Good Morning.
In 1971 a wealthy inventor named Thomas Fawick donated two large statues to my city. Moses went to the campus of a Lutheran college with no fuss at all, but David, one of only two full-sized replicas of the original in Italy, caused an uproar. A local Baptist
minister declared David to be a work of sin and predicted the sculpture would have local citizens running naked through the streets and that violent weather and other signs of heavenly disapproval would be visited upon the city. Some suggested that David could be covered up here and there, but the art purists finally won out and he was installed in a small downtown park named for his benefactor. The park is right next to the post office, within sight of an apartment building inhabited mainly by older women, and near a bridge that carries a fair amount of traffic in and out of the city. David's fans complained that he wasn't positioned in a way that afforded the best view of him, but his detractors continued to grumble that he shouldn't be viewed at all.
In 1997 David was taken down off his pedestal so the contamination from an old gasification plant could be removed from the park. People assumed that he would be lovingly care for during his absence, but such was not the case. He was discovered in an old storage building lying flat on his backside, but that was just the beginning of his troubles. The city council debated for the next three years whether to let him rise again and if so, where to let him do it. They finally agreed to bring him back to the park, but then there was all kinds of handwringing about how to face him. Should he greet the traffic coming off the bridge? Should he wish a Merry Christmas to the folks mailing their cards and packages at the post office? One woman wrote a letter to the editor stating that she would never enter the building again and certainly not with her eleven-year-old son who would apparently be damaged for life if he caught a glimpse of the statue. I actually replied to her letter and told her to go to Europe. As for the old gals in the apartment building, the main thing the ones on the upper floors would see was the top of David's head, and I imagine that some of them put in a request to move to the lower levels with their fear of height and all. Finally, however, David was back in the park where he belonged and today people gather around him in lawn chairs for summer concerts and other events.
Related to all of this or not, depending on your way of thinking, was the saga of the gay bar. Once accessed through an anonymous door in the middle of the downtown retail area, the bar was eventually closed by the city. But wait! Shortly a much larger establishment opened up right across the street and was named, rather deliciously, Touchez. After several years of success, it closed because a place was in the works with an even more interesting location. Today a beautifully decorated, well-appointed establishment with a roof-top deck is directly across the street from the offices and meeting place of the city council, and the name of the place is Club David.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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