Walking to observe and notice

Off the beaten path

Not down the usual walking route did I ply but rather down the Ashton Canal towpath from Paradise Wharf to Islington Wharf between which mechanical cranes and hoists of history have become monuments of the industries that once thrived here. Now, we have bijoux apartments and waterfront properties, a kind of exclusivity not nearly as exciting as it seems apart from when the canal forms an aqueduct over Store Street.

The further straight on this towpath leads to isolation, but for a sunny day, many are walking in groups to and fro, a kind of busy that is usually reserved for football match days but let us not be distracted from our surroundings and the oncoming traffic of senseless cyclists. The numerous canal locks holding back water as overflows give a sense of life.

Nature in many guises

Life in ducks, geese, and birds, they all are quacking, honking, or singing, in unison, separately or a disordered cacophony, not in need of the marshalling of a choirmaster. The music of nature is more settling than the blaring of headphones in covering your ears that you are totally unaware of what or where you are. If only they could just pocket their mobile phones for a moment and see something else.

One man and his dog, that dog a beast instead giving the person a status of terror for he could earn fear masquerading as respect no other way, then another dog, fluffy and friendly being called away from a couple sitting for a quiet talk. Just before you saw the fouling of the path, and I suspect the beastly dog, for the owner at one look did not appear the civil kind, yet, I have been wrong making such judgements.

A sport to thrill

Even as I have not decided how much further I want to go, I probably will go as far as this towpath will take me, my height is many times challenged by the low arches of bridged straddling the canal, I stoop or bow as I walk keeping an eye for some who care nothing for other users of this way.

Walking at speed, I pass another couple whilst resisting the urge to eavesdrop and then to my right over the canal is the Etihad Campus, with the football stadium of Manchester City Football Club and I recall when I could not persuade my best friend, a Manchester United fan to walk into that ‘abominable’ sanctum, though he might have had considered visiting for a local derby, I’ll ask.

Love in the park

One more bridge to duck and the windy path veers off the canal and I am presented with the entrance to Philips Park and I have not been here in years, many years at that. Two men have been ahead of me all the while, interesting from my perspective and something about them suggests more than meets the eye.

Into the park, they walk, down one of the more secluded routes that goes by the culverting of the River Medlock, the handiwork of brutal Victorians, that defines the boundary between the park and the cemetery. I am not following or trailing them, but I am just slightly behind them, then they touch and hug, I knew it all the while. They are getting more affectionate and honestly, why should I be shocked?

Just as I turn to cross over the River Medlock into the Philips Park Cemetery, they are now making their way back towards the park and in a moment of overwhelming passion, they embrace and kiss, that remains for a while or it is my persistence of vision deceiving me, for in that moment, I see love and think of love, then I wonder when Brian and I will walk about again, and give this spectacle to another narrator.

No safer than a bridge of rotten planks

Lay me down before it lies down

Many would have hummed if not sung along whenever the whiff and strains of the Simon & Garfunkel classic Bridge over Troubled Water song comes to ones hearing.

The calming effect of relaying the importance of humans to other humans would really make you want to lay down in the comfort of comatose repose away from the troubles of this wicked world.

At last count, five had entered into permanent repose as strains of neglect found them on a troubled bridge over roaring waters as their confidence in being borne over a solid structure from one bank to another over the Mississippi River was dashed as the structure gave way to lay down onto land and water below.

Falling apart, falling down

Alas! This is no unique event but a litany of events that are beginning to catch the eye of those who really matter; American infrastructure built by generations long gone is coming apart.

It would appear that regimes of inspections over the proper repair of these infrastructure has lead to assessments of "structurally deficient" but seemingly posing no immediate danger to the public.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has been warning of these problems, they have become more of an activist agency for a change of perspectives, but the political masters have ignored these men of "bricks, mortar, concrete and steel" because there is no need to panic.

But, panic we must, because, for a major bridge and traffic artery to fall to pieces without the influence of unusual weather patterns or some seismological event on a cool calm day in a major metropolis or two as is the case of the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, there must be something seriously wrong.

Bridges, rails, roads and dams

We saw the breached levees following Hurricane Katrina, dams are falling and quite a few, a third of recent rail accidents have been due to track failure, a bursting steam pipe in the middle of Manhattan and we begin to see a trend, a pattern and something endemic.

If all this does not in some way fall under Homeland Security, I would wonder what does if people are afraid to go out or even stay in for the fear of something collapsing, all because it has not been proper maintained.

In the midst of this quagmire, the contract probably still exists to build the "bridge to nowhere" rather than larger contracts to service and repair the many thousands of bridges to somewhere in America where you can safely go to work and return home to your loved ones.

This is an emergency as major as any war America has ever fought, it should not take the demise of a landmark bridge like the Golden Gate or the Brooklyn before these structures are propped up and self-supporting under maximum strain by the sweat and blood that built the great nation of the United States of America - Get to it and fast.

References

Broken Bridges, Lost Levees and a Brutal Culture of Neglect

States with the most deficient bridges

Historical collapses

Welcome in Amsterdam - Let us walk

Getting out a bit

We stow our bicycles away on a moored ferry, there are probably more bicycles than people in Amsterdam, I have 4 in different stages of usability, I was once a closet circus act.

As I got to the Amsterdam Central Station on Sunday, the weather was fine and gay as the sun came out in radiance not too oppressive and the breeze was moderate enough for a leisurely stroll.

I have never taken the deceptively long walk from the station to my home, deceptive in that, I can very well see my apartment block from the station on a good day, but it is a good 40 minutes away by the plod.

The WikiMapia view of my walk is from the Central Station on the middle left South bank, down the waterfront to right where the right where the second bridge links to the island strip which is in the middle of The IJ known as Het IJ - IJ is also a Dutch diphthong with the closest English sound being that of the letter I.

Living by the water presents its surprises and this time I realized how much one misses out of nature, wonder and the work of man when we get on one vehicle or another - even on my trusty bicycle, I miss so much.

With camera handy, I began snapping away, the slideshow is a depiction of an Amsterdam I have not cared to notice.

The detail however, is a narrative from the bicycle shed as a moored ferry, the absent gas flares around the Shell Building, amazing views down the IJ towards the old Amsterdam harbours in the East where I live.

This is one side of Amsterdam, far from the madding crowd.

PS: Welcome in Amsterdam is a literal translation Dutch to English in what we call Denglish - I reviewed a book on Denglish in April 2006.