I noticed this old building as I was walking to the library today. From the look of its rough-hewn clapboards, I guessed that the building was a hundred years old. I saw an old man behind the white van and walked over to inquire about the building's history.
I introduced myself. He said his name was Jack. He appeared to be in his seventies. We shook hands and I asked how old the building was. He had difficulties remembering dates and had to work backwards from the present: it was so many years since he began renting the building to the current tenant, a craftsman who makes rustic furniture out of aspen logs; so many years since the city widened the street; and so many years that the original owner used the building for a farmer's market. By the end of all of Jack's calculations, he had worked back to about 1970. So, the building was only forty years old. It's old-timey appearance was just an advertising gimmick for the farmer's market.
To make up for disappointing me with the building's unimpressive history, Jack treated me to his political opinions, which began with his disagreements with the current occupant of the White House and ranged all the way back to his disgust with the traitoress Hanoi Jane Fonda, who gave aid and comfort to our North Vietnamese enemy.
I hope Ms. Fonda never drops by to shop for an aspen coffee table.
