Friday, May 6, 2022

On Fire


What a strange picture. 

But if you notice the sign to the left, it says 'Pudding Lane'. 

Pudding Lane was the site of Thomas Farynor's bakery where the Great Fire of London supposedly began September 2nd, 1666, burning until September 4th and totally destroying most of 'old' London. There were rumors that 'foreigners' had started the fire, which resulted in street violence against this population. If you care to read more about it, here's a link


 This is the memorial to the disaster. 



This is another short post. We are still hard at work. 

Thank you 'Anonymous/Paranormal John'. After reading some links in your comments, I bought the book 'The Lives They Left Behind'. Heartbreaking and engrossing. While I am not familiar with Willard, I have worked with former residents of Willowbrook, It really is heartbreaking to consider how few options these people had. 




18 comments:

  1. Paranormal John here. I'm so glad you enjoyed the book. Heartbreaking, indeed. I worked 25 years in psych as an RN. I saw so much. So many stories untold. I never worked at a state hospital, and I think some of those are certainly the saddest. Boy, do I have stories, though! I'm sure your time at Willowbrook was an eye-opener. Thanks for getting back and letting me know you read the book.

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    1. Oh, I did not work at Willowbrook. After it was shut down, the residents were shunted around the state. I worked with residents from the facility after they were removed from Willowbrook. I'm still reading the book. But thanks for popping in!

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    2. Paranormal John here. Oh, thank you for the clarification. I imagine you heard some stories from former patients if they were able to relate them (depending on their disabilities). I believe the actual Willowbrook has been investigated (paranormal) a number of times. If any place could be haunted, I think it would be Willobrook. Such tragedy and sadness. I remember the Geraldo expose and I think it might still be on YouTube? Enjoy the book!

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    3. In thinking of it, most of them were nonverbal. A notable exeption was Henry Wesley. https://resourcecenter.org/dna-connects-henry-wesley-to-long-lost-family/ Henry had cerebral palsy but was diagnosed as developmentally disabled. He was not. He had a hearing problem. He lived at Willowbrook when they were willfully infecting patients with hepatitis to study both the spread and treatments for the disease.

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  2. I had to look up Willowbrook school; it made my blood boil. I'm thankful Katie never ended up someplace like that.

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    1. It was Geraldo Rivera's break into the big time. I remembered seeing it as a teenager on 60 Minutes.

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  3. While I am familiar with some detail of the Great Fire of London, I didn't know about the subsequent street violence against foreigners.

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    1. It was a tumultuous time, and in tumultuous times, people are always looking for the easy person to blame. We still see that behavior today.

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  4. Pudding Lane these days is an anticlimax considering its history. Just another concrete alley.

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    1. The Jack the Ripper tour was the same. Enjoying your country sometimes involves being able to see things as they were, not as they are now.

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  5. Didn't the fire end in Pie Corner?

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  6. Northsider, you must have been a king's jester in a previous time.

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  7. Almost any large city has had major fires at one point. Chicago, New York and San Francisco all come to mind. I guess we learned some lessons since the threat of fire in large urban areas has gone away.

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    1. Well, having municipal water was a huge boon to firefighting. They can now hook into a main at (or near to) the fire. This particular fire left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and destroyed nearly the entire city, as it was at the time.

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  8. You remember much from your trip.

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    1. AC, that is part of my reason for blogging. It is how I remember things. While there, I tried to absorb everything, but really, you cannot. There is just so much there. I bought a lot of books and read them to match up with the pictures. I'm also a googler. I read up on what I've seen. I also do that when I 'travel' on blogs: something piques my interest and off I go, googling like there's no tomorrow.

      My memory is not wonderful, but let me tell you, there is nothing wrong with my curiosity! I'm lucky not to be born a cat. I'd be dead by now.

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  9. Ah yes, the monument. It's hard to imagine what life was like at a time when everyone needed open fires, yet there was no running water and only rudimentary firefighting!

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    Replies
    1. There were so many 'great fires' and it is not hard to figure out why.

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