Will B. Wondering

It’s kind of depressing and a great deal disappointing knowing how America has been trained into becoming a disposable society. By this I am referring to how most everything nowadays is just thrown out or torn down, instead of fixing or repurposing.

Here comes the “Back in the Day” speech. Back when I was growing up, things were built in such a way that they could be repaired, if not by the owner, then by a repair person. Over the years, those pesky researchers that find ways to make more profit for companies figured out that if they manufactured things cheaper, with inferior parts, and even in some cases the very design was made to have the product not last long. They did this as part of a strategy to force the consumer to have to repurchase products they manufacture on a regular basis.

Flash forward today and you can see it is just the norm for the majority of products manufactured to not last very long and for those products to be designed in such a way as to make it almost impossible to repair. In some cases the manufacturer doesn’t even make replacement parts or threatens to void a warranty if the product is tampered with, leaving a consumer fearful of even attempting to repair a product.

Much is the same in the case of buildings and structures as well. Take the 1921 jail in Graham, for example. This structure is built almost indestructibly, built with reinforced concrete and rebar throughout. The list of uses for the building is long. This is not even taken into account that it has historical significance. It is quietly trying to be sent through commissioner’s court to be handed off to the city, which intends to demolish the historic building to make way for a pavilion. This is just another example of the kind of throw away culture most of America has become. Local historians and the historical commission are thankfully trying to throw a monkey wrench into the works in hopes of slowing things down long enough for more people to get involved, with the goal to save the building.

This is Will B saying, save the 1921 jail and make a statement that history matters.