Q: When people are suffering during times of national strifeand countries are at war, it's not unheard of for people to melt down statues just to survive. Is that where we are today?

I ask this after seeing the sculpture of two boys on a tire swing that graced Boise Towne Square mall for so long in a scrap heap with the hands and feet cut off waiting to be melted down. The salvage yard received it in this sad condition, and they don't want to see it destroyed, either. HumptyDumpty can still be put back together again if we collectively care enough.- GENE W., E-MAIL

A: I don't think we've reached that point that we need to melt down artwork to survive, but cutting up a sculpture for salvage can't be considered a high point in our history.

The piece stood just inside the mall's main entrance for years. It was recently removed as part of a renovation. As you've noted, it was cut into pieces and hauled to a recycling center.

"They tore out the old fountain where the statue was because it was costing too much to maintain," Pacific Recycling Regional Manager Michael Cataldo said. "They gave most of what they pulled out to Habitat for Humanity. They said that if anyone wanted the statue they could have it, but there weren't any takers so they brought it to us. It was in pieces when we got it."

By his estimate, some 15 to 20 pieces.

Pacific Recycling, he said, paid fair-market salvage value for the piece - $90.

A spokesman for the mall declined to comment. Asked why, he said he didn't see what the big deal was.

Artist Services Director Barbara Robinson of the Idaho Commission on the Arts sees it differently.

"I always liked that piece; in fact it was the best thing in the mall," she said. "It seems to me that it could have been auctioned, donated, sold, moved - anything but scrapped. It's a real shame and a loss of a nostalgic art work that people identified with."

If it could be salvaged, the sculpture would look great in a park along the river.

"We'll set it aside," Cataldo said. "If there's someone out there who'd like to braze it back together, I'd be happy to sell it to them. Heck, we'd even be willing to donate it."

Any takers this time?

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