7399 - Happy Ant!

[scottobear]

When I walk to the bus stop... (or on more cool and non-rainy days, to the 2nd stop), or in the evening, all the way home from work, I can't help but be amazed at the idea of a city like the one I live in.

Everything here was brought from somewhere else and stacked up, cemented and painted by hand.

It's so easy to fall into the belief that buildings and roads just spring up out of nowhere. Whenever I stop to think that every brick and wire was put down in place by a person... well, I'm astounded.

I look at satellite maps a lot during the course of a a week, and the fact that some states are practically paved over, or at least farmed and touched by man in a way mean

Seriously, look at Massachusetts! http://maps.google.com/maps?spn=77.695313,121.816406&t=k&hl=en

Even from a point of view that shows all of North America, you can see the box of where that area is defined. When you zoom in, almost anywhere, you see little gray or tan squares where people have come and just reworked things competely.

Part of what amazes me is that we can get so many people working together towards a common goal... even over a really long period of time. Maybe it's a little perverse of me to say so, but I get a sort of satisfaction in knowing that thousands, millions of people worked together to make it easy to find shelter, food, entertainment and comfort.

I know the system is far from perfect. We make messes. Unpleasant folks cut corners, or worse. But, overall, it's awe-inspiring.

Glass buildings, 50 stories tall. Somebody on a scaffold... a person put each pane in place.

Comments

[i.livejournal.com]

quite an ant colony we've got, eh?

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

you're not kidding... plus, we have telephone and sewer!

[wickenden.livejournal.com]

wonderful musings. Speaking of mass, I know you were born there in Brockton, right? After leaving brockton my family lived in Sutton, then Uxbridge. In those days (I was a kid in that area in the early 60's through the early 70's) the woods behind our houses were deep. They went all the way through three states (what was known as the douglas woods). But even then, the entire land had been changed before I was born. Walking through those woods you would come upon stone wall after stone wall, old foundations, beautiful bottles (I hate that I used to break those beautiful blue bottles) and evidence that this was all second growth forest. Now, those forests are mostly gone, they survive only as borders to suburbs.

My father pointed out to me years ago how boston looked before the harbour changes. Such radical reformation is hard to believe when one is looking at all that steel and glass.

don

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

Yup, Born in Boston, but reared in Brockton for the first 10-years or so. (69 mid-late 70s)

There's something wonderful about nature taking things back, too. There was an area called "the pits" at the end of my street that had an old storehouse of some sort, overgrown.. just moss-covered walls, and regrown trees, at least 20 years old or older too.

I never came across old bottles, or much glass at all, but it was amazing to me to think that a civilization's edge was there, crumbled, and built up again in the same region so quickly.

[wickenden.livejournal.com]

here is the road I grew up on.
http://www.google.com/maps?q=Hough+Road,+Sutton,+Massachusetts&ll=42.086649,-71.717012&spn=0.015407,0.016587&t=k&hl=en

Back then, the left side of that picture was solid forest. I find it oddly nostalgic, knowing that I can never go there again (Yes, Mr. Wolfe, I can't go home again). Where that ball park is was just woods. Across from it was an old hotel, abandoned in the 40's we used to play in. Visible too in this pic is an old sandpit, we used to play for hours in.

Ah!.... google maps are grand.

d.

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

google maps is a great find... I would love to see a "evolution" feature one day - pick a period tha tthe satellite took a picture, and sift through the years back and forth!

I think about this...

[mary919.livejournal.com]

Coming from Illinois where everything is very flat and there are random short trees spaced out across a field, North Carolina was quite a shock. In Illinois the streets and fields, etc, are all on a square grid, but here it is clear that the lay of the land-- and perhaps the density of the trees early on-- decided where roads would go.

Those places where land hasn't been cleared at all, like my backyard, are very dense. At one point the whole state must have been just covered. And someone had to cut every one of those trees down. I get claustrophobic thinking about how it must have been :) It's wonderful that there's still so much green here, but I breath better when I get home to the wide open sky.

Re: I think about this...

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

very interesting point, indeed!

winding roads and tree-canopy are my favored style of life, though. :)

Re: I think about this...

[mary919.livejournal.com]

But on those maps it looks like we live among the broccoli! I like the earth-tone quilt squares of central IL :)

Re: I think about this...

[scottobear.livejournal.com]

heehee... life amongst the broccoli!!