Abandoned

This is an old house on Knights Wood Road which is approximately Somewhere in Mathews. I don't know exactly what the area is technically called (Diggs?), but it's between Haven Beach and Another Place, where Another Place = I have no idea because I don't get down that way often, and it's one back road leading to yet another back road, with lots of short cuts and cut-throughs and dead ends and please just take my word for it - it's near Haven Beach. The End.

Mathews has so many old, abandoned homes and structures, and I find beauty in every last one of them. This particular house, however, will be forever associated with a tragedy, in fact a murder.

Mathews has almost no crime to speak of in comparison to even neighboring counties, and certainly in comparison to more urban areas. We leave our car keys in the ignition, we rarely lock our car doors, and many folks never lock their homes even when they are gone all day long. Some people even put signs in their yard saying, "Please, please take this junk. I'll pay you if you'll steal it." When I was little I tried to pull my sisters in a wagon to the end of the lane and put such a sign on them, but my plan was aborted. Adults were involved.

Sure, we have the occasional theft of a lawn mower, or a breaking and entering into the pharmacy to take all the percocets. Some of us have even been known to trespass on occasion, where us may or may not include me.

But a murder?

Without going into the details, I will simply say that Someone from Out of Town came here one fateful night with Another Person from Out of Town and sadly only one of those people left. The other young person's body was left here in a shallow grave near this old house. Mathews made national news, although it was not at all the sort of attention we were seeking.

Both a body and a house were abandoned together for a brief period of time.

Now, just the house survives, and it's barely hanging on, but it's still beautiful.