Beauty In The Junk Yard

Note: My website server was down for a good part of Tuesday so not many readers were able to get through to my Dracula posting; I doubt if anyone missed much.... Also, I'm having trouble with photos today. Please be patient.

My youngest daughter stayed over an extra day from college to hang around with me, get reacquainted, explore and take photographs.

We had a great day!

After breakfast out, she took a picture of the phone post outside Dave’s Restaurant where for years folks have posted Lost Dog or Garage Sale signs; hundreds of nails and staples remain in the post giving it an intriguing texture.

(But Blogger refuses to transfer that photo! Please use your imagination for this one.)

We are both interested in beauty, shapes and textures, especially as they appear in unintentional art, i.e. ordinary objects left out to weather until they gain a rustic beauty.

So I took her to photograph a rusty door in a tiny house near the railroad tracks:

(But the Rusty Door photo will not transfer to Blogger for some reason??? I think Blogger hates me.)

Then for a special treat, I took her to a junk yard … excuse me, the proper term is salvage yard. For over 70 years workers at Burkhalter Wrecking have dismantled abandoned buildings in Jacksonville. They salvage architectural features worth preserving for resale. These range from a sea of toilets to a galaxy of chandeliers.

Mr. Trey Burkhalter gave us permission to photograph some of the treasures in the huge collection and we spent about three hours roaming amid hundreds of doors, roof tiles, old sign boards, antique toys and bottles and door knobs.

Patricia took over a hundred photos and I’ve posted a sample of them in the Jacksonville History section of my website at www.cowart.info under the title, Jax Junk Yard. My favorite picture is one of a bucket full of door knobs:

Patricia plans to post a selection of her own favorite photos on her blog , The Rabbit Hole at http://www.holerabbit.blogspot.com/ .

Also Mr, Trey Burkhalter, who is proficient with computers, designed his company website at http://www.burkhalters.com/ where he offers a virtual tour of the grounds.

Our father/daughter outing was a resounding success; we have not spent such a happy time together in ages. I came to a new appreciation of my grown daughter’s beauty, wisdom, grace and maturity. And her business acumen also impressed me greatly – How in the world did I miss all that before by just thinking of her as a college kid?

Dads are denser than anybody.

But looking for beauty in a junk yard, I found it.

Sometimes I think God gives us glimpses of beauty, mystery and wonder in the most mundane settings. Seeing all the debris of once-great buildings with my daughter reminded me that the only thing on earth that lasts forever is people.

The ones we love, the ones we hate, the ones we discount with indifference – every person around us – we ourselves – will spend all eternity Somewhere.

And the Scripture reveals God’s odd promise of giving beauty for ashes.

I think that's wonderful.