Yesterday morning a section of the I-80E to I-580E interconnector fell on to the I-80W/I-580E to I-880S interconnector. It is a section of the Bay Area infrastructure that is so complicated it's moniker is "the maze." When I pass through it, I like to think of all the people going in all directions, crossing at one point. And yesterday, engulfed in inferno created by a wrecked gasoline tanker, that vital link melted like chocolate on summer afternoon, spilling onto the roadway below.
In so many ways it reminds us of what would happen in an earthquake. In 1989 when the Cypress structure came crashing down, traffic headed toward San Jose from Berkeley and points north, had to be rerouted onto 980. In 1994, when the Northridge Earthquake brought down I-10 at La Cienega, the state offered up incentives to bring the connector back to life in 85 days. This morning, we're all seeking a way around the messy details. But soon we'll adapt to the new situation, find our own detours around the severed ties, get accustomed to a longer time between.
I can't tell if the glass is half empty or half full, but I can't help but think it could have been so much worse. Had the truck driver hit the column he passed moments earlier, the one supporting I-580W to I-80W, it's possible he might have brought that down on both connectors from Berkeley to Oakland. I have a habit of thinking it could always be worse, that it's not so bad now. In truth, all it means is that we're a little farther apart now, and it's just temporary.
There's always another disaster looming nearby and the best we can do is appreciate and protect the connections that we have. It's a fragile thing, this network of ours. I pray that we won't find ourselves someday in the future, looking across a severed span, wondering why we didn't do a little more and thinking back to when we were all a little closer.
The weekend started with a bear named Oatmeal. That's the first memory that I can dredge up of my friend C. That was a long time ago, when we were all just kids and free enough that our parents could take us collectively on long trips. We were in Scandinavia then, long before I could appreciate how lucky I was to have those types of opportunities and long before the concept of conflicting obligations built a fortress in my vocabulary. But now she's expecting and her clothing line is doing well. Last Friday she was selling her wares near the place I used to call home in Berkeley. My C. was off in Yosemite literally freezing her ass off and I had stopped by to pick something up for her. In truth, the evening was not nearly as eventful as last years, where I got a brief preview of Vienna Teng's most recent album. But it was nice enough to see my friends, the once a year that I can, measure my progress in life by the height and heft of their children, and see spring abloom on a clothing rack.
There was another story that started after 1:00am, years ago, and deep in a secluded wood. Slightly drunk on beer, a group of us decided to spill outside onto the freshly fallen snow. It was my first snowball fight in a long while and my first where no one would be holding back because of my age or size. I barely knew these people then; I don't keep in touch with many now. Even so, on Saturday, I went to a 100th anniversary banquet, which in my maid at least, traced it's roots back to that snowball fight. Many of the people in the room that day will be of the classes of 2008, 2009 an 2010. On the few occasions that I've had to come back, I've fought the urge to call them "kids". But now, a decade or more past their point in life, what else could I call them? Young adults? Sometimes I wonder what might have been, if it hadn't snowed so hard and we'd actually don't some skiing that weekend.
30 years seems like a long time. But, as I think of it, it's longer than I actually understand. I really only understand the years as a distance from point A to B. Almost 10 now since I walked across the stage at the Greek. 15 now since I went to my first formal dance. 30's a milestone marker that's disappear deep into the distance, but it's a marker that's just past for my friend B. We gathered this past Sunday to celebrate. Many of them I've known for a decade or more. Back then we talked more of classes we were taking than cars we'd just bought. Back then we talked of how we'd manage to get enough people for an activity on the coming weekend, instead of the intricacies of managing a wedding in fall. Back then we stayed up until fear of dawn drove us to bed. But that was then, and now, now the weekends end early on Sundays. No more cake for me thank you. A smaller scoop of ice cream please.
There is a memorial on the campus of Virginia Tech. Mourners stop at each stone to lay flowers or say a prayer - to grieve for these lives cut so suddenly severed. There are thirty three spots in the arc, thirty two for the victims and one for the boy. For a moment imagine he had not committed suicide and that the police had subdued him and taken him into custody. There would be many more cries for justice to be done and the voices crying for injustice would be drowned out. There would be less talk of understanding and so much less healing could go on. Most of all, there would be questions on what penalty he would face. And so in the end the result would have been the same. And then there would have been no flowers, no prayers, and less forgiveness for the boy who torn open the Blacksburg sky and spilled out the insecurities of a nation. Was he a murderer? Was he a Victim? Or can't you be both?
Alberto Gonzales took the stand last week in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and said, when questioned about the firings of eight federal prosecutors "I don't recall," 71 times. I didn't hear the proceedings, but if I'm to believe what most people have said, he was basically trying not to incriminate himself, which is totally within his right, except probably not the way he did it. Were the firings illegal? No. Were they improper? Many people think so. It's looking more and more likely that he'll step down at some point. But really, he's not who they're after. Still, when you're trying to dethrone a king, I guess you start with the king's guard.
More and more these days, it seems the deeper we look into the past four years the worse the truth really is. At first it just seemed like they were glossing over important facts. There was the issue of weapons of mass destruction, Valerie Plame, and Scooter Libby. Then there were problems with the torture and the detention facility at Abu Ghraib. There've been concerns for awhile about Halliburton and the reconstruction of Iraq. Now we have the cases of Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch. Pat Tillman, if you remember was a NFL player turned Army Ranger who was killed in 2004 in Iraq. Jessica Lynch was a private whose capture and rescue is supposedly so inspiring they made it into a TV movie. Pat Tillman it turns out was killed by friendly fire. And Jessica Lynch, while actually being captured and rescued, pointedly denies any sort of the heroics the military has sought to bestow upon her. In short, the army lied.
Frequently, you'll see a guy on the TV talking about the security of Americans and threats from abroad, and his efforts and success at achieving these ends. Sometimes you'll hear him talk about the defending American way of life (which is some mumbo jumbo about truth, liberty, freedom, honor, integrity and some other stuff). And every now and then he'll say something about being the one responsible for the armed forces and what it they do. Personally I think someone should tell this guy to stop deceiving the American people. Just the other day some poor schmuck lost his job for saying, "nappy hos" on air.
Recently I read something which implied that sharks were fish. For many of you this would not strike a discordant note; however, for most of my life I have thought that sharks were not fish. Like dolphins and whales, which are mammals, I thought that sharks belonged in a distinct grouping apart from fish. It was one of those funny facts that I prided myself on knowing, like that peanuts aren't really nuts or that tomatoes are actually fruits. Now I'm thinking that perhaps at one time they were classified in a different category from fish, but that changes in classifying living things had put them in the same. In any case, I see little sense in arguing with those would are in the profession of naming. Just as I can't save Pluto's status as a planet, now a shark is just another fish to me.
There are a great many things in this world that we take for granted. I hold a special place for those things which we learned in school, which, for one reason or another, simply aren't true. Most notable among those with some background in physics must be the the myth of sinks and the Coriolis Effect. For those uninitiated, the Coriolis Effect describes a physical phenomenon where particles falling through the earth's atmosphere rotate, in the northern hemisphere, in the counter-clockwise direction; and in the southern, clockwise. This is why hurricanes in the northern hemisphere spin one way and cyclones in the southern hemisphere spin the other. What it isn't, is a reason that water drains one way in one hemisphere and the opposite in the other. I did believe this at one point, despite the fact that I've never consciously observed the rotation of draining water. Like many things which seem scientifically true, I took it for granted.
I wonder what other things I believe are provably untrue. As is habit for me these days, I did a search for common misconceptions. Some, like the shape of raindrops or the density of humid air, are easy to explain. Others, like the ease of riding a bicycle, are much more difficult. Each is world changing and insignificant at the same time. The oceans have a little less mystery, the solar system a little less mass. My bathtub reminds me less of a stormy sea and the raindrops seem less like tears. And riding a bicycle will be less about the stability of gyroscopic motion and more about seeing the elegance and grace of the world around me.
A few weeks ago I was at the construction site showing one of my co-workers a building that was slated to be demolished. There was some material on the roof that needed to be removed by men in bunny suits before the building could come down. My co-worker casually asked how they were supposed to get up there. A few days before I had seen another guy hop on to the electrical switch and climb onto the roof. I decided to imitate the feat. When I was up there, she shouted up to me, "So how do you get down?" I started back down the way I came, but I ended up kicking the cover of the switch off. This was no small switch mind you, and no small cover. As it so happened, the cover teetered there for a moment and in that brief instance, I managed to land and move my hand into a small opening in the cover after which the cover fell down rather sharply onto my middle finger. There was lots of blood, quite a bit of swelling, but ultimately everything was ok. Nasty scar though. That's really the first thing I thought ... it's going to be a nasty scar.
I remember hearing about a study which put a black man and a white serial killer on a street corner of New York, both hailing a taxi. The cabbies usually passed by the black man and chose to pick up the serial killer. This was an indication of how racism is still prevalent in our society. At first blush I thought this was pretty appalling. One of my co-workers, who is black, mention that this happened to him when he was visiting New York. Later, however, as I was thinking about it occurred to me that this may be racism and then again, it may not be. Hypothetically, if one of these taxi drivers had had a bad experience with a black passenger -- if the driver had been robbed or threatened or worse -- then would an aversion to a similar recurrence not be natural? One could hardly fault someone for being cautious in the light of actual experience. For me, the racism really occurs when one acts on anecdotal evidence: "Oh you should be careful, so and so once had a bad experience with a person of a certain race..." Certainly, we are a product of our experiences, we all bear our own scars. We don't need to carry other people's scars though.
This past weekend I was down at my mother's house. There are bookshelves still filled with my father's technically books. Each time I go visit, my mom asks if I want any of these books. I keep telling her that one day I'll go through them, that they'll be useful once again. This past weekend, I sat down and started to go through them. I realized that I would never understand most of what was written there, much less use it. When I think back on my own training, my college years, I usually feel a regret for having slept through classes or squander opportunities in other ways. So often I have thought to myself that I could recapture those lost years. But last weekend, sitting on the floor, surrounded by my father's books. I realized that keeping these books, never again to be read or understood, were just my way of denying my own scars. All these mistakes, these times looked back upon with a certain amount of regret, are a part of who I am.