January 21, 2015

Discovering Dargatz #121 - Graffiti

Living right near a busy railroad next to a creek allowed for many adventurous opportunities.  Whether it was attempting to catch animals, collecting railroad spikes, or the popular stick racing, there was always something to do at the creek.  For a time in my adolescence, my cousins and I went searching for graffiti.  With both my father and uncle being train enthusiasts, my cousins and I were very familiar with railroading and this spurned our interest in the artists that "decorated" the sides of train cars and trestles. Something about this debatable art-form being taboo and illegal made it all that more exciting to discover. We would regularly walk the creek down to under the highway where there was a large amount of graffiti to view. We would also take pictures of stalled trains at the Butler yards nearby and added the to a collection of accumulated photos. It became a routine. Every Wednesday after school, a quick trip to the yard to find the latest and greatest graffiti. A few books from the library were even checked out.  Graffiti viewing became an exciting activity that bonded my cousins and I in some of the most formative times of our lives.

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