Scaron

An ordered massif of concrete in the green Adirondack range, crumbling Greek amphitheater, it’s presence strikes the mind as strange. The chips and cracks throughout the tiers, the weather worn orchestra shell, a dry fountain before the stage where grand tales performers did tell… Atop is a projector house, clad in lichen, needle of pine, for movies from a golden age, now half-lost to ruin and time. On shifting paths of pavement cracked, up an old sidewalk to the hill, saplings grow where the lodge once stood, its rooms with New Yorkers filled. They fled here from limpid summers, when the heat was too much to take, well before airplanes and A.C., they came to this place on the lake. Scaron Manor, once so sprawling, now it stands fallow, gone to scale, the nine holes, at least, still are clear, bushy meadows where critters wail. To the water I stroll leisurely, the beach of old still is in use, motorboats moored ten yards off shore, on the fine sands are scampering youths. I smile and walk past the fun, to the big cement walls I do go, craved right into the lake’s shoreline, once home to old-school wooden boats. I stare into this square lagoon, it’s now all frogs and lillipads, a child sits near with fishing pole, has far less nibbles than his dad. They say it’ll be a campground soon, with bathrooms put up by the state, showers and power for RVs, and I’m not saying that isn’t great. They’ll even preserve the ruins so others can look back in time, but I still wish the lodge was here, to see what it was in its prime…