I was talking with one of my coworkers the other day about race relations and attitudes and expectations of society. Somehow, probably because she is black (her preferred term; we discussed it) and I am not, we got on to the issue of reparations for slavery.
If you’re not familiar with the concept it goes something like this: white Americans should pay black Americans money because all black people in this country are here because they had an ancestor who was a slave. Some enterprising law student even filed a suit in 2002 when she discovered a link between existing corporations and slavery.
Naturally, of course, I felt the need to ask why, exactly, when my family hadn’t owned slaves should I be expected to pay into such a plan. How do you know they didn’t, she replied?
Ah ha! I’m one of the lucky ones: I know where my people came from and when. They came through Ellis Island on the big boat, two of them really, met up and married later (OK, so my father’s folks snuck in illegally from Canada (Irish need not apply after all)).  And the way my brain works somehow all of this conversation popped out today’s Thought.
The Statue of Liberty is covered in 31 tons of copper, the equivalent to the thickness of two American pennies. Copper gets that lovely green patina as it ages, the look of the statue we know so well, but it doesn’t start out that way.
So did she look like a shiny new penny when they first put her up in 1886? And if she did, if that verdigris that we have now isn’t her original form, how cool must have that looked?
Ohhhh, good question. A shiny lady libterty would have been cool indeed, and gives a new meaning to that line “I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”