I am fascinated by old, derelict, abandoned structures, particularly houses. When I was growing up in the Detroit suburbs, delivering the morning newspapers, I was afforded plenty of time to go snoop around abandoned houses (over on Sibley Road). I loved it. New construction fascinates me too, but not as much as old places. When Jody and I first moved out her over ten years ago, there was an old house on 972 that was occupied. Soon after, it was vacant, and within five or six years, it had fallen in on top of itself. Amazing. I guess people abandon houses the same was as they pull a car up into the yard, and never think about it again for 15 or 20 years. I can show you houses where the riding lawn mower stopped, and that was it. It has not moved since. You can hardly see it from the road, it is all over grown with weeds and saplings, but I know it's there. This particular structure (see photo) continues to decline. I would really like to get inside it and poke around a bit. I expect I could retrieve at least a jar or two, maybe a couple old cans. Maybe Prince Albert in a can. Who knows.Anneal -- Verb: 1. to make (something, such as steel or glass) less brittle by heating and then cooling. 2. strengthen, toughen. "When I get ready to stop at the end of the day, it will cool down really slowly, and I anneal the glass to make it stronger." Mary Bush, Sedalia Democrat (Missouri), August 16, 2017.
Did You Know? If you were looking for a saying to apply to the word anneal, it might be "everything old is new again." The word was originally associated with one of the oldest technologies of humankind: fire. It derives from the Old English word onoelan, which was formed from the Old English roos al, meaning "fire." In its earliest known uses, which date from around the year 1000, anneal meant simply "to set on fire." That sense has become obsolete, however, and nowadays anneal is associated with DNA research, in reference to the heating and cooling of double-stranded nucleic acid.
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