I know I was supposed to tell you all the dirty secrets of the Arena Anniversary party
and don’t fret
I will
But timing is timing
Have you met Julius? I have. Julius has worked in the building that houses the Arena since it was Metzgers. And after he spent the majority of his life working for the historic German restaurant, he died. After he died, he stayed. Yes, Julius is a ghost and yes the Arena is haunted.
I know what you’re thinking…I’m an idiot girl believing in silly things like ghosts. I am actually the opposite. I am the hardest to sell when it comes to scary, creepy things. In fact, I am the girl who will search for the logical cause before jumping to a ghost conclusion.
I first heard about Julius when I started working for the Arena eight years ago. A certain red headed employee explained that the Metzger family informed the owners there was a ghost in the building and his name was Julius. And no offense to the red head, but I thought she was a silly girl. She explained that the empty bottles rattled for no reason, glasses crashed to the ground, and other equally creepy ghost things happened. I nodded as I took the information in and thought in my mind, “all of that can be explained.”
My disbelief grew stronger when EVERYTHING was blamed on Julius. If the TV’s froze, blame Julius. If a glass fell from a counter, blame Julius, if the door locked on its own, blame Julius. I snorted quietly when other people blamed Julius for logically explained events.
Until one day, while working as a bartender, I heard a noise coming from the basement. It was the bottles rattling. Someone blamed Julius. I, in disbelief, ran down to the basement to see if something clicked on causing a vibration in the floor or walls which would cause the bottles to rattle. There were no vibrations from heat, electricity, generators powering the taps, or even cars passing overhead on the street. The bottles were simply rattling on their own. My logical self got a little spooked. I went upstairs unsure and a lot less arrogant regarding silly girls.
The next ACTUAL first-hand Julius experience occurred on a Monday night after bar close. Jen, the Monday night bartender was finishing up some cleaning. Mike the owner, Jen, and I were casually talking. A pint glass came crashing down from the service bar. I had been leaning against the service bar, so I tried to shake it and see if my weight had caused the glass to fall. No, pushing with all of my body weight, could not wiggle a single glass. And it certainly wouldn’t have caused the glass to fall with the force that it did. See, the glass didn’t just fall straight to the ground. It got some distance. We cleaned the glass and went back to finishing up and talking. After everything was done Jen and Mike were talking. A plastic pitcher that had been sitting on the shelf of the service bar for a good hour flew off the shelf and crashed on the ground. It flew hard enough to graze the wall opposite the wait station. If you know how the Arena is configured, you know the laws of gravity make that feat impossible…without the help of Julius. We quickly grabbed our things and left. I think someone mentioned, “Julius wants us out of here,” and we all obeyed. Even the fearless muscle-bound Mike didn’t want to mess with Julius that day.
Another strange Julius event involved our TV’s. The Arena has a bazillion TVs. We want to make certain your football, hockey, or basketball game is on for you. But sometimes, when the only sport on is figure skating or the world tour of poker, we play CNN. In order to change our channels, one must go into the basement and program them into a series of confusing boxes. It is not your home cable programming. In order to help employees know how to change the channels for customers, we keep a list of stations programmed by the service bar.
The morning after a slow sports night, the morning shift walked in to find all of the TVs on Spike TV. It was odd because our TV’s are rarely all on the same channel unless there is a huge game, like the final game of the World Series. And even when there is a huge game, we don’t end the night without changing the TVs. The morning manager thought it was strange and ran to the service bar to check the list. Spike TV had never been programmed in the night before. CNN had been. And CNN was no longer available. Julius, obviously, does not like CNN.
There are many, many more stories. They mostly revolve around people getting a weird feeling, or seeing someone or something walking around the basement, when nobody is down there. We even have someone who will not go downstairs by himself because Julius appeared to him. This person NEVER believed my ghost stories before he had the first hand experience.
Julius is in fact so notorious, a ghost hunting group asked to come in and look for him. However, due to our hours and the request to ghost hunt during football (aka busy season) we were unable to set it up for them. Hopefully soon…so you all know I’m not just a silly girl believing in silly ghost stories.