When I was a kid, I remember my dad telling me how he was always amazed and slightly jealous of the men in Lufkin who were able to have their shoes shined in the train station or barber shop. This would have been East Texas in the depression of the 1930’s, and times would have been tough. Growing up in a loving home, but not a wealthy one, he always shined his own shoes with the discarded polish cans he found at the neighborhood barber shop. He taught me how he could extend the life out of a can of polish by simply adding a few drops of warm water to it. By doing this, he could get another month’s worth of shine out of most cans. A stint in the Marine Corps during the war reaffirmed that
Things change. It’s inevitable. Time imperceptibly moves around us like a ghost, always present but rarely seen. It wears on everything around us, including us, and it will always win. Because of this, we should design our sites with materials and workmanship that will sustain itself against the elements…against the wind, the rain, the sun, the cold, and the most damaging element of all – our fellow man. Our projects will fail with time. The pyramids, however magical and immense, are not what they once were. Time will always win, and we cannot change that. We can, however plan for the effects of time, and thereby minimize or delay the damage that it incurs upon our sites. Sites with
