Since you’ve been gone

A full year has gone by, and here we are again at this time when the seasonal parts of the Northern hemisphere began to come back to life. Crocuses are in full bloom, and so are many early daffodils. Grass has begun to green up in places, and I’ve already started two container gardens with lettuce seed. As I was watching the local news tonight after dinner there was yet another special marking the one year anniversary of the disappearance of a major part south Baltimore’s skyline. This was a different station than the other two, so I decided to watch it. This show was a bit more enlightening than the other two, as it went more into what is currently going on (and upcoming) as opposed to what had already occurred. Apparently a piece of the Key Bridge was saved from salvage, and that will go on display in a nearby museum when the new bridge opens. I had an idea that would happen, that at some point such a relic would be chosen and set aside for future display. It will be incorporated into an exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, which is one local place I’ve not yet visited. It will be a place I plan on making a trip to once the monster’s remains are on display. This will be not unlike going to a natural history and seeing a claw or tooth of some huge dinosaur – all that’s left is that one piece. A tiny fragment of a monstrous extinct beast that once loomed large over the land around it. It is monster that can only be seen in pictures and leftover fragments in a museum.

A mighty t-rex, fallen to the ground forever, its legs smashed out from underneath it by the impact of a much larger sauropod’s tail. Its remains devoured by scavengers until only a few teeth or claws remain, to be fossilized, dug up millions of years later and displayed. A dead monster that will never tower over anything again. I wonder what my friend John would think if I told him that one of these days in the future, he could go and view up close a part of that beast? Given his morbid fascination with death, I suppose he might take me up on such an invitation. When he visited me in California years ago, he asked me to take him to visit the graves of certain celebrities who died in gruesome and tragic ways. I suppose he just might desire to gaze upon a “bone” from the “carcass” of the metal monster that had a “hand” in his best friend’s demise.

But unlike an extinct Cretaceous creature, this modern monster has been and still is quite missed since its destruction. Dinosaurs played essential parts in their respective ecosystems, as did Baltimore’s 20^th century man made metal monster. I still remember vividly when I drove across the concrete spine of that beast almost three years ago, passing thru its steel “ribcage” on my way east. What a coincidence it was that I had an occasion to cross that bridge. Perhaps it was my chance to unknowingly bid goodbye to the monster; one last drive for old time’s sake. I really think I ended up having to go that way for a reason; I was drawn down there to a part of Baltimore I hadn’t been to in ages. All to go and look at a dog for my mom to adopt. I had searched so many places and had come up empty, until finally I got a lead. The dog was being fostered by someone in Dundalk. And yes my mom still has the dog, so the trip across the Key Bridge and back wasn’t in vain for either my mom – or the dog.

I suppose watching this process to replace the fallen bridge will be not unlike watching and waiting for those seeds I planted to sprout and grow. But only on a much slower timescale. The new dinosaur is being hatched, and with luck, by the end of the year it will begin to take shape. This one, though, is perhaps more of a spinosaurus than a t-rex, given its apparent profile! But first, the remains of its predecessor must be cleared. This will happen in ways quite similar to those employed by early fossil hunters – dynamiting rocks to expose whatever might be entombed within them. One day in the future I will (along with many others) drive across the back of the new spinosaurus, its sails gleaming in the sunlight. And all of Baltimore will welcome its completion.