Gate, 2

I wonder if Pasadena has any good haunted houses. Real ones, I mean. There must have been a haunted house where you grew up. Every town has at least one. I knew of two haunted houses in my hometown, both on the outskirts, one west and one southeast. Old farm houses, both of them.

In the 1960's, farm flight was already beginning. It's possible both homes had been abandoned by owners who sold their farms for good money and moved to town.

To kids, the emptiness of these lonely houses left room for imagination to expand. The house west of town slumped alongside the road; we pedaled our bikes to it in daytime and wandered inside, wondering at the graffiti and the odd items left behind. Did they belong to the people who left, or the ghosts who stayed?

We discovered the other house in the early 70's. On a double date, for some reason I was driving and not one of the boys, as would have been the usual back then. I parked my father's compact car at the end of a long driveway and turned off the headlights. All four of us, sixteen-year-olds, tip-toed along the darkened lane toward a house hidden by trees, while our eyes became accustomed to the night. We crept up the porch stairs and peered into the windows, but it was so dark we couldn't see inside. Then we heard something. I don't know what it was--don't remember--but it came from the house and I know we all heard it because we all leapt off the porch and ran as fast as we could back down the lane, shrieking and giggling, to tumble into my father's car and make our getaway to the lights of town.

The next day my father asked how the print of a large tennis shoe had ended up on the ceiling of his car.

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In case you missed it, we're having a contest here on the ol' PDP. It's called "Camelot Where You Are" and all the details are here on yesterday's post. Enter a photo of Camelot Where You Are to win a copy of my upcoming novel, 

"Camelot & Vine!"

Big Rock Candy

Toward the end of the day when it's nearly dusk here in the flatlands, the mountains north of Pasadena get a pinky-orange glow from sun still warming their folded slopes. It only lasts a few minutes (more than five, fewer than ten) so you have to pay attention.

I grew up in Illinois. It's flat there. Your eyes can go for miles without running into so much as a hill. Living here is a constant marvel--mountains! ocean! desert! And every time I look north I feel blessed, especially when the mountains are pink.

I'll tell you this, too: visits to Illinois, which don't happen often enough, bring just as much wonderment. When nothing obstructs your vision, it's amazing how much you can see.

Time Skies

Looking north to Pasadena from Raymond Hill.

On a fall day in Illinois when I was about fifteen, the skies were like these skies--cloudy and restless. It was my first year in high school. The route home from school was about a mile, maybe a little more. I could have cut through the neighborhoods to Lions Park but instead I took Taylor Street, because it was straighter and it got me to the same place. I guess I was in a hurry.

As I crossed the bridge over the Kishwaukee River a feeling of sadness overwhelmed me. It was a beautiful melancholy, an adult feeling I'd never felt before. I wanted to understand it, to keep it.

I slowed down and cut through the park, shuffling through the mixture of pine needles and autumn leaves on the ground. I didn't have words for the feeling, but I knew Time was moving--I was moving. There was no stopping either of us and precious things were being left behind. The brand new knowledge of that enormity was what I wanted to savor.

I stayed among the pine trees, as though stepping out into the open would end the spell. A trickle of river ran alongside the grove, and from where I stood I could see the small shelter by the baseball diamond. The park was empty. I waited as long as I could, hiding in the trees and holding my new feeling until some kids came along on bikes, breaking into the autumn silence. It was time to go home.

Fleeting time is a familiar concept to me now. It's just as enormous as it was then--no less beautiful and no less sad.