#66 - Walking history

Saturday, March 10

Today I am thankful for a random thing that someone did, at some time.

My super tanker arrived last week, and I've been looking for an opportunity to return my rental car this week.  But work was busy, and I wasn't sure how I'd get from the rental car office to my office to reunite with my vehicle.  After an aborted attempt yesterday, I decided that since my Saturday was free that I would return the car and walk the 7.8 miles to my office.  I have not spend much time hoofing it here, and that's always helpful to get a better feel for the area.

So I dropped off the car and started walking.  It wasn't long (okay, it was 3 miles) before I saw this sign along the side of the road.  It is just as random a place as it appears to be.  There is a creek, a freeway entrance (it's at the intersection of I-84 and Rt 52), a strip of grass, and this sign.  And probably the only reason this sign is here is that someone saw that Washington bought a sword (or acquired one) from a certain smithy.  And then someone followed up and found where the smithy was.  And then there was a Great Depression, and the government spent a lot on silly things like historic signs along the side of the road.  Like this one.

These signs are posted everywhere.  As you drive around, you'll see a random blue sign flash by at 50mph, and you'll think, "Huh.  That's where somebody's house used to be, probably."  But it does lend a certain historicity to modernity, and at the same time an immediacy to the historic that I did not expect to encounter on a daily basis.  I captured all the historic signs I noticed today.  Here are the rest of them (isn't that nice of me to put a whole bunch on one day?).  I actually have a bunch more pictures from last weekend that I haven't posted yet, and it appears that I'm going to an open house tomorrow to a place that Katrina really likes.

These signs are all along Rt 52 between I-84 and Rt 31.  The picture at the bottom is of the Dutch Church (not the one in Sleepy Hollow, the one in Fishkill).  Nor is it the Trinity Church in the sign just below.  Trinity Church looks like a new building, actually.