I don’t think we have any more haunted houses in this town. What a loss! But around here a building needs to be deserted only for a few hours before they tear it down and put up a nail salon… or some real big house with no yard space and nobody ever home.
O, this glorious old ruin! Chock-full o’ haints, of course. All old houses are. Kids know that; most adults don’t.
So much unasked-for change around here… makes me feel like I’m a ghost, sometimes.
Grandma Moses knew these places–and painted them for us.
I like to run this piece now and then because I think it’s important to remember things that were good, people and places, squandered riches that we would’ve done well to keep.
Did I dream of all these places? There’s not a shred of them left. All pulled down, bulldozed, paved over, a perpetual sacrifice to the idol of mere ugliness. No more skating in the woods, because there’s no more woods. And that fabulous wealthy estate that I remember, torn away to make room for another housing development–I may be the only one left who ever knew it had once been there.
We don’t have to do these things.