For whatever reason my old hippie father really enjoys my pictures and stories of explorations. I've never received any scolding about legality or risk, in fact the one thing he ever told me was to watch for bad flooring and he even recommends places he drives by sometimes.

I always thought he worked as a chef in one of the newer buildings and I'd heard a few of his stories about the place for as far back as I can remember...but I found out otherwise after telling him about the hospital. I figured he'd show a special interest seeing as he worked on the same campus, but apparently I was all wrong about his employment.

He actually lived in one of the small houses for two dollars a week in 1967 and worked as a night guard in the old building. I couldn't believe that he was able to identify the cafeteria as I told him about it, neither of us realized I was urbexing his old job.

Apparently the area in the dilapidated building where you can view the small houses was where a story he'd told me about some time ago took place. To my surprise, this was 'The Vegetable Ward' he'd been telling me about over the years [the old man tends to repeat his hundreds of stories hundreds of times as you get to know him].

This was where the brain damaged patients were kept, which was a position that actually severely depressed him. He had always told me about a woman who sat from morning to night repeating 'I want to go to bed, la la, I want to go to bed!' and a few tragic cases where good people had sad stories about injuries and being reduced to near vegetative states.

One night, for whatever reason, he was asked to feed these patients. Something over twenty wheelchairs were lined up in the large room and the patients were fed porridge or some other soupy meal, which as far as I understand he was made to administer.

He quit shortly after this experience.