Two Troubling Thoughts

The first troubling thought:
Here the city has a monthly evening downtown street festival with a theme. June's theme was cars. Yesterday we went to Carwalk. The city blocked off a downtown street for about four blocks and special cars (antique, muscle cars, unusual cars) were parked up and down the blocks in the street. Street vendors and displays were located all along the sidewalks and some of the stores had special sales or gifts. The contemporary art museum and other businesses were open. The Grace Museum was free. A band was performing at Minter Park which is a charming tiny memorial park with a lovely fountain one story high dedicated to the private citizen who Willed it. It was a nice event and the featured cars were interesting.
Then Charlie saw a doppelganger, someone who looked like a very nice man, Mike,a machininst Charlie had worked with for years in North Carolina. Charlie told him "You look like Mike, a man I used to work with" and the man looked at him blankly and said "No". But the woman with him said to Charlie "His name IS Mike". They started talking and it turned out that he WAS Mike but that he had lost his mind organically through the solvent metal-cleaning chemicals he had used daily in his work. His wife, Beth, said that he had been forced into early disability retirement and then she started naming off other men in the machinist department who had lost kidneys, developed cancer, and died from various causes attributable to the same solvent. Charlie was shocked. He had worked in another department which interacted daily with the machinists and knew them all. We said goodby, but the rest of the day Charlie kept coming back to Mike, he was just haunted by the shocking deterioration of Mike and that he could not even recognize Charlie. I know he will keep mentioning it from time to time and what a shame it is.
The second troubling thought:
We went to a congregation meeting and the topic was remodelling. The temple is beautiful and looks like it was done yesterday. It is immaculate, not one smudge or fingerprint or blemish anywhere. The congregation has retained contractors to advise them and the contractors have advised getting rid of the antique embossed wallpaper, getting rid of the antique wainscotting, getting rid of the old but excellent quality antique molding and panelling that cannot be purchased today, getting rid of it all and painting everything for a fresh, new look. They said the decorating is dated and needs to be replaced.
Well, I disagree! Would they redecorate Buckingham Palace or the beautiful buildings in Paris and throughout Europe just because they are dated??? I think not!!! I think the charm of the building is in its dating. I mentioned this privately to the congregation president and he replied "It's been this way over fifty years, and I guess I am just tired of it". Well, it's their call, I will restrain myself and keep silent. "Silence is Wisdom" , a yiddish proverb from the Talmud Mas. Yoma 4 b.
Today we will attend a 5:30 pm dinner at the Szechwan Restaurant with those of the congregation who choose to attend, and at 7:00 we plan to go to the Friday evening service. Tomorrow from 7 am to 11 am is the farmers' market and all day is the week-long high school rodeo at the fairgrounds. And tomorrow evening at 5:30 is dinner theatre with the play, the Fantasticks at 7:00.