What've I Done?

In 1980 the old silver erector-set Sunshine Skyway bridge at the mouth of Tampa Bay was rammed by an errant ship, shaking chunks out of the southbound span and sending people — men, women, children, maybe a pet or two — plummeting to their deaths a short distance from Hernando de Soto's somewhat differently grisly landfall of 450 years previous.

The Skyway was actually two identical, two-lane bridges right next to each other, and the northbound span was unscathed. I was in grad school at USF at the time, and in a bit of morbid tourism a few of us took a break from pondering Sophists and Social Constructivism and drove down in the VW bus for a transit and a look-see.

As we crossed the good span, the bus rocked in the wind whistling through the open metal-lattice roadbed far above the green water. Alongside us was the place of horror, a great vacant space bracketed by twisted girders on the sister span less than a hundred feet away.

This I saw and knew only from the corner of my eye as I battled the wheel and felt the breadth of the missing span in the pit of my stomach, a Peterbilt on my ass the whole white-knuckled way.

The bridge was like people I'd known, their lives for a time parallel to mine, maybe even indistinguishable from mine if viewed from enough distance—then something happens: a misguided freighter, a failure of will, a character flaw—whatever—and suddenly there's this great yawning space where that other life was. Maybe some twisted remnants, but you can only glance over quickly because all your attention's on your own road with that Truck behind you.

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This is an excerpt from my prize-winning essay Maintenance, first published in the 1990s. The Skyway incident happened on May 9, 1980.

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Joe Who? Learn more at Tallahassee Beach.

(A post from a few years back, ported over to this blog.)

Hearing stories from Dog Island post-Hurricane Hermine put me in mind of another aftermath, over ten years ago, when a storm surge from Hurricane Dennis inundated much of the island and left debris piles for months.

One standard-issue consequence of storm erosion is the emergence of septic tanks — vaguely submarine-like fiberglass vessels with what we'll call an ominous air about them. The one in the photo below reminded me of classic Civil War monitors, or even Japanese WWII mini-subs:

I captioned it “Hobie pontoon and mini-sub” and posted it to Flickr along with a set of post-storm photos. Here's another evocative poop-tank shot:

My late, greatly lamented illustrator friend Bruce Hall — always ready with Photoshop and a kindred twisted wit — saw it and used another of my shots from Lake Seminole to create this chilling historical re-enactment:

As I described it there:

Government secrecy has — until the release of this photo — concealed the scope of the “Battle of Thronateeska Landing”, which demonstrated the alarming extent of freshwater intrusion by hostile forces during WWII. Photo credit: Bruce Hall.

You may have seen the military memoir:

Of course, thoughts of small, unusual submersibles naturally led Bruce to the next discovery, which confirms the rumors that Only A Northern Song was about bathroom tissue:

And who can forget this classic adaptation of a less well-known Asimov sequel?

Nothing like the heady sophistication of toilet humor to get the creative juices flowing, I say.

I miss ya, Barce. Definitely a duller place here without you.

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Joe Who? Learn more at Tallahassee Beach.

This is my hello-world post on this platform. I like the no-distractions writing interface. I'll keep the old blog as an archive for now.

I started developing pain in my right heel a little over a month ago. Feels a little like plantar fasciitis, which I had a few years back. Some mornings the first few steps would be really painful until my foot sort of loosened up. Although the symptoms would sometimes abate, they kept coming back, so I made an appointment with a local orthopedic surgeon to have a look.

They started with a couple of xrays, which showed no breaks or tears: https://flic.kr/p/2rK3cee.

The doc pretty quickly diagnosed it as Achilles' tendonitis and said that it might have required surgery if left untreated!

The upshot: I'm wearing a “boot” for the next couple of weeks to immobilize my ankle. It's a heavy, Velcro-loaded piece of footwear with super-high arch support and a snug inflatable pocket for my heel. The med tech who fitted it said it would feel like wearing a high-heeled shoe.

So now I know how that feels. My drag career may not be happening.

I can get around in it fine but feel a bit like Herman Munster. Walking around on our hardwood floors makes an ominous, shuffle-clump, approaching-horror sound. Driving with it on is basically impossible, but I can remove the boot whenever sitting or lying down, so I'm not trapped in the house. I've already confirmed that I can make it to the pub and play pool.

So at the moment it's basically an inconvenience. I still get a little pain from the heel now and then, but I can already tell after a couple of days that I'm not making it worse. We'll see how it goes....

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Update May 2026: greatly improved, mainly due to stretches prescribed by the physical therapist.

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Joe Who? Learn more at Tallahassee Beach.