The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: drawbridges

  • Repeating Decimals

    The other day I had an experience that made me think of the optometrist’s office that I used to visit as a child. I was always excited to get new glasses. (I must say, though, that looking at old photos makes me question my taste. But I’m going to blame that on my mother. I…

  • Calling All Readers

    Did you just hear my StoryCorps interview on NPR’s Morning Edition? What a rush!!! If you missed it, check it out on the StoryCorps site here. Or even better, look at the amazing write up it was given on the NPR site, and listen to the recording with their intro. And please, share it with friends!…

  • Feeling the Earth Move

    When I was 19 years old, I was sitting in my dorm room in North Carolina and the floor shook slightly. I assumed someone was running along the wooden balcony on the other side of the wall. I gave it no further thought until the next day, when I heard on the radio that we…

  • Drawbridge Tao

    People can take it very personally when you interrupt their morning commute. Even though the average drawbridge opening takes only 4 minutes from start to finish and they should know to allow for the fact that their route crosses a drawbridge, when those red lights start to flash and that bell starts to clang, people…

  • I am Officially Doomed

    After 12 years of working crazy shifts here on the drawbridge, often two or three different shifts in the space of a week, I’m now discovering that there is an official name for my constant state of mental fog, my messed up immune system, and my apparent inability to lose weight despite all efforts. It’s…

  • Felony Paintball

    This was an article I wrote in November, 2007, which was subsequently published as a back page editorial in a local publication called Folio Weekly. The early morning of Saturday, November 3rd, 2007 started off routinely for my friends Kari and Joe (pseudonyms, per their request). They met in the parking lot, bleary eyed and…