For Sparky and myself, curiosity drives passion which in turn fuels our life's engine. Our passion was capturing the story of both unbuilding the Grace (1929 - 2007) and Pearman (1966 - 2007) Bridges and discovering the unbuilders. It takes a lot of passion to track a project from July 2005 until April 2007 - rain, shine, hurricanes or moving to Singapore. We discovered the joy of discovery learning. Ken Canty opened the front door for us - then Steve Testa, Ponch Billingsley and Mickey Rogers opened many side doors. Below are the highlights of what we discovered, who we met and what we learned.
And a reminder from T.S. Eliot (East Coker from the Four Quartets)
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated Of dead and living. Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before and after, But a lifetime burning in every moment And not the lifetime of one man only But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
Richie grappling
More grappling
Pio watching the duet for grapple and shear
Richie and Pio - a very good duet
Richie and his jaws
? and the shear
Manny?
Uncoupling a piece of grace - Chris Dangerfield (left) and Charles Spires (right)
Richie in his other guise - cutting Grace's base
More cutting
Cutting an the sun says goodbye
a flying piece of Grace's base
Pio on an inspection tour
Dale Earnhardt (Steve Demello in disguise) at work
Pulling Grace's base from the barge
Pulling a piece of Grace
Chewing a bit
and depositing what is left over
Day's end
from a different angle
and a final farewell to Grace (Sparky adds a nice touch)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
C. Frank Starmer