Wednesday, July 11, 2018

The Old Water Tanks

It was an incredibly beautiful morning, one of those mornings where going to work is a teeny, tiny bit hard because it would be such an incredible day to play and gallivant. I had an extra minute or two and so I grabbed my camera for an early morning photo. As I clicked the shutter the thought occurred that this photo was pretty much an exact duplicate of one taken perhaps a month or two ago. I chided myself on being redundant, climbed into my car, and went to work.

I didn't think much about the photos during the day. I didn't plan to post them and might have deleted them altogether if I hadn't gotten a bit of a shock on my way home. I left work early. I could have decided to do any number of things, but today I was thinking of my sweet daughter and made my way home to see what she was up to. As I drove down the hill where the water towers stand, I gasped and did a double-take. There on the ground underneath the oldest tank was a heap of metal. The dreaded demolition has begun. I rounded the corner into our little neighborhood, looked up, and took a picture of the underbelly of the old tank. It's missing now, but it was there this morning.

As a small child I watched you turn from gray to blue, to silver, to aqua... Mom would point out the window sometimes and say, "Look! There's a man up on the water tank." And there he would be, walking the catwalk, climbing the ladders, or beginning the monumental task of painting not one, but two gargantuan tanks. When my small son was sick in the hospital in Rochester, NY, I could look out his window, see the tanks standing side by side, and know exactly where my childhood home stood, and where my other children were playing in the care of their grandma. Strange comfort...

Farewell, old friend. For over fifty years you have been an icon, a beacon of security, and a symbol of home. I can't imagine one of you without the other...

4 comments:

  1. ...they sure have been a landmark in Webster.

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    Replies
    1. Nothing says home like those two old tanks.

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  2. Okay, maybe I feel a little twinge in my heart. I’m not totally cold.

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