The Bridge Keepers

I've got an acquaintance that I keep in touch with periodically from afar.  When I first met him, he was teaching firefighting, and the second time we met he was drinking a Corona spiked with grenadine, which given the pink color I found quite out of character.  At any rate, that aspect of his personality is not the only surprise that was in store for me.  He also has proven himself to be quite a philosopher, and a few months ago he pointed me in the direction of this little gem.

We are the Bridgemen, connecting one era to another.

This quote, which I think is an excellent description of people of my vintage and even a little younger, popped into my head this evening as I was making one of my more standard training loops on the long path to the Pilgrimage.  As I approached the one mile point, I came across this.  I'm not sure why this triggered thoughts back to Mr. Grenadine Corona's quote because I walk past this routinely, but tonight it struck me because this image that I see just about every day manifests what I hope to be the truth of the quote above.

12 m Satellite Ground Station

This 12 m Satellite Ground Station has been used since the late 1980's to train midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy in a number of Astronautical Engineering topics and conducted communications with numerous GEO and LEO satellites, the Space Shuttle, and the International Space Station (ISS).  Since travelling to the moon, the manned space program world wide has been kept largely confined to LEO, and I'm hopeful that change is coming to stretch our legs again.  I will likely not be able to participate in the next steps of manned space exploration, but I understand the draw and the call to go where we haven't yet gone. 

Severn River Bridge

We are the bridgemen, and we are entrusted to maintain the path toward the next steps for the generations that will follow.  It's possible that my recent sense of consolidation and waiting is part of this broader generational story, but probably not.  It is good to be reminded that there is a great deal of work left to accomplish if we are to realize our potential as a species.