I found this on Facebook this morning. I can't presume to know it's true origins but some attribute it to the Free Masons. Not being a Mason I can't say but it does speak to me on many levels.
"I watched them tearing a building down,
A gang of men in a busy town.
With a ho-heave-ho and a lusty yell,
They swung a beam and the sides fell.
I asked the foreman, "Are these men skilled
And the kind you would hire, if you had to build?"
And he gave me a laugh and said, "No indeed,
Just common labor is all I need.
I can easily wreck in a day or two
What other builders have taken a year to do."
And I thought to myself as I went my way,
"Which of these roles have I tried to play?"
Am I a builder that works with care,
Measuring life by the rule and square.
Am I shaping my deeds to a well made plan,
Patiently doing the best I can?
Or am I a wrecker who walks the town,
Content with the labor of tearing down."
I know a lot of people will try and accuse me of attempting to tear down Greensboro over the course of the last year but in my eyes nothing could be farther from the truth. I've been pushing back against the trends and the peoples who have been tearing down my neighborhood and other Greensboro neighborhoods like mine for the last 50 plus years.
Yes, I realize the most of you who I have attacked have not been here 50 years but you are doing the very same things that were done to us before and making the same promises that never were kept by the people who help your positions of power before you. So to folks in our neighborhoods you might as well be one in the same.
I think people also need to be reminded there are lots of things other than buildings that are just as worthy of building. Not that I too haven't built a few buildings in my time but Greensboro's developers like developers everywhere need to be reminded that construction and development are not and never have been economic drivers but are in fact economic indicators. Construction and development depend on manufacturing, retail, small business, agriculture (the #1 economic engine in NC) the creative class and the other forces that actually drive the economy but are always forgotten when developers seize control of local government.
By it's very nature, the very thing that makes land valuable, the fact that land is a limited resource, is what makes development an unsustainable economic development model. Smart developers understand this so I can only presume that Greensboro is not being lead by the smartest of developers. Smart developers understand we need real homegrown reasons to keep them in business instead of mercenary corporations who come for the incentives then leave when some other city waves a bigger Carrot on a Stick.
Indeed, while Roy Carroll complains about downtown noise at 75 dB he has intentionally sold hundreds of homes in neighborhoods where the noise levels too often exceed 85 dB. Is this the sort of tone deaf building that we want to support and build our economy on? I love the quiet but double standards don't cut it. When Roy Carroll buys back all those homes at a profit to the current homeowners I'll be happy to discuss Roy's noise problem. As for those of you who bought in Center Pointe, the brochures advertised sound proof glass, I recommend you hire a lawyer and sue the pants off Roy Carroll.
I too have built a few buildings in my time. My first full time job in 1974 was as a draftsman in the Structural Engineering Department at Carolina Steel a lifetime ago when drafting was still done on paper. One of my cousins founded Carolina Steel's CAD drafting department and now is a partner in his own firm. Our Grandfather Hartsoe saw-milled and built houses his entire life. Building, farming and driving trucks is what we grew up learning how to do long before Roy Carroll knew which end of the hammer to hold. Roy Carroll was learning how to build houses in 1980 and I was already sick and tired of working for idiot assholes like Roy Carroll by then. I designed and installed wooden trusses on buildings and houses in Greensboro in 1975, long before Roy Carroll or any of Greensboro's current builders even knew what a truss was. You see, it was a simple adaptation of the bridges Carolina Steel had been building for decades. One of those buildings is located in my back yard, a 2 story Dutch Barn style shop I built from scrap lumber when I was 19. Everyone told me it would fall down. Everyone except the old man who lived next door and worked as a conductor for Southern Railroad who said, "Looks just like a wooden railroad trestle to me. We drive trains across them every day."
But back to building other things. That's why when Ed Catalano suggested a World Class Downtown Greensboro Aquarium I decided we should put our political differences aside and start talking about making it happen. Yes, it involves construction but it's also about "manufacturing, retail, small business, agriculture (the #1 economic engine in NC) the creative class and the other forces that actually drive the economy." Just this morning Ed wrote:
"This is what a world class aquarium could help develop in Greensboro. It could mean hundreds of jobs using this technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics to grow things and farm fish. A whole new industry that currently is being worked on at NC State but not being taken advantage of."
To which I replied:
"And the fish and vegetables would be free from the mercury, lead and other toxins that are often found in wild catches thanks to mankind's nasty habits of polluting the planet. Greensboro could have the healthiest food on Earth."
But are the Roy Carrolls and Robbie Perkins of Greensboro talking about building such things? No, their vision isn't big enough. That, or I've been right all along and they really are crooks.
"I watched them tearing a building down,
A gang of men in a busy town.
With a ho-heave-ho and a lusty yell,
They swung a beam and the sides fell.
I asked the foreman, "Are these men skilled
And the kind you would hire, if you had to build?"
And he gave me a laugh and said, "No indeed,
Just common labor is all I need.
I can easily wreck in a day or two
What other builders have taken a year to do."
And I thought to myself as I went my way,
"Which of these roles have I tried to play?"
Am I a builder that works with care,
Measuring life by the rule and square.
Am I shaping my deeds to a well made plan,
Patiently doing the best I can?
Or am I a wrecker who walks the town,
Content with the labor of tearing down."
I know a lot of people will try and accuse me of attempting to tear down Greensboro over the course of the last year but in my eyes nothing could be farther from the truth. I've been pushing back against the trends and the peoples who have been tearing down my neighborhood and other Greensboro neighborhoods like mine for the last 50 plus years.
Yes, I realize the most of you who I have attacked have not been here 50 years but you are doing the very same things that were done to us before and making the same promises that never were kept by the people who help your positions of power before you. So to folks in our neighborhoods you might as well be one in the same.
I think people also need to be reminded there are lots of things other than buildings that are just as worthy of building. Not that I too haven't built a few buildings in my time but Greensboro's developers like developers everywhere need to be reminded that construction and development are not and never have been economic drivers but are in fact economic indicators. Construction and development depend on manufacturing, retail, small business, agriculture (the #1 economic engine in NC) the creative class and the other forces that actually drive the economy but are always forgotten when developers seize control of local government.
By it's very nature, the very thing that makes land valuable, the fact that land is a limited resource, is what makes development an unsustainable economic development model. Smart developers understand this so I can only presume that Greensboro is not being lead by the smartest of developers. Smart developers understand we need real homegrown reasons to keep them in business instead of mercenary corporations who come for the incentives then leave when some other city waves a bigger Carrot on a Stick.
Indeed, while Roy Carroll complains about downtown noise at 75 dB he has intentionally sold hundreds of homes in neighborhoods where the noise levels too often exceed 85 dB. Is this the sort of tone deaf building that we want to support and build our economy on? I love the quiet but double standards don't cut it. When Roy Carroll buys back all those homes at a profit to the current homeowners I'll be happy to discuss Roy's noise problem. As for those of you who bought in Center Pointe, the brochures advertised sound proof glass, I recommend you hire a lawyer and sue the pants off Roy Carroll.
I too have built a few buildings in my time. My first full time job in 1974 was as a draftsman in the Structural Engineering Department at Carolina Steel a lifetime ago when drafting was still done on paper. One of my cousins founded Carolina Steel's CAD drafting department and now is a partner in his own firm. Our Grandfather Hartsoe saw-milled and built houses his entire life. Building, farming and driving trucks is what we grew up learning how to do long before Roy Carroll knew which end of the hammer to hold. Roy Carroll was learning how to build houses in 1980 and I was already sick and tired of working for idiot assholes like Roy Carroll by then. I designed and installed wooden trusses on buildings and houses in Greensboro in 1975, long before Roy Carroll or any of Greensboro's current builders even knew what a truss was. You see, it was a simple adaptation of the bridges Carolina Steel had been building for decades. One of those buildings is located in my back yard, a 2 story Dutch Barn style shop I built from scrap lumber when I was 19. Everyone told me it would fall down. Everyone except the old man who lived next door and worked as a conductor for Southern Railroad who said, "Looks just like a wooden railroad trestle to me. We drive trains across them every day."
But back to building other things. That's why when Ed Catalano suggested a World Class Downtown Greensboro Aquarium I decided we should put our political differences aside and start talking about making it happen. Yes, it involves construction but it's also about "manufacturing, retail, small business, agriculture (the #1 economic engine in NC) the creative class and the other forces that actually drive the economy." Just this morning Ed wrote:
"This is what a world class aquarium could help develop in Greensboro. It could mean hundreds of jobs using this technology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics to grow things and farm fish. A whole new industry that currently is being worked on at NC State but not being taken advantage of."
To which I replied:
"And the fish and vegetables would be free from the mercury, lead and other toxins that are often found in wild catches thanks to mankind's nasty habits of polluting the planet. Greensboro could have the healthiest food on Earth."
But are the Roy Carrolls and Robbie Perkins of Greensboro talking about building such things? No, their vision isn't big enough. That, or I've been right all along and they really are crooks.
