The Legend of Timmy
It's time we've talked about Timmy.
Up-N-Smoke owner, Chad Wade, sat down to tell the legend, "We aren't entirely sure where the portrait of Timmy came from. Was he placed by a customer or employee? Was Timmy just there when we moved in?" No one knows for sure which leads to the intrigue. What's more, Timmy's eyes seemingly follow you as you walk through the Shepherdsville, KY Up-N-Smoke retail store.
Is the store haunted? Chad says, “you can stand in the middle of the building with all the lights off and hear kids and adults laughing, talking, and walking on the other side of the wall... but, we couldn’t catch them”. The Shepardsville store was clearly haunted but got it worse when Timmy showed up. He quickly became the watcher of the store. Hoping to settle the spirit, employees would tell Timmy when they arrived, “we got you now, go to sleep”.
One night after closing shop, Chad and an employee were in the back working towards closing the store. The employee suddenly heard voices, and thinking that he had forgotten to lock the door he alerts Chad, "I listen... yeah that's someone talking. We thought he left it unlocked and someone was up there. As soon as I opened the backdoor the talking stopped so I thought 'oh yeah, someone's definitely up there they’re trying to hide'." Chad goes to the back, turns the lights on...and nothing. The two "joked" that Timmy was the one talking.
And that's not all. Employees had a ball (about the size of a baseball) they would throw against the wall. “We put it up every night in the same place so we knew where it was... in the morning it might be laying on the counter or display cases”. And that's not the only misplaced item. Chad talked about losing tools that would reappear the next day.
One evening years ago, the store had a break in. Robbers cut a hole into the metal building right under Timmy's portrait. “They beat and banged on the side of the building. It should have knocked his picture off the wall and for some reason it didn’t,” said Chad. The next day while watching the cameras he saw something strange happen. The robbers came into the building, went towards the back room, and almost as quickly as they entered, they left. Nothing was stolen. "I think they saw something." Was it Timmy? One can only speculate.
After that instance, employees would tell customers that Timmy kept an eye on them as a warning. Over the years, more sensitive guests said they felt a presence when being around Timmy. It was common for customers to ask our associates questions like, “who’s little boy is that in the back?” or “is that your son?”.
Who could Timmy be? Local folklore tells of a child from the 1900’s named Timothy who accidentally died in a field by hitting his head on a rock. After this happened, there were accounts of people seeing the same young boy in fields around town. It became so commonplace that the local newspaper published the story. Could this be the same Timmy?
Stop by the Shepherdsville, KY store to find out for yourself. We'd love to hear your experiences too!