Tuesday, August 9, 2022

Ghosts

 I imagine that you all are just about sick of hearing about grandchildren. 

I left that happy place and headed home. It is a five and a half hour drive. It doesn't bother me. I like driving alone sometimes. I just bring up Pandora radio on the cell phone, put it in its handy little holder and drive home listening to Mumford and Sons Radio. That alone is a pleasure, since Tim doesn't care for that kind of music. He wants to listen to classic rock. I don't mind that, but I enjoy listening to new music too. It's nice to click off the miles listening to something different. 

I'm afraid that I was doing an awful lot of day dreaming on the way home. You see, John (who writes the blog 'Beans and I on the Loose' ) is a full time traveller. He and his cat Beans are always exploring some mapdot, and that life fascinates me. Like as not, I pull up where ever he is, courtesy of Mr. Google, and read about it too. Anyways, if you are not following him, I encourage you to check him out. Right now, he is doing a fascinating series on Ambrose ND, which is very close to the Canadian border. The town has a population of 17 people. 17! I cannot even imagine a town that small, really. 

The cool thing is that as the population dwindled, houses were simply abandoned. It is a ghost town. Old homes falling into ruin, filled with the momentos of those lives. John's been walking around documenting this stuff, and I've been poring over these posts. The more I study the pictures, the more I read about the place, the more questions I have. If curiosity killed the cat, I gotta say that I'm very grateful to have been born another species altogether. 

I daydreamed as I drove. One of the houses that I pass every time is in Elysburg, PA, at the intersection of Rt 54 and Sleepy Hollow Road, and I always feel sorry for it, and wonder about the stories it could tell, about the families that lived under its roof. But with all of John's explorings in my head, for the first time, I really just wanted to stop and explore the place. Get out. Walk around. Peek in windows. 

It was all I could do to talk myself out of it. I've only passed through the area, and I'm not at all familiar with it. That's the sort of misadventure that can get a person shot, some folks being mighty protective of their property. 

So I drove 277 miles, passing old houses, unoccupied, falling down. I studied them all as I passed them, and I wondered about them and what they held, I wanted to explore them all, try to recreate the people who lived there, piece together their story. 


The world contains so many stories, and once again, I was grappling with this wild desire to know them all. Unfortunately,  the ones that interest me the most it seems are the ones that I can never know. The people who could have told them are gone from this world. 

Anyways. go read about John's adventures. 

24 comments:

  1. My mother in law and I used to stop at those types of houses throughout the Finger Lakes ( around Seneca Lake especially). Had to be careful not to fall through the floors.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well. I've been well and truly bitten by the bug, Bettina.

      Delete
  2. I find John's posts rather interesting as this same thing happened on the Canadian prairie. As kids we went through many old houses. These houses are gone now. Once taxes aren't paid the municipality bull dozes the houses.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ThaI remember that when I was a child, a friend lived next door to an abandoned house. We loved exploring it. Like the houses that John is touring, this house belonged to a doctor. There were a lot of very scary pictures of very scary diseases.

      Delete
  3. Thanks for the introduction to Beano and I. Compared to our country, where every inch is owned and manicured, it is wonderful to see these dilapidated old houses left just to rot. You also have in America 'tiny houses' which look intriguing as well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. These old houses strike me as sad. They once housed families who celebrated birthdays and holidays. I think of the laughter and the tears too, because no life is complete without both. And now they are empty, with the skitterings of small animals to keep them company as they sink to their inevitable end.

      Delete
  4. I've been enjoying John's travels for ten or eleven years now. Such s the pressure on land around here that any abandoned building is quickly removed and something else built in its place. It hasn't always been like this, there were empty houses and farm buildings around when I was a lad - always a place for adventures.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Funny, John. When I think of your country, what pops in my mind is the ruins and ancient buildings carefully tended. I suppose that is different than the plain homes of the ordinary people, isn't it?

      Delete
  5. Sleepy Hollow Road. I love it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Abandoned places are fascinating both in terms of their stories and visually. You never know what interesting shapes deterioration will produce.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for the link to John's blog, Debby. I can see myself spending a good amount of time searching through his old posts. It is sort of sad to see the ruins but very interesting too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Isn't it? Honestly, I would love to be there, myself.

      Delete
  8. You and I share similar taste in music. You introduced me to Lord Huron and I am forever grateful. John's blog has been added to my list.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love that group. I was introduced to them through Pandora Radio. Also the Steeldrivers. Chris Stapleton as a singer has always impressed me with the range of music that he does. He was in that group until 2010.

      Delete
  9. In the days I traveled a lot, I had several favorite houses. Once I decided to blog about one, and had to find a Google Street photo of what it had become, bulldozed flat and turned into a county building.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think it is because we have brought so many houses back to life that I always see an old house and immediately visualize what it was as well as what it could be again.

      Delete
  10. I'm always torn because I want to see more of the world but hate traveling alone and I like my own bed. A conundrum really.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LOL Pixie. I do understand conundrums. I have no attachment to my bed, really, but I have an attachment to the one sleeping on the other side of it. Out of necessity, one of us has to remain behind. We take turns. It won't always be like this. But for right now it is.

      Delete
  11. I will check out that blog! It sounds fascinating. I am always intrigued by unusual old buildings. You can always photograph them from the street, but I'd be hesitant to approach them and poke around too closely.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ms. Moon got in trouble with your Florida fall-y down house.

      Delete
  12. Great post - and resonant with some of my thoughts recently: abandoned places; lost lives; hidden stories... Jane likes to look at the houses by the lake near our house in France - many are old and dilapidated; faded glory. She weaves all sort of narratives and would love to go inside many of them to explore.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Jane has many kindred spirits, it would seem...

    ReplyDelete

I'm glad you're here!

Weary

I am sure that everyone has seen the video of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. I lived in Baltimore for a couple years while my...