Give Thanks...Preserving History

 Before--and after--I visited my dentist who dug out an old filling and replaced it with a new non-metal one, I noticed something. In my old home town, they like to preserve history. I saw it inside the dentist's office--a photo montage of famous buildings in the city, and I saw it outside the office--restoring buildings and putting up markers.

Without history, you cannot understand the future.

One could say I've tried to preserve history, and in some small way I have. As I get older I can't seem to get enough of historical photos, memorabilia, basically anything having to do with history. I wish I had studied it more in my youth.

There's an effort to re-write history. I'm not going to get into the pros and cons, but I think it's a dangerous thing. History, even uncomfortable history (especially uncomfortable history...) must be preserved. It must be studied and known so it will not be repeated. 

It was refreshing and comforting to see the lengths at which the small town is going to preserve history. I'm sure it's happening where we now live--I just need to go check it out. I"m thankful for those who chose to do the work it takes to preserve history.

I have no idea if my blog posts or journal entries will be preserved. I mean, I'll do my best to preserve them, but once I'm gone, what will happen to them? I'll have no control at that point. Heck, every digital entry I've ever written could be erased in the blink of an eye. And all my journals could fly away in a tornado or get destroyed in a fire. The important thing is to do what we can to remember the way things used to be.

Small-Town Treasures...The Main

 Friday, an e-mail arrived notifying those in my neighborhood that snow needed to be shoveled at our local church. 

It was our turn.

That afternoon I loaded up the snow shovel in the back of Donk, the Subaru and drove the approximately three miles to the building. When I got there, most of the snow had already been cleared. I did help out a little bit. As I stowed the shovel in the car after my light shoveling, I looked east. That's when I saw The Main Theater.

Incredible!

As I get older, I'm a sucker for old things, old cars, old buildings, things with history. You can almost see it in the cracks, the faded paint, the rust and decay. Still...beautiful. At first, I didn't know what the building was. Upon second glance, I realized it was an abandoned movie theater. Single-screen theaters are as obsolete as eight-track tape players. Before last year, theaters were still a billion-dollar industry. I imagine their future is unknown at this time.

I walked over to it and took a few pictures. According to the internet, the theater opened in 1950 and closed in 1985...a thirty-five-year run. I so wanted to go inside, but at the same time, I would have hated to see abandoned dreams in entertainment form.

I remember reading of an Oscar-winning director who grew up in the same town as me. He talked about seeing films in the old church. I knew exactly what he was talking about. Though I never saw films in that church, I did peek through the small windows through which the films he saw were shown. He talked about how watching films, how those experiences affected his life. As I drove away from The Main, I wondered what life-long memories were formed by those who passed through those doors, who sat in those chairs, who watched the illusion of motion on the large silver screen.

And now, like an old tractor or harvester that died in the field, it sits waiting for nature to reclaim what it once was. I'm falling in love with this valley, and The Main is another of the small-town treasures sealing the deal.