Last Monday's article about modern-day Kilroy's mentioned the Shoe Tree near Middlegate, NV. This is a more detailed story about its destruction and resurrection.
I have a few photos of it somewhere and I remember reading about it when they chopped it down. I still wonder - and you'd think I would not be surprised after all the horrible war literature I have read - at how humans could be so destructive. Thanks for this piece, Sue.
I took a course at the U of U called "Survival Literature" that covered books like "The Warsaw Dairies" (?) etc. Gruesome as such writings are, I'm glad people took the time to write them to record the barbarity that takes over people's minds and societies. You take a brutish lunatic like Hitler or Stalin et al, a war-torn society desperately trying to recover, and a sprinkling of ideas and memes that boost people's faith even though they ultimately defy reality, and you've got rampant madness. What troubles me about reading some of the stuff on Substack is that there are a lot of people wallowing in despair over things they can't control. They're throwing rocks at shadows and mirrors. Our media focuses on the negative, so that's all people know and see. There has always been horror and mayhem in the world, but also stories of joy, recovery, redemption, and beauty that is also very much a human reality. I often wonder what our world today would look like if people started focusing on the positive instead of the negative. Victimhood is a disease that is deadlier than cancer.
A fascinating read - thanks, Sue!
Thank you, Rebecca.
I have a few photos of it somewhere and I remember reading about it when they chopped it down. I still wonder - and you'd think I would not be surprised after all the horrible war literature I have read - at how humans could be so destructive. Thanks for this piece, Sue.
I took a course at the U of U called "Survival Literature" that covered books like "The Warsaw Dairies" (?) etc. Gruesome as such writings are, I'm glad people took the time to write them to record the barbarity that takes over people's minds and societies. You take a brutish lunatic like Hitler or Stalin et al, a war-torn society desperately trying to recover, and a sprinkling of ideas and memes that boost people's faith even though they ultimately defy reality, and you've got rampant madness. What troubles me about reading some of the stuff on Substack is that there are a lot of people wallowing in despair over things they can't control. They're throwing rocks at shadows and mirrors. Our media focuses on the negative, so that's all people know and see. There has always been horror and mayhem in the world, but also stories of joy, recovery, redemption, and beauty that is also very much a human reality. I often wonder what our world today would look like if people started focusing on the positive instead of the negative. Victimhood is a disease that is deadlier than cancer.