Ramshackle Decoration

I live in a town where the current median sales price for a single family home is $905,500. Compare that with the national median sales price of $223,500 and you’d be hard pressed to imagine anything but ornate, opulent façades everywhere you turn. Then you get here and actually have a look around. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of beautiful and intricately decorated displays to be seen, from stunningly well kept victorian houses and brightly colored bungalows, to a lavish public rose garden, to name a few. Still, if you tread a little off the beaten path and/or look a little closer you’ll notice that the city’s overall appearance doesn’t always jibe with the numbers.

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There are a lot of reasons for this, the high standard of living mixed with a dwindling, aging middle class, a bizarre, dare I say, conservative sense of nostalgia, and even a mindset that sloughs off the notion of defining one’s self by wearing one’s “Sunday Best” seven days a week in favor of quirky displays of personal pragmatism. Regardless of which flower you pick from the bouquet of explanations, after all is said and done what you’re left with is a contradictory mix of decorations that some might call pleasantly charming and others might point to as an example of what’s wrong with today’s society. Either way, it proves the points that “ornate” does not always equal “beauty” and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

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