January 23rd Continued

I told you January 23rd was a good picture day. You couldn't have possibly thought after reading the last post that the pictures could be done. As you recall, I left you outside the capital building on a cold, clear, windy, Pennsylvania winter day. In order to get home, I had to make my way to Front Street and then to the freeway. Front street runs along the river and it was startling to see that the river was beginning to freeze. Not that it has never happened before. It happens every couple years and it is startling to see every time. The river is half a mile across at Harrisburg and nearly a mile across at Columbia so to see a moving body of water frozen has always struck me at unusual, no matter how many times it happens.
I love the way the light from the sunset is streaming through the openings in the bridge, coloring them orange. Just up river from this bridge is the footbridge that leads from Front Street to Center Island. There are various amusements on Center Island, including a baseball stadium where a Single A minor league team plays. In 1996, we had extended cold through January and into early February and the entire river was frozen over. Some where around the first week of February, the weather changed. Temperatures soared into the fifties and it rained three or four inches in a day. The river swelled under the ice and began to race. The ice broke and huge "ice bergs" were racing down the river. The river rose about 18 - 20 feet, depositing gigantic ice bergs on Front Street and on the railroad tracks below Columbia and turning the baseball stadium into a glass for some sort of murky, crushed-ice cocktail. The power of the massive chunks of ice traveling at great speed was a recipe for disaster. Several huge ice flows "took out" the footbridge. It was amazing to see the bridge fold and crumble and disappear into the raging river. Harrisburg rebuilt the bridge from Front Street to the island, but the bridge fro the West Shore has never been rebuilt.
Since frames are so expensive, I thought I'd save the expense and just frame this picture with the arch of the bridge support. Directly behind me in a sort of a "seedy" motel is a restaurant called "A Passage To India." It serves outstanding Indian food - lots of curry and unleavened breads, etc. Directly in front of me and to the right, across Front Street, is the emergency room for Harrisburg Hospital where Jeanne is an RN. I think she and her cohorts sometimes come to the luncheon buffet.

I pass this building everyday on my way home. For fourteen years, every day I have observed this building but somehow have never seen it this way. How can that be? Perhaps it serves as a great lesson of life - never to assume you know everything about anything - especially people. It is possible to be around someone everyday for years and never see the good, never appreciate the real qualities and beauty of the person. Particularly if, like this building, the person has built mirrors that makes it hard to see inside. Maybe at some point we should quit trying so hard to look inside and realize the value in reflection. If we like ourselves a lot, then being around someone who reflected us wouldn't be so bad. So, why haven't we liked that person? Hmmm...