Recently, okay well maybe more like past few years, I have been studying history...of sorts.

I should explain a little. Having a background knowledge of how things are built, or more to the point, being able to take anything I see apart in my mind to its simplest form, allows me to see beauty in things others ignore.

I can work with wood or metal, fix most mechanical things, fix electronics, plumbing, household electrical, cement work, plaster etc etc. None of that is a challenge to me.

Thing is this allows me to see the beauty that some of the old old stuff built really has.

During the days of steam, while everything was dirty from ash, there was still a LOT of beautiful woodwork, all done by hand i might add, in just about everything. From clock faces with curved woodwork, to the lettering and numbers, again done by hand. To even the gears and stuff that made up the clockworks called movement. The clock hands were filed by hand into shape.

This it not to say that some stuff was mass produced and did not look as good. Even back as far as the late 1800's there was factory "automation" where certain parts were rapidly produced by a machine.

The thing is just about everywhere you looked in public places, items taken for granted, such as gas lights, to clocks, to doors and windows, were, and still are, works of art in and of themselves.

Yes a little too many commas and bad grammar.

To give you examples you can go online and people are regularly searching "abandoned" places. Some old rail terminals long forgotten under London and Manchester. Fine wood moldings, stained glass panels, intricate tiled walls and floors, hand made rails all of which are works of art in and of themselves, remnants of once fine ornate doors. Even fancy sinks and toilets(although very gross and stomach turning to look at in some cases)

It was not just these terminals. The coaches and trains were quite fancy.

Then there was the ships.

Grand liners such as olympic, titanic, maurtenia, queen elizabeth, queen mary, were all quite jaw breaking over the top artwork, that sadly people took for granted at the time.

But it was not just the liners that were grand, titanic's tender Nomadic was quite grand for its size. From old icebreakers, to fishing trawlers, to dingys all of them had some piece that made it artwork in its own form. Some were just plain working boats but even those had touches, such as carved letters and numbers in beams, build numbers or even quartermasters office, stores. You look at them and you know it was done by hand by a proud craftsman.

Wooden baskets, barrels, all done by hand. Even the poorest of people had something to offer if you look for it.

Its just in those days everywhere you looked from the brick facades, to signs, to clothing, to windows and shops there was, what I refer to as, craftsman artwork.

Sadly in todays world there is almost none of that left except for museums. You get on a bus and the seats barely qualify as functional. There is electronic signs that pretty much commercial after commercial that are less than interesting. The rest of the bus is flat stainless steel or aluminum that is not even painted half the time. The carpets are uniform blandness that offer nothing to the eye.

Air travel is less than thrilling, sure there is tiny screen to watch a movie or listen to music and the seats are not terrible but the cabin is cramped as hell. With bland plastic everywhere.

Buildings are steel and glass, and in many cases quite ugly, or concrete and glass. Your lucky to see wood in the buildings. If you do it is painted over and most likely compressed board with a laminate made to sort of resemble wood. Executive places are somewhat more fancy...ish. Carpet and chrome leather furniture with glass tables. Cubicles are the way of life for offices now.

About fifteen years ago I had gone to a bike shop for some parts. It was wall to wall bikes on racks and hanging from ceiling with a parts counter that opened into a service shop, cement floor usual tools and whatnot with stands for repair frames and stuff and a back area with loads of old bikes for parts.

I went back to that shop last week. Gone was the comfy shop in its place is multi level all new bike parts of various sorts, no full bikes that were easy to see, a huge coffee shop, and the service sucked big time. No used parts available. Honestly not a place I ever want to go back to, nor will I recommend it to anyone.

It seems that our "governments" tear down the nice stuff and often replace it with..well junk. Ill give you two close to home examples you can look at online. Im in winnipeg. If you look up human rights museum, you will see and really ugly building that is finished even though it doesnt look it. Beside it is the "new" Archibald bridge with a restaurant"currently abandoned" in middle that has the 'phalic' in middle of it to make it look like a suspension bridge, its not a suspension bridge. The most interesting part was the walkway on the side...WAS.. had murals many of which have been cemented over now. That also leads to the "Forks". I am not entirely sure why its called the forks as none of the three rivers join there. Closest is two rivers that join about two blocks away. There is bits and pieces of interpretations of what had once been there in some cases. The whole area is sorta interesting.

We have some older neighboorhoods that have old buildings, many of which are so modernized its hard to see what they once were. Heck I bicycled by one and only know its an old building because of the coal shoot sticking out side of building, unlocked.

Old schools for most part are gone now. There is schools from 50's modern and 70s to eighties that are technically "historic" but are really ...meh too look at. The historic buildings downtown here are almost all gone. We do not, for some odd reason, keep old historic buildings as they were. Heck the Louis Riel house here, kind of founding father of Manitoba, I didn't even know it was the original house as it looks quite modern and obviously added on too. In case your wondering it is "supposed" to be "His" home.

I am not quite sure what that really means since he grew into adulthood in a shack outside of Selkirk not Winnipeg. Had a mansion in Selkirk. Which was at the time the "red river colony" mostly of Scottish emigrants. Later renamed to honor "lord Selkirk" who never was there but paid the way for the Scotsman to settle there.

Yeah i dont get it.

There is a quite fancy building roughly three blocks away that has most of its original woodwork intact. It is/was the ladies auxiliary building. The ground floor or first floor has a double door entryway, meaning and outer door also two of them side by side all solid wood, a section in middle for boots and cloaks in bad weather, an inner set of doors(now missing) though the glass ornate windows are still there, off to side is a large cloak room with tables original chairs gone but have plastic ones.

Lavatory with a closed off entrance to "baths". Second floor has more official meeting room with a terrace that is quite fancy and was probably used for outdoor meetings in summer. The main offices were once on the third floor, now converted to apartments...of sorts. Attic is also apartments...of sorts. Didnt see basement myself but I believe the old stove and icebox "refrigerator" are still there as it is left alone for sticking stuff in. Probably a number of broken original wooden chairs.

Outside there is three of original fence stone pillars with one section of iron fence. Rest is missing along with gates and I believe that the modern houses on either side were part of the grounds. Although it is very hard to tell it once had a dock with a stone path leading down to it. There was a mostly destroyed wooden boat there too.

None of the old fancy gas lamps exist here although we did have them once. There is however some of the pipes capped off here and there giving clues.

As we grow as cities across the world much of that old world charm from even fifty years ago disappears. But if you can get to it there is still remnants of the original craftsmenship, usually blocked off, that you can glimpse. And when the occasional movie comes up that uses CGI to give us a picture of those times you can see some of that beauty.

Steampunk fantasizes that era. Paints a good picture that is appealing but alas is fantasy. However if you can find the places or pictures of the real thing you can see just how much better it was.

It leaves me in awe of all that once was and has now been lost.

You see to me real art is not a painted canvas picture or some abstract piece that is supposed to make your brain hurt. I am not all that interested in visiting places where it is supposed to be as it was back in the day, manned by people who really have no clue trying to tell me that the bypass valve on floor of locomotive was the brake.( simpling valve for putting fresh steam into cylinders for maximum torque not speed to get over difficult areas or starting off. This is where all those clouds of steam of trains starting up comes from)

Old buildings that are modern height, they were much lower originally as we have grown taller over the last hundred years. Most of which have none of the "home" feel to them very static functional. Everybody had a home that they made it feel like a home somehow.

The next time you go by a train station, boat docks, or even looking around old museums and neighboorhoods see what is there and try to see beyond that to what once was.

If your really good you can see the craftsmen artwork that is long lost and maybe shed a tear or two. Even the poorest homes were rich in the craftsmen art.

Thanks for letting me rant.

Just a note almost of month ago a poor stray mother had her kittens under my front porch, two of the male kittens became sickly and she abandoned them. One of them, whose name is Willow will soon be coming home to stay with me. The other will stay with the neighboor who fostered them back to health. I am trying to make a table out of wood to help pay for their vet bills. I have idea for antique looking table, with two drawers that uses the natural grain of wood to paint pictures of a sort for top. Its all from old pine and other "junk" wood I have collected. I just have to get the picture out of my head to reality.

Wish me luck.