Erasing Swastikas

I was honored last week to get to perform some community service at the Waynesboro YMCA when a beautiful mural on the outside of their building was defaced by some jackass with a can of cheap red spray paint. The mural, put on the exterior of the building in 2020 by esteemed Richmond, VA-based muralist Nils Westergard, managed to show a tender moment between a father and child.

Getting the chance to not only fix something horribly hateful that had been done was amazingly special. I also enjoyed the unique challenge of fixing someone else’s work, and in particular found some harmony in dealing with this particular defacement, as my paternal grandparents were Polish refugees who suffered greatly from the invasion of their country by the Nazis.

Thank you to the Waynesboro Family YMCA and to Jeffrey Fife for allowing me the opportunity to help set this right.