ALBANY, N.Y. -- In the heart of Albany sits a group of cozy buildings surrounded by sturdy trees. It’s a country-looking oasis that Sage College has been calling home since 1949.

Sage is a center for higher learning now; but long ago this place with its cozy buildings was a place that taught some of life’s lessons. Just ask Joe Albright. He remembers and not because he went to school there.

Prior to the college moving in, a cluster of buildings made up what was then called the Albany Orphan Asylum. Albright ended up here as a toddler in 1928.

"My mother died two months after I was born," said Albright. "But they couldn’t find my father." 

Today, Albright is one of the oldest living alums of what became known as the Albany Home for Children

“It’s always very nice to come back.”

Albright took us on a tour, and saw that the outside of the buildings have remained mostly unchanged since being built in 1907.

"In the administration building, right up the steps, the first entrance there were the offices and then the rest of the side was the kindergarten," he recalled. 

It’s mostly what happened inside of these buildings that suddenly sends a flood of memories back to Albright.

“I came in one day, I wasn’t supposed to be here, and I went by the office and the secretary wasn’t there. But I noticed the candy case was open. So, I went in and took candy out of the case and I filled my knickers up above the knees with candy. Right out of the office here in the Administration Building." 

He pointed out what used to be the auditorium and where they put on plays for the Knights Templar. The auditorium is no more, though not everything in Sage’s Administration Building has changed.

Originally built as Fuller Cottage, that's where the college now teaches science classes.

“Yes, this was actually the building that I spent the great majority if my life in," said Albright. "That half had 14 boys and that other half was 14 other boys."

It’s been over 70 years since the last time Albright plowed the roads or enjoyed cooling off in the wading pool. And although orphanages are historically portrayed as places of misery, Albright remembered his years here weren’t so bad after all. 

“You realize really what a good life you had. And I said it was the Depression and a lot of people didn’t eat as good as I did. They didn’t have sleeping quarters as mine. The only thing I told you that I missed was probably parents’ love. I never got too close to anybody because they came and went so fast.”

Thomas Wolfe once wrote, “You can’t go home again.” But Albright has proved that you can. Even if your old home is now called the Esteves Science Hall at Sage College.