19-Mar-99 Closed to Pedestrian Access

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With my head bent to point the rearview mirror down the street, I heard a whack on my helmet. Darn. I’ve either hit that branch or ducked it three days in a row now. Will I ever learn? Around the corner, just before the spot where I yelled “yeehah” two days ago, I realized I had left my sandwich home. I turned around for it and went to the cellar for something. Back at the overhanging branch, I parked on the sidewalk and, heh heh, got out those pruning shears. As I waited for a chance to step into the street and grab the branch, a minivan went by and, whack! I wasn’t the only person who would be glad to see the branch go. I pruned it off above a broken, twisted place that showed someone had tried to get it out of the way without tools.

Traffic was backed up along the short block between Floral and Lincoln as I came out to the corner. I squeezed in two vehicles behind a T bus, in front of a tan Jeep Cherokee. At Lincoln the electrician’s van ahead of me turned left, I waited in the intersection for oncoming traffic, and the light changed. It was my turn to turn left and clear the intersection, but a little red Accord pretended she didn't see the light change so I had to shake a finger (no, just the pointer) in my best tsk-tsk way at her. I think the Cherokee behind me turned, too. Maybe it was in the intersection fair and square. Well, maybe.

There has been a sign up saying “Rogers Street Bridge closed” on Center Street for a couple of months, and since my bike route goes within 50 yards of the bridge I rode over this morning to look. A bike is way better than a car for ad-hoc exploring because of its maneuverability. If you get into a tight spot you don’t need to back out nor look for a driveway to make a K turn; you just pick up the bike and swing it around. There were no construction vehicles there, so I got all the way up to the Jersey barriers and sections of chain link fence at the edge of the site. It’s not a fence that would keep a determined small boy out, but it works for me. The bridge is over the light rail rapid transit line into Boston, and the problem is keeping the rail line open during construction. They built a whole plywood structure under and around the bridge to keep things from falling down onto the tracks, and they seem to be in the middle of pouring concrete now. There are apple green reinforcing rods and orange plastic netting everywhere. But what's that toy reindeer doing astride the plywood at the side of the bridge? I guess it got lost after Christmas and someone retrieved it from the trackside.