Where's the Past?
In the neighboring town of Lousame, up in the hills, there is an old mine. About fifteen years ago, my husband and I went to its abandoned headquarters to check out the ruins. It was a decaying fly caught in the flypaper of time. Some of the buildings were falling apart, the roofs caving in. Many of them were surrounded by briars and impossible weeds. There was a building with compressors, another with unidentifiable machinery, a well head, offices, what seemed to be workers' barracks, and a few other buildings and The low building to the left is the office. houses, one of which was occupied. It was strange, being able to squirrel into some of the buildings, such as the workers' barracks. They were attached, simple, two-story homes. In one that we could enter, the occupants had left some things in the kitchen, and in a room there were old schoolbooks from the 1970's. In the offices there was a little window where we assumed the workers collected their pay. There were ma...