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Community Corner

Make Your Mark

It's your life. Put your name on it!

It’s rare to find someone content with passing through life quietly.  Most people want to leave behind a legacy–some sort of proof they were here and their life mattered.  The character Brooks in Stephen King’s "Shawshank Redemption" comes to mind. After serving more than 40 years in prison an elderly Brooks is paroled, but can’t seem to make it in the real world. He takes his own life, but before doing so he feels he must make his mark on the world by scrawling “Brooks was here” on the wall. 

Yes, making our mark seems to be so very important to humans.

Today it seems we have many different ways to make our mark just to say, “Hey!  I’m here.” These are ways that can be argued as being negative or positive depending on your point of view. We have vanity plates for our cars; people earn a particular status for what they do or
say, and for what they wear. People become notable just for being on a reality show, we can have a blog, a website, and it’s not totally lost on me that we make our mark by having a Facebook profile. We can even make our mark anonymously by donating to charity, working behind the scenes for a needy family, or even invent a screen name to post anonymously on a message board. 

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Making a mark on the world could simply involve raising your children to be contributing members of society to carry on the family name, leaving behind a business that continues to grow and prosper, voting, or perhaps you simply make your mark by showing you owned something.

Claiming things seems to be very important to humans no matter what type of person, place, thing, or idea we want to focus on.

I remember one of the rituals of the new school year was watching my mom place my name prominently on all of my school things, and when I was old enough to be trusted with the household permanent marker I wrote my own name.

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Making your mark to show ownership is nothing new. The practice dates back to ancient times. Hieroglyphic inscriptions tell us which Egyptian pharoh comissioned each and every pyramid and obelisk.  Darius I, a Persian king living between 550 and 486 B.C., prominently placed an inscription on his royal palace of Susa stating, stating, “I built this palace.” The Romans took the practice of marking buildings to an all new high.The Pantheon, home of the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome has an inscription that states, “ M AGRIPPA L F COS TERTIUM FECIT," meaning "Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, having been consul three times built it."

Perhaps it just boils down to human ego. Think about the big letters that spell out TRUMP in New York City advertising Trump Tower. Yet Donald Trump’s monument to himself and his empire isn’t unique.  Most cities and towns in the United States have buildings that bear the name of the owner showing that the ancient practice continues today.    

Perhaps not as notable as Trump but very important to the Douglasville story is Joseph C. McCarley, the gentleman you see in the featured picture. Doesn’t he look like he’s ready to make his
mark on the world?

Fannie Mae Davis indicates in her section titled “Small Town Gossip, 1915”, that "McCarley was a native of [Douglasville] and highly esteemed."

She further advises McCarley "started his business, a dime store, housed in a small wooden building on a Broad Street lot, (and) after a few sucessful years, he cleared the lot and erected (in 1909) a large, brick building, then opened McCarley's, a well-stocked novelty store."  

When McCarley vacated the building in 1914 the spot became Douglasville’s first moving picture theater and was called the Kozytorium. I’ll be posting more about the history behind moving pictures in the downtown area soon. 

Today the spot is known as McCarley Store Number 1 and is where enjoys our patronage today.

Apparently the five and dime business was booming in Douglasville during the early 1900s because Joseph McCarley was able to go up the street just a bit in 1915 and build an even more handsome location where he really made his mark by incorporating his name directly into the brickwork of the building. His name is prominently seen as you drive past on Broad Street.  A 1919  ad advertises a Brownie #6 Kodak camera that McCarley sold for $2. Today the location is home to Magnolia One Realty.

Joseph C. McCarley also stands out in Douglasville history since he built the city’s first brick residence. My research indicates the construction process was very interesting to the folks in town. They would gather in the front yard to watch the brick laying process.  

Imagine that! There was a time in our past when brick-laying was an oddity! I have begun researching the home and hope to bring more of its rich history to light very soon.

In more recent times Seth Godin, an American entrepreneur, author and public speaker used the phrase “Put your name on it!” referring to improving quality and responsiveness. In my opinion this phrase implies so much more than making your mark in the business world.  

Perhaps you and I will never have our names emblazoned across a building that will endure one hundred plus years, but we can still make our mark on society. It would be a sad legacy to live a life similar to the the character Brooks and feel like the only thing you can do at the end is leave hasty graffiti on a wall to indicate you were there.

Live each day to the fullest and be the best person you can be. Find your passion and pursue it with all your heart. Get involved with your community. Don't be satisfied with allowing others to make choices that impact you. You have a voice. Use it. End each day knowing you did everything you could to make your part of the world a better place through your work and your comments to others. 

Go ahead. 

I dare you. 

It’s YOUR life. 

Put your name on it!

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