It's OK to be weary of bridge-collapse coverage. It doesn't make you a bad person. It has been a long year of struts and gussets, heart-breaking stories and eye-glazing technical reports. In the end it's human imperfection + gravity, and there's only so much to be said about the matter. But even those who haven't followed the recent memorials caught themselves on Friday, and remembered where they were when they heard the news. You always know where you were. It's as if the brain, attempting to process bad news, nails your feet to wherever you stand, and fuses the moment with the place.
When JFK was shot, I was a toddler under the kitchen table, playing with a car; I remember nothing except my mother's terrible shussshh, the electric sense of something happening, something bad. I was standing on the corner of 4th street and University in Dinkytown when someone told me Reagan had been shot.
When the bridge fell, I was at the Apple store in Southdale, exchanging a defective iPhone; as soon as the new one was activated, it buzzed, vibrating on the table like an angry insect anxious to sting. It was my wife.
Was I safe? Had I heard?
We remember when things collapse, but the gradual process of reconstruction has no such galvanic moments. No one will remember where they were when the bridge was reopened to traffic. Already we're used to the milestones: who expected the decks to meet over the Mississippi in the subsequent summer?
A year and change, and we'll be flying over the river again. Remarkable, really. Pride probably isn't the apt emotion for this week of recollection, but there's room for awe, and admiration. It fell; it rose again. That has to count for something.
jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 More daily at www.startribune.com/buzz
