Old Buildings

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Today I am grateful for old buildings. New buildings are okay, but to me they are pretty much boring. There are no ghosts of past events scoping the place out, trying to cause trouble. Usually everything is clean and precise with no dusty corners or nooks and crannies.

Old buildings tell a story. Their squeaks and groans when you walk across the floor remind you how many people walked those boards before you. Their bubbly glass windows that leak like a sieve and blow a draft across your neck remind you that they were made by a craftsman and not in a factory.

If they have push button light switches they remind me of my grandma’s old farm house and her yelling at us to stop pushing the buttons and wasting electricity. Their basements have low ceilings and loose bricks crumble their foundations.

Old buidlings have clunking, groaning heating problems and the the whistling-hiss when the steam is let off of the radiator. Their plumbing clinks and the water temperature changes every two seconds. God forbid someone flush while dad is in the shower!

Jim Thorpe, a sleepy mountain town in Pennsylvania has hundreds of old buildings. They have aged into their character. Just like old women. . .and men. And they have a lot to say. Maybe that’s why I love them.

a8@\3