Don’t underestimate connection to past

On a recent walk at Green Lawn Cemetery, I visited the Lanman mausoleum where William K. Lanman and his family rest. Green Lawn is a place where we find the stories of our city, and in many cases those stories connect with buildings or homes, providing a tangible connection and deeper understanding.

Letter writer Douglas Leeds discounts saving the Lanman family mansion, which he calls home of a local “widget maker” (“Don’t let nostalgia shape our future,” Tuesday) Apparently he fails to value preserving beautiful architecture, the work of Columbus’ most significant architect (Frank Packard, another Green Lawn resident), or a physical connection to early Columbus. In his view it seems the abandoned car dealership that rots where the Lucas Sullivant home once stood at West Broad Street and Route 315 is some kind of progress. I tend to agree with Joe Blundo’s Sunday column — these buildings and homes and stories are what make Columbus a community.

They connect where we’ve come from to where we are going. There are lots of places to build apartments. There are only a few homes like the Lanmans’.

Randel Rogers Galloway and Sherrod Brown? I read that the Senate wouldn’t vote on gun legislation this week and would instead focus on long-planned banking legislation.

Look, I know working on banking legislation will be easier and far less controversial but it won’t save kids’ lives. I don’t want to clean my boys’ bathroom; it’s messy, disgusting work. But I do it because I’m a grown-up and it needs to be done.

Gun legislation needs to be done. Ban assault rifles. Fund a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study of gun violence. Raise the minimum age to buy a gun to 21 years old.

Do your job.