A forlorn look at a sign from the past

Sun baked
London, ON
August 2015
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They don't make signs like this anymore, and that makes me more than a little sad. Sure, this isn't anyone's idea of state-of-the-art. It isn't LED-lit or 3D-printed. It isn't adaptive to local conditions, and doesn't serve up animated, real-time streams of marketing-ese, all driven by more technology than meets the eye.

No, it's simply an old painted sign that wears its years of assault by the sun, winter's wrath and autumn's driving rains with a sense of fatigue that makes Willy Loman look spry.

But when you lose places like this, you also lose the texture of the neighbourhoods that made your city worth remembering. I'll remember this collision repair shop because it's unlike any other repair shop I've ever visited. Something tells me the LED-lit wonders taking over the landscape today won't be as compelling to look at when they're as old someday as this sign is now.

Stories are sometimes told in the subtle shadows of a neighbourhood. I hope my kids know where to look when they're my age and they want a glimpse into how the place they call home came to be.