itself.
In 1990, the First Round was located on Pacific Blvd which had previously been Shakey's Pizza, and which is now the Used Book store. The owner at the time was Tony Nova, and they only sold beer and wine unlike that of currently being a full service bar. In 1991 the establishment was sold to Darlene's son, Don Lautenschleger who moved the business into it's current location at 129W 1st Ave.
Tragically on August 17th, 1994 Darlene's son died. Darlene moved from Idaho to take over the business not long there after and is the current owner. Darlene often feels that there is a presence around her, specifically when she is preparing to open the bar and all is quiet. But now we possibly have proof.
I, Wendy Hopping, wife of Matt Hopping, Darlene's youngest son, have been taking pictures on random nights and found some very interesting things. Things which Paranormal Investigators call Ghostly Energy Orbs which we will get to in a moment. But first, here are some of the strange happenings which Staff members have experienced.
About a year ago Darlene was up in the office working on tills for the servers and bartenders. The bar itself was quiet with only a couple other staff members in the building, and one of them sitting right next to her. One of the server tills had been finished and set aside as she continued on with the next till like she had done a hundred mornings before. Once finished, Darlene reached over to pick up the first till that she had made only to find it missing. She glared at the employee sitting on the other side of her asking him where it went, only to be met by a quizzical look unknowing of what she was talking about. He even took off his jacket and turned around letting her search his jacket only to find that he was telling the truth and did not have the till. To this very day it is still missing having vanished into thin air without a trace.
On a more recent occasion, as in a week ago, our head bouncer came and told us a story. It was a Monday night and Frank was showing Aaron how to set our alarm system which is by the back door. Now if anyone has been in our bar, you would know that, that area back there is almost always dark, and pretty creepy anyhow. Frank had previously shut the back door which is a pretty heavy metal door with a sliding metal bar used as a dead bolt, then proceeded to go and check on Aaron and guide him back to the alarm. When they got to the back door the bar had been slid back and the door slowly creaked open about 6 inches. Frank being a bouncer and all, placed his hand on Aaron's chest and moved him behind him. Frank then proceeded to kick the door completely open, hoping to either scare off a possible intruder or knock them over so that Frank could catch them. Only to find that no one was there at all.
~In
this picture you will notice the metal bar. There is no easy way to slide that
back, especially from the outside.
On many occasions staff members and patrons alike have noticed cold spots in the bar, when one foot in any other direction is considerably warmer. Even I have had moments where I felt like someone was standing right behind me only to turn around and find no one there. There has also been times where employee's will have set something down, and when they returned, found it misplaced or found it moving for no apparent reason like our hanging rack in the kitchen.
Ook so here is the moment you were waiting for. I have picked out some of the best pictures of the orbs that I could find. Though in truth there are more pictures with orbs, then there are without orbs, if that isn't scary enough. And in thoroughly checking these pictures out, there is usually always more than one orb in a picture. Also some people have tried to explain them, stating that they could be some kind of light reflection from the flash of my camera, which is a Toshiba PDR 3320 digital camera. But then if this is so, wouldn't that mean that when I took a second picture only seconds later without moving the same orb should be present? Which it's not and I will show you a comparison:
