Rant Week: Day Four/ Vandalism!

While walking through Davis Square one day avoiding smokers, I happened to glance up at the Equestrian Statue of Henry Gassaway Davis, and noticed an act of shocking, SHOCKING, vandalism. At some point, at least as early as late summer, some hooligan scaled the statue (under cover of darkness in the dead of night, no doubt) and placed a sticker in a delicate place on the statue's anatomy.

Someone felt the urge to put a sticker on the....bump between the rear legs of the horse. It's a simple sticker, just a lower-case "h" on a white background. One of those ovals with a "W" would have made more sense, but it's not the content that's disturbing. It's the location.

Startling, I know. I didn't notice this until a few weeks ago, but when I checked my files, I discovered that you could see blurry evidence of this sticker in photographs I took back in September. I would have taken a better photo, but the thought of standing in Davis Square with my camera carefully focused on the crotch of a statue of a horse was just a little too embarrassing for me to follow through.

And it occurs to me that there are two reasons that this act of blatant equine genital humiliation has not yet been rectified.

First: Who really wants to admit that they just happened to be looking at the doodle of the horse statue. It's entirely possible that this crime has gone unreported until now. I mean, I'm brave enough to bring this story to light, but I hope my readers don't think I go around checking out horse statue packages.

Second: If this crime has been reported to the proper authorities at City Hall, it's quite possible that there are no city employees whose job description encompasses them removing illegally-placed stickers from statues of horse members.

Either way, it's a small act of humiliation that might explain the forlorn look on old Henry Gassaway Davis' face. How would you feel if you had to ride around downtown Charleston on a horse with a sticker on his naughty bits?