A Pre-Demolition Photo Jaunt
Posted Thursday, Aug 20th, 2009 at 1:51pmI recently re-connected with an old friend - Mina Hamilton. My friend Beth and I spent a summer with her back in 1976 helping her fight the good fight against the Army Corps of Engineers. The Army Corps was about to dam the Delaware River. They had already bought thousands of homes that were to be flooded, including Mina's old family home on the banks of the river. Beth and I volunteered for one month for room and board and a skinny dip in the river every afternoon. Mina was renting her home back from the Army Corps so that is where we all lived. It was a beautiful, old, and very solid house. When Mina's family owned it they also owned two miles of riverfront property!
Mina and I found each other through a combination of serendipity and e-mail and had lunch last year, laying eyes on each other for the first time in 32 years! Mina asked me to come with her on a photo journey to the old house which is due to be demolished anytime this summer. And that is what we did. Here are a few pictures.
Here is Mina on the trail to her house.
The house was still strong and sturdy except for a few holes in the floors and roof. The textures inside were beautiful.
Here Mina looks at some old wallpaper.
This wall paper was from the room I stayed in, back in 1976. Interesting - I remembered the magnolia blossoms but not the bird!
Bringing the outdoors indoors!
A minimalist drawing by a grape vine.
A beautiful old robin's-egg-blue pot with a hole in it.
My favorite wall paper bird trying to eat strawberries.
Mina showing me something- but the photograph looks like she's casting a spell.
A book cover on the floor...
A magical blue-tailed visitation.
The best news: she stopped the dam! Here's the remnants of an old bumpersticker.
Lastly, an archetypal hole in the floor that I swear I dreamed about earlier this year. In the dream I dared myself to go down and eventually went down about 25 feet and fiddled with relics and treasures.
