Merrimack crossing
- jl kyd
- Oct 5, 2019
- 2 min read
21 August 2010 SAT Lawrence, MA
A funny thing happened on the way home [from seakayaking trip on coast o Maine].
I never went to Winnepesauke NH (as planned) because the rest of my family wasn’t staying there overnight, after-all. so headed S on 495; crost the bridge over the Merrimack @ Lawrence.
Usually I’m not that far north on Rt 495; there was something about the dismal light on the old brick mill buildings that struck me. I decided it was worth a photo so I circled back [a fairly sizeable effort] until I found a sidestreet where I could park, about a 1/2
mile away from the bridge.
Jogged over to the bridge with my camera*. it’s a double-level bridge with 495
atop and a local 6-lane highway where I was, a level down. headed out to the center - a pretty inhospitable place, with only about an 18” (spalling) wide walkway to get out there.
Took some photos and then jogged back to the car.
Had just pulled off the sidestreet onto the local highway* when a cop car came screaming by. Drove onto the bridge and there are 2 cop cars with their lights flashing, taking up the right lane, with the cops first seen looking down at the water, right where I’d just taken the photos!
(an the instant after I saw they’re non-plussed - false alarm - the water isn’t too deep there the tires in the muddy bottom can be seen quite
clearly).
Didn’t have the time to tell them that I was afraid that it wasn’t me that wanted to take the leap - maybe it was their city. Lawrence. Maybe it's Lawrence that wants to jump off the bridge. Didn’t want to be rude, either, though.
*[Right near where I parked, where a crosswalk went across the highway, at a spot by the W-on-its-side shape of galvanized guardrail at which on my way there while hustling across the bigfat road while messing with my gear near tripped in the street, in that same place on the way back was a bunch of colored cylindrical (novena?) candles on the street side of the guard rail - those candles of afro-caribbean rites that there must be a name for - a memorial of some kind.
After my return when back in the car 3 youths were out there saying good-bye. If I were a real photographer there was my shot. But I was already enroute,trying to stay-out of everybody else’s way, on the road again].
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