“Now What Castle Was That Again?”
Honeymooners cling to the rugged Welsh Coast in Harlech Castle
Castles have always fascinated me. Whether crafted from wooden blocks or from multi-colored Lego Monstrosities, or the complex sandcastles I still design at fifty-two, castles have appeared in my imagination as places of mystery, romance, and danger.
As a Romantic, too, ruins intrigue me. Who lived here? What was life like then? How many died on this pleasant lea or battlement or beach? Each room of ruin contained secrets and ghosts and love stories and death stories and whispers on the wind of old conversations.
How many hands chiseled this stone? Where are those bones now? How many slaves and low-wage laborers toiled under a despotic ruler?
How many castles, ruined or dissolute abbeys, monasteries, Roman walls, baths and aqueducts, temples, and churches had I visited?
And all before my honeymoon with Mary Jane in Wales? Well, dear reader, so many.
Ruins are to me like tractor beams. Some places, even deep in the dark and mysterious Pine Barrens of New Jersey, transmit signals that become pilgrimages irresistible— a sort of calling. Can I discover a Civilization Lost? Or to stumble upon the cellar of a solo home? A home that once contained life and…
