Hiking Greystone with the Ghost of Woody Guthrie

“They should put ‘em in Greystone!” is what my Grams and great-uncles would say when someone was unhinged. Greystone Psychiatric Hospital, since demolished and its grounds turned into a public park, was an infamous mental hospital in Morris County, New Jersey. When it was abandoned, it became famous among urban explorers; now that it’s gone, it’s best known because Woody Guthrie lived there for years, when his Huntington’s disease was misdiagnosed as schizophrenia.

Bob Dylan was one of Guthrie’s many visitors. If you’re unfamiliar with Woody Guthrie, he was a folksinger, and “This Land is Your Land”—written in response to “God Bless America”—is one of his best known songs. His son Arlo Guthrie is also a songwriter, and every Thanksgiving, many of us listen to his album “Alice’s Restaurant,” which tells a story of littering, overzealous policing, and avoiding the draft.¹

Disturbing Tree at Greystone

I am a big fan of changing problematic institutions and businesses such as golf courses into public land that is returned to nature. The county parks department takes good care of this area, not fully rewilding it, but grooming trails and fields, planting trees set back, and allowing some of the overgrown areas to remain so, for the local wildlife.

My friend Suzanne introduced me to this place, and reminded me that Woody Guthrie stayed there. I was all set to hike up the Torne again and look for those Pileated Woodpeckers I saw last time. I had my camera with me. But I opted to join Suzanne on her long weekly walk, and I was rewarded with good talk, a good hike, and a fox sighting that surprised us both.

The morning sun shining off the gray and russet of this fox’s coat stunned me from such a distance that I asked Suzanne if the park had a fox statue. Then it turned its ears, and I took out my camera. The fox seemed unreal, hyper-real, an ur-fox, a paragon of vulpinity. I recalled the painted bronzes by Seward Johnson, who founded the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey.²

Mama Vixen

This was near the end of our walk, when we’d returned to the sidewalk and were headed back to the house. A couple was walking their elderly white dog, and all were oblivious to this fox intently watching them. In the middle photo, as the fox walks away, you can see the beginnings of a large patch of overgrown brush and fallen branches that make for a great hidey hole, a briar patch of sorts, for wildlife such as foxes. It’s cub season, so I interpreted this behavior to be a vixen guarding her den. It could equally be a tod bringing food to the den, or a solitary fox that happened to see the dog.

We heard a lot of birds and didn’t see too many; but I took joy in the American Robins that are everywhere, all year round. I’ve written about how I appreciate them and their songs before. There are a lot of holly bushes in New Jersey, which grow prickly leaves once they are browsed by deer. Their berries also feed these Robins all year round, so we get to see their red vests and their bold, hopping strut in winter, too. We saw a flash of a goldfinch and heard its song, watched turkey vultures sail in the thermals and spread their dark, skeletal wing-fingers in the sky. And we stopped at Suzanne’s latest “favorite place,” a spot by a stream where there are rocks that are good to sit on. This view is from that spot:

We sat and tried to count ten seconds with only nature sounds. Even in the suburbs, it was easy. She recorded these ten seconds from this spot in spring, so you can image being there:

Do you have a favorite place? Tell us in the comments! Lately, mine is a secluded spot on Timber Creek where I sometimes spy a Great Blue Heron, Belted Kingfishers, various ducks, several kinds of woodpeckers, Brown Creepers, and songbirds. I’ve tracked raccoons and beavers in the mud and sand there, seen crows harass a large red-tailed hawk, and more.

Suzanne and I also came upon a group of crows, who I disturbed by aiming my camera at them. They are aware when they are watched.

I’m reading In the Company of Crows and Ravens, a rather exhaustive look at the behavior of corvids, their effect on human culture, and humanity’s effect on their behavior. It’s good but dry, and I’m reading Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart as well, as I now live near Philly, her adopted home. She is also the lead musician and singer of the band Japanese Breakfast. She’s Korean-American, and the book is largely about grief and her fraught relationship with her Korean mother, who showed love most strongly through food. I’ll be visiting Dolsot House in Cherry Hill, and the titular H Mart in Elkins Park with its upstairs food court, very soon.

I’m getting very close to starting the sequel to Vyx Starts the Mythpocalypse, which you can buy as an ebook for Kindle and all other e-book formats, paperback, or get a signed copy from me. When I begin writing it, every Sunday’s post will be a chapter from the book, for paid subscribers. I’ll shift my free posts to Wednesdays. The first time, I wrote 30 chapters in as many weeks, and I plan to do the same again.

Get ready for Vyx Stops Weathergeddon…

1. The original site of Alice’s Restaurant is in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and is on my list of places to visit.

2. Follow the link (also here) for his rendition of The Three Fates.