[Leica] IMG: roadside memorial

[abridge at mac.com (Adam Bridge)]

I didn't know Terry Lee Tanner. I stopped here, along County Road 99, 
because some years ago at a Santa Fe Workshop class titled "Seeing Light" 
one of the students had talked about doing a project on the roadside 
memorials she had seen around Santa Fe. She had done something else. But the 
idea remained. Later, as I took up cycling, I found myself riding in the 
rural Central Valley of California where there seem to be many of these 
small, hand made memorials. One day, I thought, I should do something with 
them. But when I ride there is always a push to simply . . . well . . . GO. 
Photography and cycling didn't seem to blend well. I didn't want to risk my 
"good" cameras on my bike. I didn't want to take cruddy pictures. A new 
camera, a small Sony NEX-7 and a small handlebar bag, solved the problem of 
what to take. A week of very constrained calorie intake took care of the 
need for speed. So I stopped as I passed this cross with its wreath and 
brass nameplate.

I was glad to stop, actually. The road was very busy, there was no shoulder 
to the right of the white fog line, just gravel. Some of the cars that 
passed were awfully close, one of them driven by a guy on his cell phone. So 
I carefully laid my bike down onto the gravel berm took out the camera and 
began to explore what I was seeing. This was made more complex by having to 
learn a new camera.

As I sat on the gravel I realized a car had come to stop behind me on the 
other side of the road. A young woman got out, crossed the road. "He was my 
father," she said. We talked. She told me that Terry had been riding on an 
August evening about 9:45. He was riding in the middle of the lane so he 
could be seen. He had a headlight but not a rear reflector. His daughter 
thought he had had one. A driver headed south didn't see him until the last 
moment. He died on scene.

She told this as she sat beside me along side the road. Not crying, but 
clearly glad to share his story with someone. "I need to seal the wood 
better," she said. "The sun is so hard on it."

She straightened the wreath, thanked me for stopping, and returned to her 
car. I put away the camera and rode south into west Davis. Thoughtful. 
Suddenly the idea for the project was even more human. I will not see these 
memorials in the same way. I will work to make my images reflect something 
of the care their creators put into them. They are keeping memories alive 
there where dreams died.

<http://adam-bridge.smugmug.com/gallery/22108054_6S9pDD#!i=1764588410&k=n9WSQ3X>

Adam Bridge