I picked up my son from his day camp this afternoon and was driving home through a neighborhood that has a vacant lot where a factory (a textile mill probably) used to stand. He asked why the lot was vacant and I told him that a factory used to stand there but had been razed in the last few years. He then asked why there wasn't some sort of marker or sign indicating that a factory used to be there. I told him that people don't usually put up markers of that sort and that I had never seen one. His response--"but dad factories do a lot of good for people"--was spot on. A moment of reflection made me think he's on to something--puttinig up markers for factories would be a better indication of people who improved the lives of their fellow men than the statues of and monuments to politicians.

*He wants me to stop using Pee Wee as a pseudonym for him.