Strange thing, really. I left work like any other day, iPod tuned to some NPR podcast, and drove through downtown Minneapolis, across the Hennepin Avenue bridge and then slipped down into my little shortcut that took me along the river, under the 35W and 10th Avenue Bridges that cross the Mississippi and then up to University Avenue. Voila. I avoided the traffic and got a slightly more interesting, albeit industrial, view of the world.
I then proceeded down past the University of Minnesota campus and into Saint Paul, where I stopped for groceries and the liquor store. When I got into the car my phone was ringing and my frantic wife wondering if I were okay. She had tuned into the news and the breaking story of the bridge collapsing into the Mississippi River in the middle of rush hour traffic. I generally would avoid the freeway, but had on occasion gone that way home from work.
At home I did the math. The bridge fell at about 6:05, I talked with my wife at 6:35. The trip to St. Paul and shopping had to take nearly a half hour. I didn't like the numbers but I laughed it off. Until the middle of the night when I awoke and had to know if that portion of the bridge that I traveled under had in fact come crashing down. I got up and went to the scene. I couldn't get very close and for that matter didn't really want to. I'm not a gawker. I respect tragedy enough to stay away in its aftermath.
The bridge had not fallen onto the road I had traveled that evening. Just past the road it had. Life's like that. I don't see a grand plan, but a series of coincidences and good and bad luck – maybe good and bad karma come for payback.
But I did manage to squeeze out a song. “Sometimes.” It's on the 'uncomfortable fella' album at www.artistopia.com/bohannon. Check it out. Then be careful out there.