There’s an old home place on a spacious lot behind the college in the town where I live. The house and out-buildings are long gone with only a couple of concrete entryways and deteriorating sandstone rockwork left as memorials. What type of house, when it was constructed, the size and who built it or lived there are a mystery.
There are many old, two-story homes in the area that have often been converted into student housing. It may have originally been the home of a professor or administrator. I envision pipe smoking intellectuals drinking brandy and discussing the legalities and consequences of the Federal Reserve Act. Perhaps grilling steaks on the outdoor barbeque at a going away party for a conscript on his way to Europe in 1917. Maybe a welcome home celebration for a fellow teacher whose career was interrupted by World War 2, a survivor who flew a Corsair off the deck of an aircraft carrier in the Pacific.
Was the house later sold and used as a rental for college students? Did long-haired, pot smoking youths in bell bottomed jeans and brightly colored shirts and blouses get the munchies and scarf hot dogs cooked on the ancient barbecue while listening to Led Zepplin on the boom-box? Did the home have a carriage-house built to keep a horse-drawn buggy out of the elements that became a stable for a 1964 Ford Mustang in the Flower-child era?
Undoubtedly there were countless good times and celebrations as well as tragedies and sorrows. Shared grief from friends dying in European wars, or classmates lost in Southeast Asia.
Did their laughter and tears coalesce into an essence that remained long after the physical structures and people were gone? Could this intangible sphere, unseen and untouched, but felt or recognized by a sixth-sense or spiritual connection, exist without either rejoice or sadness? Do our visitations add to its existence or reduce it?
Will it continue forever or erode back to nature as the rockwork is doing?
I don’t know, but I’m often drawn to such areas for reasons I can’t explain.
End