"A blanket monster?" I asked.
"Yeah! I set a trap for it!"
It's possible that Paul has been spending too much time with me during the quarantine. I said,"Let me know if you trap him. Do you think he wants any coffee?"
"Dad! You don't know how rude the blanket monster is! It just comes in and makes noise!"
"Okay. Let me know if you catch him."
"Can we take a ride on the bike?" Paul asked.
"You mean, the bike with the trailer attached?"
"Yeah. Your bike, where I can ride in the trailer behind."
Looking up from the couch, I glanced out the window. It was sunny and pleasant. I said,"Sure, I suppose so. Good day for this. Let's do it. After I finish my coffee."
"Where are we going?"
"How about an abandoned cemetery?"
I turned off of Fourth Street and rolled up the hill, Paul's trailer behind me. He was making pleased, excited noises in the back: "Wheeee!" I pulled up in Fairview Cemetery.
"Here we are, pal."
Paul climbed out of the trailer, looking around with some wonder. "The abandoned cemetery," he said with some reverence.
Paul has inherited my interest in abandoned places. While not precisely ancient, Fairview Cemetery is a little-known cemetery within the city limits that was created, and then out of business, about 1926. It's not the coolest or the remotest, but for a little outing with the kid, it'll work.
"Come on, little guy," I said. "Let's walk through."
We took the path through the cemetery, looking at a few of the stones. Paul pointed at some hid back in the trees. "I see some!"
"Yeah. the place is getting a little overgrown."
"Is Ida buried here?"
"No, Ida's over the hill, in Highland."
I let him run ahead a little, darting along the path. He'd been cooped up on our property for so long, and he'd been so good about it. It was good to get him out a little.
For me, too.
Even in a pandemic, there's exploration to be had, to some extent. There's the remains of an old toxic incinerator from the nineties a couple of blocks from our house. When Paul wanted to go on a bike ride the next day, I thought of taking him down there.
It's not exactly Indian ruins, but it'll do.
We pulled up and Paul got out of the bike trailer. "Is that abandoned?" he asked.
I nodded. "It's abandoned."
Paul looked impressed. We looked at the skeletal girders and remaining roof area that stood in the field behind the wire fence. I remember when this thing was operational, back in my twenties, but it was way before Paul was born. To him, this was ancient.
"Look," he said. "A milk container."
There were a couple of empty gallon jugs blowing around in the wind. I said,"Got an idea, little man. Remember when we said skin color doesn't matter, as long as you help people? Let's help Lock Haven a little and pick them up."
"Okay."
"You get that one, and I'll get those two. And we'll put them in the recycling center."
"Can we go for another bike ride?" Paul asked me.
"Sure. We have time. You know what? Let me show you where we're going on a really old map. Would you like that?"
"No. Wait, I mean yes."
I got out the 1925 Sanborn Map and took it down to the kitchen table. It had been almost fourteen years since I'd gotten started in local history, and I'd managed to acquire a decent collection of resources at home. It had served me pretty well during the quarantine. Flipping to plate 25, I found the building.
"Here, kiddo. See this? This is the building we're gonna see. It's an old railroad storage shop. It's not there anymore, but we can see ruins/"
"Cool," said Paul. "Can we go now?"
"It's forty-seven degrees out. I think you're gonna need shoes first."
"Okay," said Paul, grabbing for shoes.
"Not high heels. Wear your sneakers."
Down Myrtle Street, and around the corner onto Park. Then we bore off onto Liberty Street, past the church, and stopped near the railroad tracks.
There are ruins everywhere, little bits and pieces of the past. Sometimes you have to be me to see them, though. The average person walks right by these old things, and never gives it a thought. I've basically built a career on stopping to wonder what the story behind them was.
"Here it is, little man. The ruins of the old storage building."
Paul got out of the trailer, looking around. I'll grant there's not a lot to look at---Along Liberty Street, it's a large, flat concrete floor, with the bases of a couple of pillars embedded into it. No wonder people don't notice it. We walked across it, looking around.
"Look, here's a piece of the wall," I commented. "This place was a hundred years ago."
Paul was strolling around on the concrete flooring. I knelt down. "Hunh."
"What?"
"Check it out---There's writing here." All of the times I'd walked around down here, and I'd never noticed writing carved into the concrete. Paul looked down beside me.
"What does it say?"
"I can't tell---It's pretty old and worn."
"I think that's a P."
I stood up. "Tell you what we're gonna do, little man. We're gonna come back soon with chalk. I'll show you how to chalk this up, and we'll see what it says."
"Okay. Can we use blue chalk?'
"The color doesn't matter. You can do this with gravestones, too, if they're all old and worn out."
"Blue, then," said Paul.
"I brought coffee," Tif said, coming in the door. She handed me a tray with coffee cups on it---Two frozen concoctions, and one the right way, black and hot. "Figured I'd support local business."
"Looks good. Thanks." I took my coffee, and handed one of the frozen ones to Paul.
"Can we go yet?" Paul asked.
"Finish your drink first. We got time." I turned to Tif. "You ready to go chalk up some mystery letters with us?"
"That's why I'm here."
With Paul in the trailer and Tif behind us in her wheelchair, we rode down Liberty Street to the ruins. I pulled up with the bike, and we climbed out. I was wearing my gray ghost sweatshirt.
"Let's draw with chalk!" Paul said happily.
"Hold up, don't touch anything yet. I'll tell you how to do this." I knelt down and blew some dust off the letters. "You run the chalk over it sideways, like this...." I brushed the chalk over the letters. "Makes them pop a bit." Paul helped, and we colored it up. "These are pretty worn down, though. I'll have to come back with some shaving cream."
"Shaving cream?" asked Tif.
"Yeah, you spray it on and then squeegee it back off. Leaves you with shiny white letters. You can also reflect light with a signal mirror and it leaves the letters in shadow, but that requires a sunny day, and when's the last time we could count on one of those?"
I knelt back down and looked at the letters. Paul had taken the chalk and was drawing a doll on the concrete nearby. "I'm thinking some variation on Pennsylvania. This was the Pennsylvania Railroad at one time, so it makes some sense."
"Can we go have dinner now?" Paul asked.
I smiled.
"Get in the trailer, little man. Let's go."
"Dad? Are you real busy?"
I glanced over at Paul. "Not really, why?"
"Can we go do the shaving cream?"
I dropped the dishes I was washing and said,"Yeah, sure. Let's get the bike."
For the third time, we rode down to the old ruins. I had the shaving cream and a roll of paper towels in my pack, and I picked up the vehicle ice scraper we'd filched from the garage to use as a squeegee. "Come on, little man," I said. "Let's get to work."
I knelt down and sprayed a line of shaving cream over the letters. Setting the can down, I spread it around with my fingers, then reached for the paper towels and realized that Paul already had sprayed a six-inch heap of shaving cream onto the ground.
"Paul, dammit, don't waste the shaving cream. Here." I wiped off my hands, and he gave me the squeegee. I ran it over the letters, pushing off the excess shaving cream and leaving the rest embedded in the lettering, leaving a white set of letters.
It was clearer. However, "clearer" doesn't necessarily mean "clear." I looked them over, squinting at them, and said,"Hunh. What do you think, Paul?"
Paul looked it over. "Maybe it's in cursive."
"I think it's some variation of Pennsylvania or Philadelphia. This was, at one time, both the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad, so it figures. Did you learn anything, little man?"
"I learned how to shave a sidewalk!"
"Close enough. Come on, let's ride."
I was in my office that night, working on writing, when Paul popped in. As he does.
"Dad? Can we go wrestle?"
"I suppose."
"It scares away the blanket monsters when we wrestle."
"Does it, now?" I don't know where he gets these things.
Paul nodded. "Yes! The blanket monsters don't like it when people wrestle. So if we do it, they'll run away forever."
I stood up.
"Okay, little man. Let's go wrestle."
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