Contrast now with then

As I read Ms. (Andra) Gillespie’s oped column on racism (Jan. 20), I reflected on my love of visiting antique shops like her. You see, I am a cabinet maker and I enjoy looking at furniture of the past for their construction techniques, contrasting them with the modern ways o f construction that I use today.
Hand cut dovetails, hide glue, solid wood drawer bottoms — all vestiges of the past — stand in stark contrast to my biscuit-joined joints, vinyl glues and durable plywood veneers. Yet, I love these vestiges of the past, and I have them in my home as touchstones to that which was. My kitchen drawers have today’s ball bearings and are demonstrably better than those of the past and I am reminded of it every time I open an old sticky drawer in the antique, or my smooth kitchen drawer.
And so it is with those artifacts found to be objectionable by Ms. Gillespie. She entered an ANTIQUE store — a place selling things of the past — and yet she missed that fact. Lawn jockeys only serve to heighten the difference between what was and what now is.
Racism is what WAS. Barack Obama brings us to what IS and will be. Isn’t it time for Ms. Gillespie to move on too?

More letters by Dan Chadwick

• Rethink medical responseApril 17, 2009