My reaction to some of yesterday's Cinemark theater opening speeches.As always, I welcome your thoughts...
The talk of the dirty, polluting, smelly, dangerous, evil that once
lived down the hill still bothers me after all these years. The superior
bragging that sets us up as so much smarter, so much more
sophisticated, so much more righteous than our fathers. How "we closed
down the smelter". How we have "transformed this blight". How it's a new
community with new people - implying they are better than the old.
Yes,
it is a wonderful change. It is worth celebrating. But the bashing of
the old in order to build up the new isn't needed. It's an insult to the
men and women who built this town. To the hard laborers who toiled for a
century, making a better life for their children and our world. These
honest, decent people loved this town - and loved the smelter. They were
proud of the copper they produced. Every time we "new" people flip on a
light or start a car, we rely on the copper their contemporaries
provide for us.
It's a different world now than it was when the smelter was born. We've conquered many childhood diseases.
We understand the environment better. Perhaps our founding father's
should have known there would be a city surrounding the smelter someday. Perhaps they should have
understood the impacts of using a taller stack to disperse emissions. But they
didn't. I don't believe that makes them or their work a blight.
I'm
not saying one is all bad or or the other all good. It's more complex
than that. But I wish we could look beyond our egos and somehow
celebrate this glorious new season without degrading the people or
industry that made this season possible. I wish we could embrace the
future while honoring the past. It will be a different world a hundred
years from now. Let's hope our children's children see value in what we
leave them and honor the history we make for them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Karen, again you put into words so well the reason my heart hurts when I hear the slams to Ruston's past. It was the Industrial Age that built what they needed at the time. Why can't people respect what others worked hard for?
Good job Karen..I still tire of the media disrespect and the disparaging of our history....we survived an economic disaster in Ruston.. We remained a community that fostered one another and held us together..the fact the plant sxisted provided them the opportunity to claim and develop this remarkable piece of the planet.There is not another piece of property anywhere with these views and accessabilty! They will need time to assimilate into our neighborhood..those with attitude may never feel at home here...after 50 years in town..I am still a "newcomer" to
the last of the oldtimers..
Celebrate…
…don't HATE.
Karen, totally agree. Check out the comments section in Saturday's TNT.
Post a Comment