Ruins in the forest

March 13th

If dreams were lightning, thunder were desire
This old house would have burnt down a long time ago

John Prine — “Angel from Montgomery”

Today on my morning walk in the nearby forest, I found what looks like ruins of some building or a structure. My forest is not really big — I think my best estimate is that it has a size of about 12 kilometers square. A railroad and the expressway divide it into three parts, and there is a narrow woodland strip that connects it to a huge forest complex. I’ve been playing in this forest since I was a kid. In the beginning, my grandfather would take me there, so I would learn my way around it. Then it was MY place for walking, biking, skiing, learning to ride a motorcycle that I would “borrow” from my father, chasing frogs in the local pond, collecting strange rocks and fossils in a gravel pit, having a bonfire on the hill with the guys (after playing Indians with homemade bows and arrows), holding hands with a girl next door that I liked. You know — all that you do growing up.

Forest was bigger then. There was no expressway, there was no encroachment of civilization from all sides. But even now, it is still big enough for mysteries and new discoveries. Today, as I was walking on the small wooded path toward the local parish cemetery (that is also a recent development — it is there only since 1996), I’ve noticed something strange down the slope from where I was walking. I went closer to check it out, and I found some big-ass blocks of what looked like concrete.

They are all covered in moss. There are small and some quite mature trees growing in and around the place, so whatever it was, it is gone for at least 30 years. It looks like ruins of some structure, maybe of a big house that once stood there. Also, I am not sure if that is concrete. It may be stones that were worked to the shape to be used as the foundation of something. I couldn’t stay there longer to properly explore the place as there was a big dog barking someplace very close, and I didn’t have my walking stick with me (since that was supposed to be a simple Sunday walk where I didn’t expect any danger). But — if that was a house, there should be something more than just some foundation blocks. Some remains of walls, or a walkway, or some piping or whatever. But there was nothing of that kind there. Just those blocks, moss, leaves, and trees. And the dog barking close by. I know my forest very well, and I had no clue about anything like this hiding among the trees there. I don’t recall ever being in that particular place before, which in itself is surprising, considering the rather small size of that forest. I will do some more investigation online and I will talk to my mom who lived in the area for more than 70 years — maybe she knows something about it. I will definitely go back there to explore some more, this time with a stick in the case of a big dog.

There is still one more question — whatever it was, what destroyed it? What kind of force moved those blocks and slabs, weighing a ton or more, apart and aside? That wasn’t any fire or simple decay. It had to be something a lot more powerful. As I was walking home, I started singing (in my head, don’t worry — I am aware of my inability to carry a tune) the song “Angel from Montgomery” by John Prine. I don’t know why — I guess perhaps because it is just a wonderful song. But those lines above struck me as a good explanation for the destruction of those ruins. Until I know better what it was and what happened there, I will stick with the nice rationalization from that song — that unfulfilled dreams and desires brought this house to ruin.