There are multiple predictions about the future of the Earth after the humans are no longer populating it; scientists, writers, movie directors are guessing how long it will be before the Planet erases all the traces of our existence. These predictions are not very hard to make: there are multiple examples of abandoned and lost cities from the ancient times and not so ancient like Chernobyl.
And then there is former Benchmark Express Furniture store in Olathe, KS – a slowly deteriorating reminder of a failed business I drive by several times a day. The store closed around 4 years ago, when the economy was still doing fine and people still were spending the money they didn’t yet know they didn’t have. Recently one of the large signs fell down and I thought it was a good time to stop by and take a few photos.
Apparently the letter X is the first to go:
This sign crashed a month or two ago:
No one backed up to the loading dock for a long time:
Concrete is slowly converting back to its original ingredients:
Customers are long gone…
…and trespassers are not welcome:
Grass is growing on the parking lot:
This sign may last a year or two before it falls:
Formerly grand facade is sprouting cracks:
Even the parking lot signs are tired of standing idle:
Wind is blowing through the banner:
Soon after the final sale was over with and the store was closed for good, the developers promptly constructed more retail space across the street.
Continuing my previous post about the comparison of the American and the Soviet education systems I will now post a few photos of Stephen Lapekas – Alexei Kutzkov’s American counterpart.
Lapekas became a Navy pilot, then a commercial pilot for TWA; I am told Kutzkov works for the Russian equivalent of the FAA.
Despite the seemingly different education systems in the Soviet Union and the United States, the article didn’t mention that the most important factor was not how the students were educated but how their country utilized their talent and knowledge after the graduation. In the USSR the graduate was likely to be drafted to serve in the military and after eventually graduating from college be assigned a low-paying job anywhere in the country. Most of the intellectual jobs such as engineering, science and medicine were paying less than manual labor to maintain the socialist class hierarchy, where intelligentsia was not considered a class like workers and peasants, but was tolerated as a mid-layer in order to serve the cause of the working class. Therefore, a welder was making more money than a doctor or a scientist with a PhD.
In the end, the quality of life was probably better for the fun-loving American kid, than for his serious Soviet counterpart, whose abilities could not deliver him the material success he deserved.
Note: These photos are dated with the year 1936 on the archive pages, but some of them are used in the article “A Great Newspaper Builds a Great Art Museum” published in 1939. I have no way to tell when they were taken.
A legend my parents always told me that during the hungry post-war years the store shelves had nothing but caviar and people weren’t interested. They wanted the actual food – bread, butter, meat and there is only so much caviar a person can eat even if it’s a prized delicacy. The government even felt necessary to advertize the caviar as a tasty and nutritious product.
