Photo Corners headlinesarchivemikepasini.com
A S C R A P B O O K O F S O L U T I O N S F O R T H E P H O T O G R A P H E R
Enhancing the enjoyment of taking pictures with news that matters, features that entertain and images that delight. Published frequently.
Friday Slide Show: Infrastructure
14 July 2023
It isn't uncommon when you reach a certain age to believe the long gone are still here. The grandmother who died 60 years ago still lives in her upstairs flat so you can take the bus to stay with her. If you knew where to catch the bus.
As children marvel at fairy tales about what has never been, the elderly enjoy through this phenomenon the sense of a past that never ends. They are, in a sense, adult fairy tales.
But the past does end. All around us the evidence is unassailable. Things do not remain as they were. They are as we will come to remember them only that way for a little while.
You have only to look at the rust on a railing that was once painted elegantly in color. Or some wall with only the screw holes left to suggest it held some important device.
They are a metaphor of course for the kind of change which comes to us all in one way or another.
The building is a skilled nursing facility that was recently acquired by a new group. They care for over 200 patients and have already dramatically improved their staffing and quality measures ratings. But they haven't gotten around to the infrastructure yet.
Few of the patients see that of course.
They see instead the gaily decorated public areas of the interior that celebrate every holiday. And the staff they rely on. And TV, of course. There's a fish tank and pianos and a computer for public use.
The exterior, in other words, is not a reflection of the level of care occuring in the interior.
But it is a metaphor.
