Brush With History
We keep our democracy fresh. That’s the glass half full line I use when a conversation about Davenport’s two year Council terms being absurd is underway. Stubborn optimism is one of many character flaws, so I stick with the line, even in the face of substantial evidence to the contrary. Building strategic alignment, undertaking well-considered risk and achieving results is near impossible at the scale of a city of 100,000 in two years, but near impossible is fun, so I’ve stuck with it. I share with Barb she’s watching one of the few real advantages of two year election cycles – that twice as many bridges get painted – and get back to the fun.
What is it with shiny and new? It’s a beautiful morning, and while other city managers in the region (with their highfalutin four year Council terms) are out playing golf, I’ve got a bucket of shiny and new to apply. It’s silver, which gets me to thinking, why don’t we just go all in and paint the bridges gold? Two answers come to me in the mind-haze of breathing paint overspray. First, that might be too ostentatious for government work. There’d be the angry internet comments about some fancy pants city in Iowa painting their railroad bridges with gold.
Gold!, I tell you – those tax and spend knuckleheads clad a railroad bridge they don’t even own with 14K gold paint!! I’m gonna write a letter to the editor!!! Wait … that’ll cost me a stamp. Martha!!!! Fire up the dial-up!!!!! I’m gonna give those goofballs a piece of my mind!!!!!! What’s the name I’m using today?
Silver, I suppose, is the more modest approach to shiny and new. I missed the meeting where they picked the color, but I’m guessing it’s supposed to approximate the color we imagined the bridges were when they were built. Bright, shiny steel. The paint looks more like aluminum to me, but aluminum is the new steel – just ask Alcoa and stop by your local Ford dealer to check out the new aluminum-bodied F150. Don’t get lost and end up at John Deere HQ, because that’s clad in deliberately rusty, Corten steel. One of the architectural masterworks of the Quad Cities can be rusty. But this bridge can’t. Life's a mystery.
Life on the bottom end of the decision-making food chain is also pretty sweet. Did we pick the right color? Did we consult the Historic Preservation Commission? The Design Review Board? Anyone at all? Whatever. We got gallons of shiny and new to apply so the pertinent choice is sprayer, roller or brush? I go with brush because while you can’t cover as much ground as you can with a roller or sprayer, it’s more intimate. You get to interact with the bridge in a much more tactile manner and you see things the roller and sprayer brigades never see. Some guy with the initials ERF scratched his name into the concrete with a nail back in 1902. One hundred and thirteen years later, I bear brief witness to his bid for immortality.
The Erfster lives. One wonders what he saw. The back to back Cubs World Series of 1907 and 1908? The train would have run back and forth to Chicago in the day. Oh, to be ERF. Building something, watching the Cubs dominate, and leaving his mark physically for the ages … much better than Martha’s riled-up husband with his internet droppings. The paint overspray may be getting to me.
You four year termers can have your Saturday morning golf. We come today with old clothes but fresh hearts. We arm ourselves with sprayers, rollers, brushes and undaunted optimism. We steel ourselves against the ravages of time with … well, with paint that may or may not look like steel.
This happy band of city warriors is engaged in the great and meaningful battle of Davenport’s new century. Paint buckets and collective spirit? More than half full.
