DIAGNOSING THE OBSESSION
YOU CAN LEAVE YOUR HOMETOWN, BUT The GOOD, the STRANGE, and the darkness never really leave you.
When I think back on childhood, my hometown is always a main character. Every corner and every shortcut carried a quiet eeriness - dark in the best possible way. I grew up surrounded by places most kids fear. Mental institutions. Decrepit hospitals. Spider-filled tunnels. Endless woods. The quietly malevolent Bingo the Clown. And we loved it. The creepier, the better. Hatchet Harry at YMCA sleep away camp? Perfect. The “albino farm”? Please. Try to scare the shit out of me again. I’m ready.
Were we all equally deranged? Or just conditioned to accept our dank, macabre surroundings because they were our playgrounds?
The backdrop you’re raised in works its way in early. It runs through your blood, with or without your permission. This is a walk down memory lane, sharing bits of creepy lore and plain old weird stuff from my childhood that was completely, utterly normal where I grew up.
IF YOU KNOW,YOU KNOW…
Let’s call my hometown Mathlaw. That may be obvious to those of you in the know - welcome back to your childhood.
Mathlaw has no less than eight cemeteries - one of them boasting a steep decline that we called “Suicide Hill” because we were sick and twisted like that.
And speaking of “unaliving,” the photo of this foot bridge is how we crossed a river that runs through our city. Parents permission and all. No danger there…
My middle school was built on top of a graveyard, complete with an underground, pitch black tunnel that was “Off-limits.”
The tunnel was supposed to be inaccessible, but I walked it weekly, as did pretty much every kid in my school, because they told us not to, of course. It brought us to the woods and metal shop classrooms, where we were supplied with saws, power tools, ball-peen hammers, and welding equipment by questionably sober teachers. We started taking these classes in sixth grade, with most of us around age eleven. Safety first in my hometown.
Nobody was allowed on the ever-elusive fourth floor of the school. It was caged—not walled, but caged off. The caged “doors” offered a glimpse inside if the sun hit at just the right angle: inches of decades-old dust, layers of spider webs, and odd things like mannequins that definitely resembled dead bodies. But we always wanted to see more, and just as one of us would get close enough to the stairway cage to get a solid peek inside, Mr. D would appear, yelling, “Get the hell outta there, ya ratbag!”
Images of the school and gravestone are indeed real photos, but the one and only stand-in-photo on this page is the hallway depicting the tunnel. However fellow classmates would agree this is pretty spot on.
during winters, after school was spent at our ski hill, which never seemed dangerous…
Until school got out and it turned into a summer camp most of us attended for a good month or so, at the cost of $25 a week. Can you imagine? There, we took hikes that included crawling through spider-filled drain pipes, running full speed down the black diamond ski hill, and discovering all the rusted-out junk that lay beneath the snow. It was never cleaned up in any season, because it was the ’80s and who cared.
My dad taught me how to drive in the parking lot of a public hospital for the mentally ill.
Because why not? Me driving like a newbie maniac was not high on their list of their worries I guess… Nowadays, it’s a pretty kick-ass decrepit building that has Youtube clout as one of the best abandoned building sites to visit. Yes, it’s still there as pictured above and no, you’re not ‘supposed’ to break in to take photos of the inside. So definitely ‘don’t’ do that…
Speaking of abandoned institutions for the mentally ill, here’s another a stone’s throw from my childhood home, where many of my soccer games were played.
Because why not get some kicks in on the premises where “horrific human rights abuses, including eugenics-based practices, sexual abuse, and Cold War–era radiation experiments” took place (quoted directly from the school’s website). The institution was half in use and half shut down during my time on these grounds, and today it sits as yet another abandoned playground for the “don’t-give-a-crap-about-trespassing” folk. The complex is less than a mile from my family home, and who knows how prevalent that radiation was in the air or groundwater back in the day…
Edge of the soccer field is above in this shot… the only photo I could find that shows where it was located.
even the beautiful old mansions in mathlaw are slightly creepy, but to us, they were completely normal.
This fabulous gem is actually really gorgeous, but looking back, you could throw in some somber lighting in the already dark rooms, hide a few Three Men and a Baby life-size cutouts, and Super 8 this location to create the perfect setting for a timeless horror flick. This was home to my high school winter semi-formal and our NHS induction ceremony—because celebrations should always be light and airy.
a few more hometown memories…
“Don’t worry the train won’t come” we told ourselves during our railroad short-cut jaunts.
Yes, this is a real Medieval (style) castle, built in 1928 and originally owned by a medical hospital - where supposed dissection areas and morgues were housed. In modern days, it was filled with secret passages and hidden rooms. And if you’re wondering, of course people heard ghosts. The castle was declared condemmed and torn down in 1917.
Local Zayre’s Department Store where we got our school clothes, and discounted motor oil in the next aisle. Fabulous, just like the sign says!
ARE YOU FROM MY HOMETOWN? SHARE A MEMORY… I’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU
“I am a serial killer.
I would kill again.”
— AILEEN WUORNOS