The Old Fresh Air Camp Chapel Nook

Takes up about the space of a walk-in closet. Looks interdenominational to me. No youth summer-camping experience was complete without some compulsory reverence. Camp is where I learned I was going to hell because I wasn't Catholic, along with the Lutherans, "Piscopalians," Jews and whatnot; most of the people in the world. And praying with your hands folded in front of you means you're really praying to the devil. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

The Old Fresh Air Camp Dining Hall

I can't figure out if the campers dined on their institutional food cafeteria style or (because of the round tables)  family style so they could learn manners. It's been more than 40 years since anyone ate here. Did you go to a residential camp as a kid? Remember the big institutional gallon tins of fruit cocktail? Remember the cool little individual boxes of cereal, and the little milk cartons?

The Old Fresh Air Camp Ceiling

Now, before y'all start hunting around for this old camp seeking thrills and plunder, I want to let you  know 1)  there isn't anything worth anything, 2)  it's dusty, moldy, and has asbestos issues, and there's no water or electricity, and 3)  it's locked tight and it's on private property which I patrol with my pit bull Osama. This is the ceiling. Not healthy.

The Old Fresh Air Camp Furnishings

The few remaining dorm furnishings were all pushed into this corner, where they are rank with dust and mouse droppings. There is no question that the couch (or was it a daybed?) is from the 1970s, because I used to own one much like it.

The Old Fresh Air Camp Dorm

Taken inside the dorm where the Fresh Air campers bunked from 1957, when the dorm was built, to 1971, when the camp closed. This was the emergency exit. The counselors bunked in dreary small rooms (with private toilets) right next to this one.

The Old Fresh-Air Camp

This property was once a summer camp for city children, and the cabin I live in was the gatekeeper's house. The camp, half a mile up the lane, closed in 1971. The lane ends in this circle at the camp building, consisting of dining hall and dormitory. The tree in the raised bed is a gorgeous redbud when it's in bloom. The gates, for which I had keys, persisted until road widening in 2002.

I was able to enter the ruins and take photographs, and I'll be showing them here over the next few posts. No surprise that the building was closed in part because of asbestos issues.

Toward Winter's End

This winter waited until the third week of February to really snow, and then a week later it snowed again, and the first week of March it snowed and then snowed again. The grape hyacinths are blooming, the robins are passing through here, the geese are flying north, I saw them all yesterday evening; then this morning it snowed once more. The lane where I, all bundled up against the wind, took my daily walk was crossed with arrow-like turkey tracks. May this be the last snow, so I can get to weeding and planting!