The North Country, where I live, is full of natural beauty and industrial ghosts, the juxtaposition of the two things is everywhere, and is haunting and compelling to me.
Almost all of the towns in Vermont and Northern New York State are struggling, losing their downtowns to Amazon or box stores, their once booming factories to China and Mexico. The rich people have all fled South or West. Behind some out of sight downtown streets in Bennington, Vt., where Maria and I drove today to get Ed Gulley some art supplies so he can paint, we came across some abandoned factories, and I saw their pink bay doors had been painted a whimsical pink.
It looked as if the factory had been abandoned years ago, weeds were growing up through the cement, the pink was a shadow, close to falling off. I wondered what kind of factory painted it’s loading dock doors pink. All the windows were boarded up, but standing there, soaking in the feeling, I could bring back the bustle and energy, it was still in the ground and those doors.
They are waiting for someone to open them up again. I’ve prowled towns like Bennington and Glens Falls, they are full of industrial pasts, they remind us not only of what was, but what is and will be.
During the war between the states one reason the South lost was because they had agriculture and not manufacturing as a base for their economy. The US is wise to consider the importance of manufacturing to its well being and that of its citizens. Friday I went to some new construction and saw black Americans working at the job site. I was over joyed to see Americans that had a job again. They were doing a beautiful job of framing a new home. Not everyone can recreate themselves. Americans need every kind of job for all of us to survive and prosper including legal immigrants. We can’t give away our manufacturing or our jobs if we want everyone here to do well.