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This is Going to Seem Dumb, but Stick with Me

2018-02-09 · story · Hank · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: History & curiosities (also: Nerdfighteria) · mode: Personal essay

Hank, who has thought about sidewalks since a 2013 viewer-suggested sidewalk interview, explains Missoula's patchwork sidewalks and maker's marks, then tells how a child's footprints leading to a 1909 maker's mark made him feel connected to people long gone and part of something far bigger than himself.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Why sidewalks: the 2013 Twitter-suggested sidewalk interview and dance, replayed

  • ★★ Hank recalls that four years ago, lacking a video idea, he asked Twitter for ideas, and Shaina Joseph told him to interview a sidewalk, which he did. — 00:00:06 · Twitter, Vlogbrothers
  • ★ In the replayed 2013 clip, the interviewed sidewalk has no complaints except tree roots. (joke) — 00:00:24

00:00:38 — Florida's uniform sidewalks vs Missoula's patchwork; maker's marks and illicit carved years

  • ★★ Since that video Hank has spent a surprising amount of time thinking about interviewing sidewalks. — 00:00:38
  • ★★ Hank says Florida sidewalks where they grew up were boring, consistent and laid all at once, while Missoula's range from a hundred years old to new, a weird patchwork, many falling apart. — 00:00:43 · Florida, Missoula, Montana
  • ★★ Hank says sidewalk maker's marks tell who laid a sidewalk and when; they are part advertisement, part record keeping for the city, and part warranty. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Hank says maker's marks largely disappear after the 1950s, leaving people illicitly carving the year into sidewalks, which he appreciates though it is technically illegal. — 00:01:12
  • ★ Hank says sidewalks from different eras look different because of weathering and materials. — 00:01:27

00:01:37 — The sidewalk moment: a child's footprints, the 1909 Miracle and Tripp maker's mark, everyone now gone

  • ★★★ Outside a friend's house Hank had an intense sidewalk moment: he followed a two- or three-year-old's footprints in the concrete to a maker's mark reading Miracle and Tripp, 1909. — 00:01:37
  • ★★ Hank's research found Frank Miracle and Henry Tripp laid that sidewalk in 1909, with a five-year guarantee to replace it if anything went wrong. — 00:02:12
  • ★★★ 109 years later, Frank Miracle and Henry Tripp are no longer around. — 00:02:28

00:02:37 — Why Hank likes it: proof people were there, things that outlast their makers, concrete connecting strangers; sign-off and kitty

  • ★★★ The child who left the footprints presumably grew up, lived a life and is gone too; Hank says this is not sad to him but something he likes. (hedged) — 00:02:37
  • ★★★ Hank has no context for that person's life, but knows they were there: a tiny, insignificant human moment fixed when the sidewalk was laid. — 00:02:50
  • ★★★ Hank likes it when people create things knowing and intending that they will keep serving a purpose after their makers are gone. — 00:03:04
  • ★★★ Above all, Hank likes that a chunk of concrete connects people who don't know they're connected; we are never very good at understanding how connected we are to each other and to the Earth's whole system. — 00:03:17
  • ★★★ People take drugs to feel that feeling, Hank says, and he got it from a sidewalk: being part of something that existed long before us and stretches far beyond us is very neat, good, real and big. — 00:03:29

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description says a cut minute covered how the sidewalk-interview comment changed how Hank sees the world, and that making things bigger than oneself is the most rewarding way he has found to experience creation. — video description
  • ★★ Missoula tripled in population between 1900 and 1910, which is why a lot of its sidewalks were laid down in the 1910s and 1920s. — video description · Missoula, Montana
  • ★★ Hank says Missoula people protect the maker's stamps: whole sidewalks get replaced but the stamped square is left, and sometimes the stamp is cut out and sunk in the ground beside the new sidewalk. — video description · Missoula, Montana

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Interconnectedness · Sidewalk

Also: Florida · Frank Miracle · Henry Tripp · Maker's mark · Missoula, Montana · Twitter

Only in the description or credits: Shaina Joseph

Also centred on Interconnectedness: When You Can't Fix Everything… · Views · The Ones Who Love Us

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