Drive any old highway long enough and you'll start to notice them. Motel signs from 1962 still glowing at 11pm. Diner marquees with two letters out, the rest holding on. The faded paint of a service station that closed thirty years ago, still legible, still telling you where you are.
I think of these as roadside saints. Not in the religious sense. In the older sense — figures that mark a place, that say someone was here, and they meant it.
Most things built today are designed to be replaced. These weren't. The men who hand-bent the neon, the women who hand-painted the lettering — they weren't optimizing for a five-year lifecycle. They built for the road. The road kept them.
There's a kindness in objects that refuse to quit. They remind you that some things are worth doing slowly, and once.
— Sapere Aude