Thoughts...

Yesterday, someone that I don't know, left word saying that they were "offended" by the entry I made concerning the Norristown State Hospital.

This person went so far as to ask if I would go to a Japanese Internment Camp and take pictures there in order to make fun of it. While it is my opinion that their comments were uncalled for and out of line, I got to thinking that I should take a moment to make a few points.

One being that I feel the Japanese Internment Camp episode was and remains a truly ugly event in the United State's history. During WWII, many people of Japanese origin (some 62% of them US citizens) were forcefully removed from their homes, their jobs, and their families and put in (calling them what they were, prison) camps without "due process" or any legal protections the United States claims to give it's citizens. Many of these people never got what was taken from them back. While I realize the circumstances were dire - and the country was at war, the age-old "it's for national security" thinking trumped any sort of compassionate sensibility. You won't see me ever poke fun at Japanese Internment Camps, ever.

More to the point, it was my intention to show you the beauty of the Norristown Farm Park and to show you the buildings within it that, sadly, are boarded up and slowly crumbling away. Furthermore, it was to show you that I can poke fun at myself and my obsession with what appears at first glance, picayune.

The Norristown State Hospital once served its role in a different way. Today, it shelters only the criminally and violently insane. The fencing and barbed wire around some of its buildings is there for a reason. I assume that it continues to treat those that are not deemed "a threat" to society on an out-patient basis.

The hospital used to shelter people that were involuntarily committed. And it was for these people, those that couldn't deal with the pace, harshness, and at times, ugliness of the "real world", that the farm park (which was part of the hospital) came into being. The "inmates" worked outdoors, enjoying the fresh air, the rural-ness, the scents of dairy and other farm animals, the plant life, working with their hands, listening to the bird song, all the while removed from the pressures of life. For some of them, they got the human dignity that comes with having a personal meaning.

It was not that long ago, that "society" decided that these people shouldn't and couldn't be held against their will (or so it was stated, some would say it was to "save money") and the State closed it's doors to these people and basically put many of them out in the streets to fend for themselves. Many of them were ill-prepared to do so, and without structured medication, some turned to street drugs and homelessness.

I cannot say what the "right and wrong" of what happened during this time might be, however the change in "status quo", like change anywhere for many people, was difficult and for some led to tragedy.

For the farm park it meant the loss of its role with the hospital. For me, the farm park serves in a small way, much the same purpose it did for those that worked there, I can enjoy being outdoors, the fresh air, the rural-ness, the scents of animal and plant life, and listening to the bird song, all the while removed from the pressures of life.

I too, can ponder on the fate (and plight) of those who preceded me, while pondering the future fate of the buildings within the park.