Yet another anniversary

So through a link on a blog I found this site and because I am enthralled with dictionaries of all makes and models I am experimenting with making this my homepage instead of the boring Smoogle. Under "This Day in History", which I am not sure but suspect will be exceedingly US-centric, I discovered that today in 1964 one my favorite bridges opened - the Verrazano-Narrows. The design of this bridge is graceful whereas possibly my all time favorite bridge, The Brooklyn Bridge, is elegant in massively solid presence.

There is a walkway along the bay near the Verrazano that is a lovely spot to stroll, and though I did not go to that part of Brooklyn often just knowing it was there was a boon to my soul. I spent many more hours at the Brooklyn Heights Promenade as that was walking distance from a few of my home spots.

One recollection I have of the area by the Verrazano is a very fuzzy memory of being there after dark, with Matt. We got dropped off there after hitchhiking back from Maryland where we stayed with a sister of childhood buddy of his on some Native American land with no running water or electricity in November. The whole trip had been an adventure, starting with hitchhiking down there, climbing my first (okay the only one that size. FINE!) chain link 12 foot fence to save time getting to the massive truck stop in order to find some dinner and hope to meet an amenable trucker to take us down the road a piece. The log cabin we stayed in with Maria had newspaper between the rolls of wood, the stove was for cooking and added some heat to the space. Water was down the hill in a stream where I saw my breath as I brushed my teeth. Sometime that weekend was a stealth mission to a corn field that had been picked mechanically and we were collecting whatever was left behind so Maria would have feed for her chickens.

The only time I remember feeling lost and the route endless was back in Brooklyn in an unfamiliar part of the borough I called home. Something about being bordered by water and strips of racing highway that needed to be crossed left me feeling small and vulnerable. In that moment Brooklyn felt more remote than being in the woods with no power, more unnavigable than the back country without a compass.


* this photo is from our recent trip to NYC. Probably somewhere I have a shot I love but that would mean looking for the photograph and scanning it and and and.