Monday, May 4, 2009
Lambertville
Kierstin Seminack
This American Life, [episode "House on Loon lake"] told us about the story of three young boys who stumbled across a vacant house one summer and the way that the house affected their lives. Like the adventurous boys who told their story of discovering an abandoned house frozen in time, I too have wandered into a place where I do not belong.
Several years ago when I was still in high school, me and my friends went to an abandoned high school. I do not remember a lot about the building. However, I do remember going on a Saturday afternoon in August, and I remember ivy and vines covering the walls of the building. It was difficult to find an entrance into the building. Something else that comes to mind upon recalling the afternoon walking around Lambertville High is the temperature. It was cold standing within the walls on the vacant building; I remember wishing I had a sweater to wear.
Apparently, the school closed down around the 1990’s because there was a fire, however, the entire building did not burn down. Half of it still remained in tact. From the area we were able to walk around and explore, I felt that the building was eerie. We had done some “research” before we set out to find the abandoned high school and found ghost stories on the internet about it. Of course, that added to the uneasy feelings that the building gave off. However, there was also something about knowing that students my age walked around the same area I was walking around, that gave me a sense of wanting to learn more about what happened and a wanting to be there. It’s a strange feeling to describe, because you feel like you're part of the building when you walk around it, but there is so much history in the walls that I will never know or understand.
I also understand why the one man was saying he felt like the Naisons were watching him as they searched the house, and how he felt like he shouldn’t be in the house. In a way, I felt like we should not have been at the high school. Even though this building was not frozen in time like the Naison house, and few artifacts existed from when the school was last in session in the 1990’s, there was still a feeling that my friends and I were in a place we should not have been.
When you think about everything that exists within a house, and all the physical and emotional contents that a house contains, leaving like the Naisons did has to be extremely difficult. So much goes into making a home. I understand what the mother was saying when she said how sad it was that the house was left behind. That house was home to a family, to their memories, to their personal belongings, and it was left behind and maybe even forgotten. The true story behind the abandonment of the house and the reason for the family leaving may never be discovered. But the fact that this story has been told and shared can at least put some at ease to know a place like this existed.
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