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And, Amorite or Eremite, or General Averagee
Yesterday while out with my camera, I took a picture of the chief rubble heap remaining of the Reid & Murdock Warehouse not just because it was post-industrially striking, but because right smack front and center was a fractured street number on a piece of pale stone and I couldn't have dressed the set more poignantly if I'd had a budget.
Today while on my way to catch a bus from Highland because I had no chance of making my doctor's appointment if I waited for one of the buses that ostensibly run past my actual street, I saw there were three backhoes on site busily clearing away the last of the rubble, the heap I had photographed yesterday among them. A man in a safety vest and hard hat was standing on the far side of the chain-link watching them, I figured the foreman. So I crossed the street and asked if I could ask him something about the demolition and he said yes and I told him I'd been hoping to get a brick from the site because I was fond of the building and he made one of those hold-on-a-minute gestures and walked over to one of the smaller piles of dirt and wreckage where they'd been pulling up the foundations and felt around in it for a brick and brushed the worst of the dirt off and handed it across the chain-link to me. "It was pretty old, huh?" he said sympathetically. "Built in 1929," I said. He had sunglasses and a mustache and between that and the hard hat I am not sure I'd recognize him if we met in street clothes—dark, stocky, maybe ten years older than me—but I might know him if I saw him again at the site. I thanked him seriously. He said the Knights of Malta Hall would be fine. A car honked at me for technically standing in the street and I walked away up School Street carrying a ninety-year-old brick and singing about half of Kipling's "A Pilgrim's Way," which was suddenly and I don't care if over-aptly in my head. I wrapped the brick in Kleenex while waiting for the bus and eventually got a small brown paper bag from a 7-Eleven to slide it into for safekeeping. It's old red brick, partly powdered and crusted with mortar and concrete dust and I guess the archaeological term is crud? The backhoes were stationary by the time I returned from the doctor's, the foreman nowhere to be seen, although some official-looking people in windbreakers and shirtsleeves were conversing by the tracks. I regretted not having a camera because of the afternoon shadows the fire escape of the Litchfield Block was casting on its own warm rose-brown old brick. I got home and put my brick in its bag on the dining room table.
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!
Today while on my way to catch a bus from Highland because I had no chance of making my doctor's appointment if I waited for one of the buses that ostensibly run past my actual street, I saw there were three backhoes on site busily clearing away the last of the rubble, the heap I had photographed yesterday among them. A man in a safety vest and hard hat was standing on the far side of the chain-link watching them, I figured the foreman. So I crossed the street and asked if I could ask him something about the demolition and he said yes and I told him I'd been hoping to get a brick from the site because I was fond of the building and he made one of those hold-on-a-minute gestures and walked over to one of the smaller piles of dirt and wreckage where they'd been pulling up the foundations and felt around in it for a brick and brushed the worst of the dirt off and handed it across the chain-link to me. "It was pretty old, huh?" he said sympathetically. "Built in 1929," I said. He had sunglasses and a mustache and between that and the hard hat I am not sure I'd recognize him if we met in street clothes—dark, stocky, maybe ten years older than me—but I might know him if I saw him again at the site. I thanked him seriously. He said the Knights of Malta Hall would be fine. A car honked at me for technically standing in the street and I walked away up School Street carrying a ninety-year-old brick and singing about half of Kipling's "A Pilgrim's Way," which was suddenly and I don't care if over-aptly in my head. I wrapped the brick in Kleenex while waiting for the bus and eventually got a small brown paper bag from a 7-Eleven to slide it into for safekeeping. It's old red brick, partly powdered and crusted with mortar and concrete dust and I guess the archaeological term is crud? The backhoes were stationary by the time I returned from the doctor's, the foreman nowhere to be seen, although some official-looking people in windbreakers and shirtsleeves were conversing by the tracks. I regretted not having a camera because of the afternoon shadows the fire escape of the Litchfield Block was casting on its own warm rose-brown old brick. I got home and put my brick in its bag on the dining room table.
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!
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So glad that guy found you a brick, so glad he understood your need for a memento.
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I'm glad to have been able to document the process even a little, because it feels less like just letting the building vanish with ninety years of history and no one noticing, but it is sadder documentation than some other kinds.
So glad that guy found you a brick, so glad he understood your need for a memento.
Thank you. He was really matter-of-fact about it. It was great.