I just don’t get it. Honestly, I’ve racked my brain trying to understand why people feel the need to leave their mark by defacing things, but I still don’t get it.
From the “call me for a good time” phone numbers on the doors and walls of public toilets … to the “Jack ♥ Jill” professions of love carved into trees … to the “John Was Here” on whatever date scribblings on whatever surface is available … I just don’t get any of them.
We’ve been traveling for over 30 years now, and we’ve seen graffiti everywhere we’ve gone; in every city and country and continent we’ve visited. Well, OK; we didn’t see any in Antarctica, but that’s a rare exception.
Not once have we been tempted to leave our mark in such an ugly way. In fact, we try to make sure that we leave no more than our footprints behind … ever. Is there some joy in defacing things that we’re missing out on? Are we going to be scarred for life because we’ve neglected to write our names on a wall somewhere? If so; then so be it. We can live without that kind of “ugly” joy.
We came across this Bob Was Here sign the first day that we ventured into the park. It was on the trail behind the John Oliver Place. There were several others scattered around the park as well. You can read the words for yourself (click for a bigger version if necessary).
How sad it is that we even need such signs. Not that they seem to be doing much good; we saw graffiti on the walls of every heritage building we went into — some as new as . There were probably newer ones, but I was so disgusted that I turned away, helpless to do anything about it.
Just some of the graffiti we saw at the Gregg-Cable House and the Lawson Place.
And then there was the cross vine hanging down over the Abrams Falls Trail on the way to the falls; gone by the time we trekked back two hours later. Needless destruction of another sort. But I’ll limit my rant to one topic and save that one for a later time. Unfortunately, we’re bound to encounter more of both as we continue to travel.
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