Commentary - Bob Denman's signature

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

Bob, your signature line,

"History shows again and again, how Nature points out the folly of Man...",

reminds me of an observation I made years ago, and that is,

"Time has a way of mocking man's sense of permanence!"

This first hit me back in 1991 when we moved to Hammond, LA. Right there in downtown is a building that at one time obviously was a Ford dealership. I'm sure the business owner who built the building planned to be there forever as he studiously locked into stone on the exterior wall his business name and the Ford logo. By 1991 the Ford dealership had moved many years earlier to the outskirts of town and had a different name. The name and logo were still there in this 2016 Street View shot. The carving in the stone remains. The man and his business do not!

 

[MikeandSandy]

Godzilla

Hmm I thought it was a line from the song Godzilla!

 

[Bob Denman]

Hmm I thought it was a line from the song Godzilla!

 

[Bob Denman]

You've got to admit: the Avatar & Signature line play well together! :clap: :2thumbs:

By the way: that song has now been out for 41 years! :yikes:

 

[bhern]

Not as good a beat as Buck Dharma's version...

Bob, your signature line,

"History shows again and again, how Nature points out the folly of Man...",

reminds me of an observation I made years ago, and that is,

"Time has a way of mocking man's sense of permanence!"

...but it hits the spot.

Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

 

[oldguyinTX]

Bob, I like it but I miss your Spyders.

 

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

Another example of how time diminishes the supposed long term value of a structure is the Reimers Memorial Auditorium in Hammond, LA. Lt. Frederick Reimers went down in a submarine in the Pacific during WW2. Southeast Louisiana College was a small struggling school in Hammond at that time so the Reimers family decided to build an auditorium in memory of their son and for the use of the school and community. They funded a foundation to maintain it. It was a perfectly sensible gift to the community. The entry is modestly grand and a huge portrait of the Lieutenant adorns the foyer. The school has since become a university and we are now more than 70 years after Reimers was lost. The foundation that owns the building has a seriously limited endowment for maintenance and repairs and the auditorium sees little use. It seats only about 150 people. It needs major updating to meet current codes, much more than the foundation has money for. Coupled to that I'll bet 95%+ of the people in Hammond have no idea who Lt. Frederick Reimers was, so the significance of the memorial is lost in time. If it weren't a memorial it could readily be repurposed for some current community need.

We need to be careful when we build memorials for people, or for that matter even pets, whose existence and role in society may fade into oblivion in due time. Memorials whose significance has been lost can become obstacles to future needed development.

 

[Bob Denman]

 

[Lew L]

Gorge Carlin's bit is so prophetic TODAY.


And Bob----- your signature is right there also.

Lew L