On a pleasant Saturday drive through the Pine
Barrens and later through the farmlands surrounding Lawrenceville and
Princeton, we found ourselves in the vicinity of a familiar and favorite past
haunt: the House of the Porcelain Incident. On that initial visit many months
ago, as we left the area, we saw one other boarded up and forgotten house, but
it was strewn with a litany of warning signs were we to inspect the site. On
this day, however, it was vacant, of both barricades and signs of recent
inhabitance.
Pulling into the long dirt lot and following the
crescent along the backyard and ending near the tree line, which opens up to
the many acres of fields and farmland beyond, we did not really know what to
expect. We found two small shed structures, one modern, the other falling apart
and made of blackened wood. Beyond that, against the brush, was a collapsed
workshop area, strewn with pieces of hardware, tools, household items, and even
children’s toys. Ivy had tossed a Jurassic Park dinosaur head circa 1999 in my
direction and we carefully mounted the puppet on a stick, to greet future
visitors. We joked that someone had apparently Office Space’d a television monitor, as the electrical detritus and
broken glass spattered the lot around the Escape.