1
08
2003
On vacation this week in New London, NH, I explored the old farmhouse on my family’s property. The structure dates from 1793 and is in the state’s register of historic places. Part of it has been renovated for apartment living (one of my cousins lives there with her husband), but part of it is still crusty rooms that nobody enters except to deposit broken chairs. The smells of creosote and of unpainted wooden walls fill the dank air. As a kid I used to play table tennis with my cousins in one room, but I thought the rest of the place behind latched doors was haunted.
My mother also remembers playing here with her own cousins 50 years ago. They leapt from the rafters of the attached barn (now gone) into haystacks on the wooden floor. Now, as she says, these rooms have been picked over by family members, and then by antique dealers, and then by junk dealers.
I have to admit it’s still a little spooky for me to be up here by myself. I ventured in only in broad daylight. 
