<![CDATA[A Wall is Just a Wall]]>Today’s Blogging 101 assignment: “Publish a post based on your own, personalized take on a blogging prompt.” What? Huh? What’s a blogging prompt? Apparently, just a question someone asks, that you then use to “prompt” you, to inspire you, to write a blog post.  “Writing prompts can be a blogger’s best friend: when inspiration is low and fresh ideas few, responding to someone else’s question can do get you out of a slump. There’s no need to treat them as requirement, though; prompts work best when you personalize them to fit your interests and perspective.”  WordPress even has a whole site, The Daily Post,  dedicated to prompts. Who knew?

So OK, today’s prompt is “Share an image of a wall that reveals something about a place, people, or you.” After thinking (a while!) I’ve got one. I don’t even have to tweak the question.

otown muralSo, what the heck is this? you might be asking. The photo is a mural painted on a wall of an old building in my home town.  There is a series of them, and they really look like the people are right there. Next to the building is a little grassy area with a walkway. barber wall otown

They are visions of an earlier time (even before my time), when the downtown was a thriving place. Like many downtown areas in small cities throughout the Midwest, and perhaps the country, things have changed. “Big box” stores on the edge of town have replaced the small stores and businesses that once filled the downtown, which now has lots of empty storefronts. But these murals remind us of an earlier time, and “prettify” what would otherwise be just a blank wall on an old building.

So I think I’ve covered what these walls say about a place. What do they say about me? I think they remind me, no matter how far (in place and time) I may wander, this little place is a part of me. I am also reminded that I took these photos during a walking tour of the city while I was “home” for my 40th high school class reunion. I reconnected with that place, and many people I hadn’t seen for those 40 years. Owatonna Public LibrarySo I have to share one more photo I took that weekend: that of the public library, where I worked after school when I was in high school. Still standing, still in the same place, although added on to and remodeled and improved inside and out. Again, still a part of me. And where I truly started my “life in libraries.”

P.S. I think I’ll use The Daily Prompt again!

 

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