There is a house I see every so often in my travels. It sits where the alabaster 33-mile marker stands along the long-defunct Pennsylvania and Lake Erie Railroad line — perched in a place where the train no longer rumbles by on an old stone foundation that has likely stood for over a century.

Every year, ivy and wild vines suffocate its simple charm, climbing up and over its slanted gingerbread slate roof on its right side, the one that faces Cedar Street. And every year, it loses one more shingle and sheds more luster from its ancient apricot paint.