context

It's hard to separate anything, anything, from its surroundings. And maybe that makes everything, everything, more interesting. Just a thought (a needless one). But having griped, however mildly, about the grandeur of Boston's Traffic Tunnel Administration Building yesterday, it occurred to me to look up and see that there are plenty of domes — and even more steeples — in Newport, too, each reaching and/or making a statement in its own way. That was my mission (excuse??) for walking around town yesterday (a great day): just to look up ... at the gleaming gold screaming "Look at me!" (sort of) from atop the Court House, City Hall and that truly cool nestled/domestic onion dome (yes, an onion dome) on Old Beach Road. Then some verdigris caught my eye — on St. Paul's Church and the St. Clare Home — and I decided I'm partial to green, weathered green, for whatever reason, as it just seems warmer, more grounded, alive, even as it fades, blends, standing out softly, never overpowering, rather like coloring-within-the-lines, reading-between-the-lines, enough (!!), although I could go on and on, and please don't let me get started on antennas, chimneys, weathervanes and so many bare, brown trees ...







One of these/those rooftops is the Traffic Tunnel Administration Building (I'm still, still, thinking of Boston) — care to guess which one??

purpose

My head's still in Boston ... I guess it's been partly in Boston for twenty-five years, as that's how long ago I lived there. I don't know how that happened — how so much time passed, both slowly and quickly (I won't say it flew) — but maybe it explains diminishing brain power. Maybe we leave bits and pieces of consciousness in all the different places we've been and lived. Or not ...

But back to Saturday, when Mr. Betty and I were walking through Boston's North End before heading across that very pedestrian bridge (beside and beneath the stellar cable-stay bridge) to Charlestown: I kept seeing stars. On buildings, I mean (and not those new-fangled ones one can pick up at Home Depot). What was their purpose?? Some sort of colonial decoration?? I/we also kept seeing shutter clips (if that's what they're called) — those lovely old s- or f-shaped things that look like musical notation — but very few actual shutters ... as, really, once the wood has decayed, why go to the trouble of replacing it/them (the shutters), thus committing oneself to maintenance forever??

It was only after we passed by, stood back, saw how everything aligned, that we got it (we think): the stars were structural and/or used to line-up the bricks. They were washers, in effect, beneath the heads of bolts that helped hold the buildings together. Having had the crumbling brick chimney on our own home (in Newport) taken down and rebuilt in the past year — and adding shutters, however senseless, just because they belong there — we're attuned to such matters. So, it felt good to figure that out (the role of the stars). To relate. Though we had a hard time relating to the sight of Boston's Traffic Tunnel Administration Building. Certainly, traffic is a big deal, especially in a big city known for something called the Big Dig, but this building had a gold dome!! I mean, sense of purpose is nice, but that struck me as self-important, a tad over-the-top ...

where am I??

Tale of Two Cities?? Hardly. Just another iconic bridge (in Boston; I'm sure you recognize it) on a beautiful, blue-sky day. And Newport's Bridge is bigger, if we want to get comparative/competitive about it, but that's because Newport's Pell Bridge was built to accommodate passage of aircraft carriers, the Navy Base being just north of the bridge. Two aircraft carriers lie moth-balled there to this day ...

In any case, we (Mr. Betty and I) crossed two bridges — at least two bridges — and hung out in Boston on Saturday. And that new bridge (the largest asymmetrical bridge in the world??) is cool, very cool. It's even cooler having the time to stop/pause/view it on foot — from Charlestown, in particular, where we started out (with a quick look-see at Old Ironsides) before taking a ferry named Rita across the harbor, something we hadn't done in ages, as we're usually zipping past/under/through that creepily long tunnel en route to points farther north and feel as if we haven't seen Boston at all ...

But way back when ("way back when ..."), when I was just out of school — at the precise age/stage our son is now — I saw lots of Boston, as I lived there and went everywhere ... on foot. My apartment was in the middle, at the top of a hill, and I didn't hesitate to walk or run, i.e. jog, at any time of day or night — which was pretty stupid — from one end to the other, harbor to Pru, or sometimes across two bridges, my favorite route (at 9 or 10 p.m., solo) being along the Charles to the Mass. Ave. Bridge then back along the opposite shore to the "Salt and Pepper Bridge" near the Science Museum.

It's not so different from what I do now — though I very rarely jog, let alone run — living at the top of another hill in a smaller seaside city. We never really change, do we?? Preferences?? Habits?? Cities, too, remain in essence the same (or so it seems), although Boston looks/feels very different with that new lovely bridge and having buried its traffic issues underground. Still, the two cities (my two cities??) have much in common. The scale may be different — I feel smaller in Boston — but some things are exactly the same ...

About that bridge: it appears it's not the largest asymmetrical bridge in the world. "It is the first asymmetrical cable-stayed bridge in the United States and the widest cable-stayed bridge in the world" (according to the website of Kiewit, the construction outfit who built it). And, in the process of checking (and disproving) my facts, I learned something — the bridge's proper name, for one thing — from Wikipedia: "On 14 October 2002, elephants from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus crossed the new Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge to demonstrate the bridge's structural integrity. The 14 elephants proved that the bridge supports 112,000 pounds. The Boston elephant march resembled tests of the 1800s when bridge engineering was more questionable. Elephants were used to demonstrate the sturdiness of the Eads Bridge in 1874 and the Brooklyn Bridge in 1884. According to folklore, elephants are used for such shows of strength because they are widely believed to have uncanny instincts and will not cross unsafe structures." Now that's interesting ...

barriers

They exist on a grand (often unfortunate) scale, but I'm thinking of something smaller, nonetheless large in my mind: the ideal of having a public walkway along Newport Harbor. It exists, of course — with interruptions — and it's terrific but could be so much better. Yesterday's Newport Daily News put the issue front-and-center (okay, slightly to the left): "How do we bring the Harbor Walk to the next level? How do we make it an attraction like the Cliff Walk?" It would be great to have two such walks, on opposite sides of town. Yin and yang. Beach and harbor. Sunrise and sunset. (I'm not trying to get romantic here; one faces East, and one faces West.) Fact is: I weave my way along the waterfront with some frequency, following more-or-less the familiar blue-and-white signs, straying when I need to, when I know the way. And the difference in property owners' approaches to the presumably-public walkway is striking. As is the bright, new, funky (I love it) paint trim at IYRS (International Yacht Restoration School). As are the huddled masts-on-land, with halyards tapping, waiting patiently (or impatiently) to be re-launched from crowded piers come spring. (Come, Spring!) As are the boat names, where one can always find an answer to something ... or just something to smile about ...

loose ends

Some time ago, I mentioned the Artillery Company, and how one of my neighbors had taken a terrific photo of one of their cannon salutes on Washington Square, and how I was going to ask him (my neighbor) if I could include that photo here ... in this spot/space. He said no, emphatically, which I understand, thoroughly, as he has his own spot/space. To each his own spot/space. In any case, I finally remembered to walk down to the Artillery Company — whose doors were closed, but they're certainly handsome doors (aren't they??). They do open on weekends in the summer (and at other times, I'm sure), and I've been inside, where the display and collection are fascinating. Those cannon salutes are awesome. And that errant apostrophe on the otherwise-handsome sign encapsulating the company's history is no big deal; I wish I didn't notice such things, as they really don't matter (do they??). And, while I'm at it, I'll throw out one more image involving trash, to go with yesterday's subject matter. Oh, and also Wikipedia's description of Dark and Stormy, as weather was a significant topic earlier in the week:

A Dark and Stormy (or Dark 'n' Stormy) is an alcoholic highball style cocktail popular in many British Commonwealth countries, such as Australia and Bermuda. It consists of dark rum and ginger beer over ice. The local rum is usually used, for example, Bundaberg in Australia or Goslings in Bermuda.^[1]The drink is also popular in Rhode Island, particularly Newport.

trash

It sneaks up on you ... trash (among other things), or it did me, at First Beach the other day ... a world mounded with seaweed, in turn littered with debris. At first, walking through the mounds, I saw the usual stuff: clam shells (some whole, most broken), a few crabs. It's the color I was noticing, I think, as much as anything. The blend of creams and tan on red and brown — but, wait, that's a tan can. A has-been hydrangea. A lost sole. A snowy white coffee lid, not a snowy white shell.

Once I'd noticed it — the trash — it was impossible not to notice it. I saw trash everywhere ... how had I missed it just moments before?? And it reminded me (somehow, however that works) of a scene I'd seen just days before at Staples, in nearby Middletown, in the parking lot, where a seagull had found treasure in the trash. It is possible ...

In his (or her) case it was a banana, a whole one, and he/she was struggling to pick it up in his beak. He/she could do it (!!), though it was awkward, not easy, a heavy load — like trying to pick up a banana with chopsticks?? He (it's just easier to say "he") would start to fly off, get up in the air a bit, then drop the banana, again and again, not on purpose, I don't think, unless he was giving the banana the same treatment as a clam on the beach. It looked accidental ... and utterly futile ... but, either way, deliberate or not, the repeatedly-dropped-thus-increasingly-squishy banana attracted the attention of other gulls who flew in to help. Yeah, right. They wanted to nose in (beak in??) on the other gull's find, to take a chance at lifting off with his banana, as I sat cracking up in my car at the adjacent gas station. Ultimately, a car (another one, not mine) came by — the gulls waiting until the last possible second to get out of the way — and flattened the banana, so the whole gang partook of the oozing remains. Who knew gulls liked bananas??

Anyway, the trash at First Beach the other day reminded me of it/that, as I stood amid the squishy red mounds the size of hay bales (hence the need for the seaweed harvester, under wraps beside the carousel) taking in the crash of the waves ...

energy

Can't you just feel it return with the sun?? I suppose that shouldn't be surprising, given the reality of solar power — at Sachuest Point, for example, although the power has always been there, harnessed/harvested or not. Sometimes I/we forget that we're just one more sort of biological/physical organism, in need of the sun's energy to function, grow, thrive. The question (for me) becomes using that energy — THANK GOODNESS THE SUN IS SHINING!! — to good purpose, making sure it propels me uphill instead of down, as I sit looking through a tangle of brambles at all the gorgeous possibilities, despite shifting horizons, and all the pretty berries right there in front my nose, still determined to explore any number of access points before the sun sets ...

The "shoreline access points" at Sachuest Point are really worth exploring, #7 being one of my favorites (click the photo, uphill or downhill, if you can't quite read the sign). Now if I/we could just figure out how to store up some personal solar energy before the next long batch of gray rainy days, or how to harness the power of reflection ...

departure

I won't even mention the weather. At times like these (dark and stormy for five days in a row), it's better to dig deep into one's inventory of images and choose whatever blue skies strike your/my fancy ... then try to climb, drive, think, drink, eat, primp, pray or fly in that general direction. Which leads me to ask why do those planes — those old gray C-somethings from Quonset?? — fly quite so low (and slow) in their incessant runs over Newport and Jamestown?? I'm all for preparedness, but I find it rather creepy ...