as the past slips away~~

[Lady Cop]

what do you hate to see go?
i like old country stores like this one closing forever today.














The Rhode Island store near the Massachusetts line opened in 1788. Now owners say this year is its last with its doors set to close for good this afternoon. In 2007, U.S. Sen. Jack Reed and then-Gov. Donald Carcieri issued proclamations naming Gray's as the oldest continuously run general store in the country.

[Duchess]

what do you hate to see go?

Old book stores, the kind that hold dust covered treasures.

Bakeries, the kind that stand alone in their own building & not the kind found in supermarkets, same goes for the butcher.

[Donovan]

Too bad. Maybe they can get it declared a landmark, for preservation purposes.

[Maggot]

It will not close, someone will come along and take advantage of the exposure it is getting.

I miss trains, and horses, and kids offering to mow the lawn on a hot day.

[Ilyanna]

I miss the sight of all the old cars and bikes from the 60s/70s, as well as real bakeries (Duchess already mentioned it), where everything is made from scratch instead of some convenience blend or however you guys call that in English.
My heart bleeds when, in my hometown, a house from the middle ages has to be torn down because its owners haven't done any maintenance for years and the authorities were too late to step in.

[ZEROSPHERES]

As old historic antebellum plantation houses were subject to the wrecking ball an idea to save them saw them disassembled and reconstructed in Charleston S.C. I hope something like this can be afforded to this wonderful landmark.

[Donovan]

When I was doing research on a local historic figure I learned a lot of extra info about my area and some of the colorful history of the buildings, kind of as a byproduct. So now I find it extra sad when I see one of them destroyed. This is the closest I've ever been to having a "hometown" so I begin to know how people feel.

I also played with Google earth looking at old places I used to live all over the country, and most are wiped off the map like they, and by extension me, never existed. That makes me feel oddly disjointed and more than a little paranoid. It's almost as if some force is trying to erase all evidence of my existe

[Duchess]

plantation houses

They dot the countryside here, some of them were part of the Underground Railroad & have large markers on the road that designates them historic, some are still working plantations in that they grow massive amounts of vegetables sold to companies such a Green Giant. They even have modern day slaves in that migrant workers work the fields.

[Ilyanna]

@ Dono - lol! As long as you're alive and kicking in my imagination, you're safe, dear

[HairOfTheDog]

I miss seeing some of the old drive-in movie theaters on road trips in California. This one was located in Garden Grove and is now the site of a Wal-Mart.

[Ilyanna]

I know about the British National Trust that protects and cares for a large variety of historic sites.
Link National Trust

Does the US have a similar organisation that could preserve those plantation houses and/or old townhouses?

[Lady Cop]

oh yes, National Historic Sites Register.

http://www.nps.gov/nr/

we don't go back as far as GB, but do have some wonderful sites.

[Ilyanna]

Oh cool, thanks for the link! *goes to check it out*

[Duchess]

Does the US have a similar organisation that could preserve those plantation houses and/or old townhouses?

Yes, in some places & then there are those who buy the rundown property for next to nothing & renovate them to that period. My state is trying to keep it's historic homes, plantations, etc., some are in really bad shape & need tens of thousands of dollars (more probably) of renovations but you could buy the property for a dollar.

[Ilyanna]

Ah, that's similar to what happened when after the Fall of the Wall, a lot of manor houses in East Germany were being sold for 1 DM (less than a Dollar, back then) to anyone who was able to prove he could finance the restoration and subsequent conservation of the property. The federal Preservation of Historical Monuments does have a budget to support private owners of historic landmarks, but the major burden of maintaining the sites still lies with the owners.

FWIW, I've just skimmed over the criteria of the National Register for listing a property, and it looks like they are very similar to those for declaring an historic monument in Germany. Not too detailed or exclusionary, but still - I can imagine a country store like the one LC posted would be difficult to have admitted.

[Donovan]

Coincidentally speaking, I have had an accidental tradition going back a few years regarding the Wall. Several of the places I've gone with my boy on vacation had chunks of it on display, and I had him stand next to them and take a photo. Wasn't really anything but a coincidence, but he's now seen more pieces of the Berlin Wall than an actual German lol.

[Lady Cop]

my prep school is on the National Register of Historic Places. and when i was a kid my Dad took us to many Civil War sites, Ford's Theater, the house where Lincoln died, America doesn't have the history Europe does, and i LOVE English history. but we do have some great things to see, such as the old plantation homes of the South that were mentioned. are there any left? i know the homes in Savannah are a matter of great pride.

[Ilyanna]

Coincidentally speaking, I have had an accidental tradition going back a few years regarding the Wall. Several of the places I've gone with my boy on vacation had chunks of it on display, and I had him stand next to them and take a photo. Wasn't really anything but a coincidence, but he's now seen more pieces of the Berlin Wall than an actual German lol.

LOL, quite possible, since there were only a few spots where we were allowed to get close enough to actually see it
It's amazing just how many places pieces of that damn wall have been shipped to! Oh, btw... my apt happens to be only about 150 m away from one of them.... not kidding!

my prep school is on the National Register of Historic Places. and when i was a kid my Dad took us to many Civil War sites, Ford's Theater, the house where Lincoln died, [b]America doesn't have the history Europe does, and i LOVE English history. but we do have some great things to see, such as the old plantation homes of the South that were mentioned. are there any left? i know the homes in Savannah are a matter of great pride. [/b]

Since a large part of the people who settled in America were Europeans, European history is theirs, as well, at least that's how I see it. I've been to the US thrice, and each time the beautiful architecture, historical sites and landmarks I got to see made a deep impression. I guess in a way, it's natural that the older the historic evidence, the more value we tend to place on it, but imo, each generation has created something worth preserving - be that for the sake of knowledge or just for the sheer beauty of it.

[Lady Cop]

Ilyanna: Since a large part of the people who settled in America were Europeans, European history is theirs, as well, at least that's how I see it. I've been to the US thrice, and each time the beautiful architecture, historical sites and landmarks I got to see made a deep impression. I guess in a way, it's natural that the older the historic evidence, the more value we tend to place on it, but imo, each generation has created something worth preserving - be that for the sake of knowledge or just for the sheer beauty of it.
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excellent and most intelligent post. so many of we Americans identify ourselves as Italian-American, Polish-American etc. we take pride in those antecedents and their histories.
so as much as i love castles in England, i admire historical places in the U.S.

[Ilyanna]

excellent and most intelligent post.

thank you

i admire historical places in the U.S.

Oh yes. I remember a visit of the town of Pullman near Chicago and how beautiful all the restored buildings and open spaces were. We had a tour including the visit of a privately-owned home from 1880 or something, and the owners had taken pride in re-furnishing it as authentically as possible, which made it look like something right out of a romance novel - I was 14 at that time, so imagine how deeply and profoundly I fell in love with that house lol!