Finding bridges lost in time
On the Island, people often reference a given location to “the family that used to live there.” High precision, if you happen to be old enough to have known those involved. For the rest of us, not so much.
Right now, there’s a heated discussion going on (in the social media circles where I spend time) about the location of a pair of bridges. Photos. References to farms. Industrial rationale. In one case, I’m certain that the photo is incorrectly labeled. After all, people didn’t build steel bridges with cement pillars to get from one sand dune to another. In the second case, though…
I went back to my source of choice: aerial photos from between the two great wars. Although the bridge in question no longer existed by that date, there are clear traces in the shallows. I think I agree with the other local experts who remember a busier time when the mackerel were commercially viable.
When someone shows signs of knowing something, others want their own research questions taken care of. I found myself back in the game of using historical atlas pages coupled with indelible markings of farm boundaries that show up on Google maps. Hopefully, I’ve located “the grandfather’s farm” for someone a continent away, that I haven’t met (yet). Makes me happy, actually. If we can’t call on others, we’re left to reinvent the wheel of knowledge, again and again.
That big hurricane (Irma) is making landfall, and is rated as the most powerful ever measured in the Caribbean.
