Time to let them go?
February 26, 2009 (Thursday)
I remember an exchange student speaking to the Rotary Club many years ago. He told of being taken on a tour of the Rockport area and seeing the sights. He was from Italy. He said, “They told me when they showed me the Fulton Mansion (a hundred years old at the time) that it was an old building.” Then he laughed and said, “In Italy that would be a new building!”
There are a couple of old buildings that have seen better days. One is the Astrodome in Houston and the other is the old convention center in Corpus Christi. The Astrodome failed to pass many different types of inspection recently and must remain unused until repairs are made. The repairs will cost millions. Several plans have been prepared for using the building that was once advertised as “The Eighth Wonder of the World.” The Corpus builidng also needs repairs, so many in fact that there was a recent campaign to tear it down, but the plan failed. Developers have proposed ambitious changes to make the building usable. Both cities have built bigger and better facilities and there is considerable doubt among the public whether either is worth the money it will take to make them usable again.
In some ways these buildings are a sort of parable, based on the fact that buildings get old and are no longer usable. The house next door to the cottage I live in was torn down in about an hour and soon five houses will replace it. Life moves on. Changes are made. The parable, I mean, is a comparison of old buildings with the human body. Stuart Hamblen composed a song about it, “This Old House.” Hard to believe, but the song is now 55 years old. The chorus tells the story: “Ain’t a-gonna need this house no longer, ain’t a-gonna need this house no more. Ain’t got time to fix the shingles, ain’t got time to fix the floor. Ain’t got time to oil the hinges or to mend the window pane, Ain’t a-gonna need this house no longer I’m getting ready to meet the saints.”
Sometimes it just makes sense to let the old house go. It may have seen its day.