bridges
when I was in high school, trying to figure out what to do with my life, I had two guideposts: I was good in science, and I was good in math. maybe I had a third: I wanted my life to accomplish something for other people. man! for the longest time, those led nowhere. I don't remember the zigging and zagging at the library that let me fall into books about engineers and engineering. maybe a librarian helped me. as I said, I had precious few clues. but those books about engineers and engineering finally gave me a direction. engineers used math and science to build things humans needed, like roads, and dams, and bridges! something about bridges got me reading about all the learning engineers had had to do to build bridges that would stand up, would resist storms and earthquakes, resist marching feet and traffic. I just knew I would love to do that, build bridges, especially since some bridges are so damned beautiful. the clincher, of course, was completely irrelevant and wrong. one of the books had a picture of each of a dozen successful engineers, and each stood by his favorite horse, overlooking some worksite. wow! I could work with math and science, make things people needed, and ride horses? sold! well, engineers rode horses in the early 1900s, but they mostly didn't by the 1950s. I didn't know that. but they do still build bridges, and they do still build beautiful bridges, and a person can get lost for hours, maybe days, looking at pictures on the internet of beautiful bridges in the world! I never built any of those, although I did study engineering, then physics and math, and I did program computers and build things people needed and things people wanted. and now I write poems, which in a way are bridges, bridges that connect people to thoughts and emotions they might never have without them. and it all started with bridges.
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