It's Been a Long Time

I've always loved history and historical places and things. I've never been a collector of anything. Not even as a kid. Unless you call having bags and bags of marbles "collecting". No stamps, no coins, no cans.

​Not as an adult either, though I have had a couple cool things I salvaged from my childhood. My only antique thing was an old De Soto hub cap I have hanging on the wall. I found it out in the woods. That's it's own story.

​Back during a restaurant search, Kris and I walked into an antique store up north in Phillips, WI. Just a lark.

​One restaurant I pursued was named Ike's. Going through the antique store I found and old "I Like Ike" button from the Eisenhower campaign. There was another old button that said "I Told You So". There was a very cool 1930's Electrahot Waffle Iron. Cloth cord and all.

​I thought they were cool and most of all, inexpensive pieces of yesterday, so I bought them. That waffle iron works great! So do the other two I've found since then.

​My last failed restaurant idea (like a few weeks ago actually) I had determined it would be great to incorporate inexpensive pieces of yesterday into the décor.

Awhile ago I started casually watching American Pickers, and well, in the past few months I've accumulated a few things that all have their own stories.

This one is it's own.

​I was out driving in our 1966 Ford Galaxie 500. That I picked up a couple weeks ago. In of course, it's own long story.

​I stopped at a garage sale which is really a little shop a guy has set up in a storage locker. I found a great little off brand 60's or 70's guitar amplifier that reminded me of the first one I had as a kid and was kind of interested but he didn't have a guitar to try it with. 

​Something else caught my eye. I couldn't believe I was seeing what I was seeing. What in the hell was this doing in this little storage shed mercantile in Wisconsin?

​I was drawn to it. Even though just last night I watched a show that made this items subject matter repulsive to me. And I'm thick skinned.

​I picked it up and looked at. I felt the rust slipping from the cast iron and knew my hands and my shorts would be red after that.

​I asked the guy the story. It was one of four in a box of random stuff he bought in an auction from a demolished building.

​As much as I disliked the reason for the item, I felt I should buy it. I didn't have any cash for it and was a ways from home where I was headed. So I told him I was interested and would comeback next week, if it was still there.. He's only open on the weekends.

​As I pulled Sadie (my car :) ) out of the driveway I went the opposite direction of home. To the closest ATM.

I went back.

​I bought this cast iron sign from 1932.

Now, hold the phone! First of all a reminder that this is my place on the web and I'll write, say, swear and post anything I want to. Second of all, remember, I'm as offended as you.

For some reason I didn't want to leave without it.

​I kept thinking about it and looking at it all the way home.

That sign probably hung in it's spot from 1932 until into the 60's.

​I have no idea what the business of the place was but I suddenly found myself thinking and imagining people, "colored" people. Hundreds, maybe thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who looked at this signed and wished and/or prayed that one day they would not have to use the "Colored Entrance". One day this country, -their country- would recognize them as equal and this would go away.

​I imagine some of them not only seeing the sign but touching it as they wished it's existence would cease. How many hands have touched that sign since the cast iron cooled?

​I am in shock of what we as human beings have done to one another. Are still doing to one another. Over, & over.

​Sure, we don't allow segregated entrances anymore but, we sure as hell are no closer to a world without discrimination. We have actually and sadly, lost ground since these signs came down. We were making progress. Not so much these days.

​This sign has brought me to tears on more than one occasion since I bought it early this afternoon. I'm not saying there's anything spooky going on but this sign makes me feel a connection to who knows how many faces of the pain of our past.

​Not just America. This whole damn world has had it's share of atrocities inflicted by the few and suffered by many. Our slavery and subsequent segregation are no better than the Nazi's atrocities against those who happen to be Jewish. The US had unpleasant interment camps too. No, that is not extreme comparison. They are all so horrendous that the fact that they occurred is inexcusable.

This is a real serious piece of our history.

​At one point I felt like, being the creative and mechanically ok guy I am, maybe I 'd melt it down and turn it into something good.

​I remember Steve at the storage shed store said; "They aren't the most politically correct thing to own, but they are a part of our history".

​My reply was "A history that people are trying to rewrite rather than accept. Truth is still true even if you can't see it".

My melting it down wouldn't make that chapter of our past go away or no longer be true. My turning it into something pretty would not change the fact that that cast iron hung on a wall on a building in Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America, Land of the Free and Home of the Brave from September 1932 until whenever it was taken down; and it hung there for an ugly reason.

​A leopard can't change it's spots. You can't polish a turd.

You can't erase the past, you can't pretty it up.

​We. Cannot. Change. History.

But unlike cast iron, leopards and turds, human beings CAN change.

​The only thing we need to do to change is- accept the things we can't change.

We always say we need to remember our past so we don't repeat it.

​I don't think we would repeat slavery or segregation. I also do not believe we're not capable of it. I just believe we wouldn't.

​There's a lot of talk about how horrible our past is. There's a lot of talk about who should do what, about all the things we can't change. There's all those crazy attempts to make it go away by rewriting history and destroying the evidence.

Those who suffered and lived through that past, those who fought and struggled to change it, those who died because of it are real people. Not just general stories. Real people. Real stories. Real suffering. Real life.

That still really happens.

​It's been a long time.

​And we are so far from the people we should be by now.

​We need to let go, accept and move on in reverence of the past. Fighting about it over and over hasn't done one bit of good. Forgetting it or erasing it would be the greatest of all our sins.

​Our ancestors may be gone but we owe the memory of their lives a better world than we're creating. They left us in better shape than we're leaving future generations. It is our responsibility to create a world closer to the one they worked to build.

I don't know what I'll do with this piece. Somebody tried to clean it up and damaged it which is ok with me, I'll leave it that way.

​What I know won't happen to this piece is that it will not be casually purchased by a racist who'd proudly display it in honor of their racism. I took that opportunity away when I bought it.

​It's safe out in my garage for now. And will remain safe from ever being used for ugly purpose again. But it's also a part history will not be erased while it's in my care. The sign didn't create the problem. The problem created the sign.

​So that was my day. And why I apparently started writing again.

​Another thing I never wrote about; after 35 years I quit smoking last July.

​It had been a long time.

One day common sense took over.

​There's always hope eh?