Abandonment Issues: B. Donnelly House

Much like the Goderich God Rich House earlier in the Holocaust Abortion Tour, the B. Donnelly House was one of our fresh finds of the day, off the beaten path of our planned itinerary. If you haven't read the Holocaust Abortion Tour Houses (East Meets West 2) post, read it now to catch up on the tour, before continuing this post.

As we ascended the basement stairs, Rockandrollfreak turned the corner into the living room ahead of me, and let out an "Aww yeah!" or an "Ohh yeah!" or a "Fuck yeah!" or something of that nature. This excited me. I turned the corner behind him and saw the organ, and knew instantly that we had discovered a gem. The single file line up the basement stairs broke apart and the four of us all separated to different sections of the house, with Rock and I quickly meeting back up in the kitchen. As we poked through the belongings on the kitchen table and shelves, we went back and forth, tit for tat on a "Wow, look at this!" - "Oh shit, check this out!" routine. We called each other over to see old watches and a livestock tattooing kit and a baby picture and issues of Good Housekeeping magazines from the 1950s addressed to a B. Donnelly, and so on and so forth.

Exploring a confined space such as a farmhouse with a group of four is a very different experience than the solitary explores or intimate explores with my fiancee Ninja IX that I am accustomed to. When exploring alone or with Ninja, I find myself much more reflective and philosophically minded, pondering what life might have been like, and what may have happened to bring it to an end. I also have free reign over the house, to move at my own pace, come and go from room to room and spend hours poking around and reading letters and shuffling through photo albums. In the group setting, one must accommodate for the other members of the party, allowing them time in each area and waiting for them to clear out of a room for certain shots to be taken. This is the downfall of exploring farmhouses with a group. That reflective philosophical state that usually entrenches me is also quite lost in the group setting. But there is one aspect to exploring with a group of like-minded friends that is absent on those missions, and that is the shared excitement and camaraderie. To see Doom's face light up as he rounds a corner upstairs and shifts the position of an antique chair ever so slightly before stepping back and raising his point and shoot with a child-like gleam in his eye. To watch Dallas grow as a photographer with each and every expedition, shaping a style of her own and becoming more inquisitive and adventurous every step of the way. To go back and forth with Rock excitedly oohing and awwing over our little finds, like children at Christmas. To watch other explorers experience a fresh find, to see that excitement and exuberance, and hear them ask those same questions that I tend to ask, it all brings a smile to my face, even in retrospect.

In a world where I usually feel out of place, it is places like this where I feel most at home.

Have a look around, why don't you?

Organic experience


Kitch N


Radio friendly


Baby, baby, baby, oooh.


No time like the present


Checkered past


Directions For Tattooing (Part of antique livestock tattooing kit)


This is your brain on drugs


Get off your pedestal high horse


B. Donnelly


Mrs. Hamilton


A novel of American pioneering


The roof, the roof, the roof has a pretty serious leak actually.


Vogue vogue, let your body die with the cancer.


My Recipe Book


Date loaf


Good Housekeeping


Listerine. The proved treatment for dandruff. (Good Housekeeping)


Snitches get snitches and rats get trapped


Mirror mirror on the wall


Light it up


Jimmy Mo


The day the music died


Darkness consumes


Walk this way


Candy cane dreams


Sleeps with angels


Full of hot air


Nancy of Paradise Cottage


Cool Hand Luke


Fallpaper


A shell of who she used to be


The wooden shoe is on the other foot


I'm not a player, I just smoke a lot.


Grounded


Sleeps with devils


Thank you for visiting the B. Donnelly House


Once again, we hit the road. The four of us, joking and laughing, cranking our necks scoping for the next spot.

click here to check out all of jerm & ninja IX's ABANDONMENT ISSUES