Bridge Construction

Finally stopped down there, to see what they were doing. No trace of the old bridge or the abutments. Neat and tidy jobsite. I would say they're ready to start construction. Said to be done in November, which probably means Christmas; as long as I can get out that way a couple of times in January and February I'll be happy. I need someone for a day of labor, I can hire Ryan for that, and I need to get my ass in gear. As soon as the weather breaks I need to re-surface the back porch and repair the threshold, organize the firewood and kindling. I need to muck out the outhouse and the composting toilet, preparing for winter, and I need some peace of mind, which means reading material and a well stocked larder. They should be having a library book-sale, between now and snowfall. I have a fairly arbitrary list of books, posted next to my desk, books that I want to reread for one reason or another. I was up all night reading Thomas Berger, Robert Crews, then had a great breakfast of polenta and eggs, then took a nap, woke to that dream of falling. It's like a muscle cramp, I have to sit up and eat one of those little packets of yellow mustard, this actually does work, almost instantly, for muscle cramps, and imagine some flat and solid surface. I can't go back to sleep after a falling dream. I'd left out a bowl of balsamic vinegar I'd used for the last of Ronnie's tomatoes, and sliced a half-pint of grape tomatoes into that, thinking about a BLT in which half grape tomatoes might be embedded in a mayo, with a layer of soft Boston lettuce and five or six slices of bacon. Bacon's always going to be on sale in the fall, when they like to kill pigs, so put a few pounds away, they keep a long time; mid-winter you can drain a can of roasted tomatoes, use some forced lettuce from the window-box, and make a passable sandwich. Greg Allman on the radio, an old interview and several songs, puts a big smile on my face. That big open sound. Turn off the lights and listen to Greg cover a Jackson Brown tune, These Days, which is very beautiful. Greg has that old blues voice. A smokey tension. "I Can't Be Satisfied" and then "Melissa" which is one of my favorite songs ever. That's Dwayne, I think, on guitar. Cross roads come and go. Someone else died at that same curve in the road. I'm interested in how they solve the problem of full-bore massive amounts of water for two weeks out of the year. A bridge is only as good as its abutments. One trip to Columbus B and I stopped to look at how they had moved them. These large blocks of sandstone, a thousand pounds of rock. Give me a donkey and a pulley. Dry thunder.