HEAVY EQUIPMENT in Postcards 4

Photo: Google, Julia E.

Across the street, there used to be a small, neighborhood strip mall with Sunshine Liquor in the center. The mall was for sale; it wasn’t for sale, it was, it wasn’t. Even while huge machinery was taking off the roofs, there was a “For Lease” sign up. And huge machinery of all sorts arrived. They bulldozed the building and land away. Great trucks came by one after another shaking the neighborhood. The skip loaders ate away at the hill the mall had perched on. They loaded it all into the giant trucks. Workmen boarded up the earth next to the street, next to famous Nimitz Blvd. And the hole in the ground grew.

Finally there was silence.

Then a fresh crew arrived. Bridge repair. There’s a bridge crossing Nimitz Blvd which is just in back of the Sunshine Liquor. They took off the hand rails. They put up cement barriers instead of rails. They put tall fences on top of the new little cement walls. With great roars and grinding sounds, the new batch of men took out the center divider. Weeks of work.

We were all wondering if they could fix the one roadbed stretch where water had washed away the concrete from the rebar. Years of water dripping in there. Today there was the sound of jack hammers. Grinders roared. Street sweepers swept. Dust was everywhere. It was quiet by three, and we opened the windows and doors.

Who knows what will happen tomorrow.
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• Himself: G’s teeth are good but he needs to floss more in back. Today his pree-op work.


• Myself: It’s too dark in the morning for me to drive to that morning meeting. I’ll miss them. Now I’m a midday person. And today is sunny.


• Reading: Los Angeles Union Station.


• Gratitude’s: George.