Lots of letters to the editor of the local paper about “saving” an old college dorm that’s no longer needed. I wrote:

Here’s some gardening trivia. It’s “cucumber season” right now. My plants are loaded with fruit, and the leaves haven’t yet started to yellow. Raspberry season ended last week, peas a few weeks before that, and it looks like tomato season might start in a week or two.

I got a finger caught in a tiller this spring, so my weeding isn’t what’s it been in past years. In my garden, the calendar seems to be Lambs Quarters, Gallant Soldier, Giant Ragweed, Crabgrass, and last Purslane, which I haven’t seen yet this year. We’re now at “If you pull out that weed you’ll also uproot the tomato” season.

A hundred years ago coal and oil were cheap enough to make insulating a stone building an extravagant expense. Single pane windows you can walk through are great when the fuel to run a steam boiler is as common as dirt. Nowadays you can’t buy a coal or oil fueled heating system for your house, and every re-siding job includes an additional layer of foam insulation on the house’s exterior.

So, in a way, the construction of living spaces follows the same sort of calendar that corn does. Sweet corn tassels and sets ears based on the length of the day, and if you get the seed in earlier in the year, the plants will be taller in July. Uninsulated masonry construction makes sense when heating fuel and masonry labor are both inexpensive, but you don’t see many castles being built today.

Lots of people have made a fuss about Lourdes Hall being torn down. It may be a beautiful building in terms of Western architectural aesthetics, but is that really how we should judge the worth of a space built for human beings? High heels and bound feet are hardly beautiful to a podiatrist! Is Lourdes beautiful in terms of renovation cost, suitability for housing, or energy efficiency? No, No, and No. Ten million dollars for communal apartments with shared bathrooms and an extravagant heating bill hardly seems like a win for my property taxes (which is how an affordable housing project would typically be funded).

People like to say that old houses have lots of “character”, but the reality is that a house built in 1890 has all the character of a mean old man. Twelve-inch baseboard is fun to look at, but it’s covered in lead paint that kids love to eat. The house may have high ceilings, but installing central air on the second floor involves tearing out a lath and plaster wall. Cloth covered wiring that crackles in the electric box when someone takes a steamy shower is hardly comforting. Updating an old building to meet modern standards isn’t much different than planting corn in July and hoping for ears in August.

I think Cotter’s plan for the space where Lourdes sits is great. Winona will be rid of a vacant, unused, inefficient building and Cotter will build an activity space that will help meet community needs and abide by modern energy conserving standards.