One of the things I’ve discovered about myself the last year or so–and I’m not sure this is a good thing–is how fascinated I am by watching things be destroyed. The pictures adorning this site are of the destruction of the old high school building where I work. Watching it get turned to rubble was a lot of fun.

Removing the classrooms.

This used to be three floors of classrooms.

I took dozens of pictures and would stand around watching the Jaws of Destruction for several minutes rather than do less useful things such as planning classes or marking student papers. It was also exciting that we were in the building while it was being torn down. At one point we heard a loud rumbling. A colleague said “I think someone just fell down the stairs.” I said “Actually, I think that was the stairs.”

My old office was on the top floor on the left. You can still see the old doors.

Then, when construction started on the new building, I pretty much stopped taking pictures. Every now and then I’d check on the progress and try to guess the layout, but it wasn’t that important.

Part of it might have been sentimentality, I’d spent many years in that disturbingly old building that had to be retrofitted with earthquake-proof reinforcements. (Despite these, I think it’s still miraculous it survived the 2011 earthquake without any damage.) But that doesn’t explain me going out there today and taking pictures of the fresh destruction as they tear down the last bit of the building still standing (including my old office).

The Jaws of Destruction tear the old building a new one, so to speak.

It may be that I’ve seen buildings and houses being built before. We even helped build our house in Hayden, Colorado. However, I’ve never been next to/in a building when it was being torn down. That is a fascinating process. There’s noise and dust and then random moments of silence as the crews take breaks. Even after the walls are brought down, the Jaws of Destruction break up and sift the concrete and another machine recovers the rebar and metal bits.

In the USA we’d have probably brought it all down at once with an impressive controlled implosion. Oddly, and I know how twisted this sounds, that would have been boring. Watching it come down bit by bit is much more interesting. I remember a few hundred years ago (plus or minus) when my fraternity house at Kansas State was about to be renovated. The brothers got to participate in a brief orgy of destruction that involved kicking and punching walls and tearing out decades old plaster and lath board. It was a lot of fun. Then, a few weeks after we’d had our fun and the place was abandoned, someone torched the place and it had to be torn down.

I hate to say it, but I was ready to help tear it down. Just for fun. Clearly I’m in the wrong line of work.

Update–Added photo of fresh destruction.