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Perspective: We are builders

Circus barn, Peru, Indiana
Susan Stephens
Circus barn, Peru, Indiana

I remember my first trip to see the Rocky Mountains. Finally, standing on a mountain crest, there’s that feeling that hugs you for a moment. You feel tiny, insignificant and overwhelmed.

Yeah. That feeling.

This might seem strange, but I've had a similar feeling when standing on a city street corner. Or when I am walking up an ornate, winding staircase or crossing an arching, wooden bridge or whispering in a cathedral.

I feel that sense of awe when I look at the large — and small — marvels built by man. And women. Human engineering.

We are builders. Go to a downtown street corner, wherever you live. Take a hard look. Document what has been built. In all directions. What you see deserves some kind of hallelujah.

Study building designs. Recognize the skills and tools involved — made more noteworthy when you flashback to when it was built.

Appreciate the amazing ability of mankind to build things. The mastery of wood and steel and fabric and chemistry — woven, welded, blended, bolted, leveled, beveled, mixed and fixed until it works.

So, no, this is not a competition with nature. Just an observation ... that we are builders and have come a long way through ingenuity.

And I'm proud to be a small part of it. In our own way, with our own skills, we all are builders.

I’m Lonny Cain … and that’s my Perspective.

Lonny Cain, a graduate of the journalism program at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, has been in the newspaper business for more than 45 years. He and his wife have three sons. They live in Ottawa, where he was managing editor of the local daily newspaper for 30 years, retiring in December 2014. He continues to be a columnist for The Times in Ottawa and is pursuing other writing projects.