A Tale of Two Eagles

or a Tale of Two Cities, American Style.

Maybe it's really about house hunting.

I like the signs here in La Crosse.

Many are obvious and some are infinitely subtle. Any kind of sign is very telling. Ask the La Crosse Sign Company.

There are almost too many signs to comment on, but somewhere a sign goes begging to be filled in.

The Eagles, and the People of the Eagles.

In Milwaukee there was a bridge. It was built by the WPA, almost 100 years ago. It no longer serves it's physical purpose, because the water was diverted by the city, and it is now partially buried, but it had a sign near it encouraging the casual observer to find the city logo.

There was no plaque or symbol to be found on it.

But the bridge itself was fascinating, built of very crude cut blocks in a manner that was consciously primitive. And they were assembled in interesting patterns of large and small stones. I couldn't make them out well in the darkness, without a flashlight. (I'm never prepared.)

However, it was the pattern of the bridge itself that interested me. It had the shape and appearance of Two Eagles, standing back to back, with wings outspread, facing East and West.

The People of the Stone infiltrated the WPA and put their mark over the City of Milwaukee.

I took my great niece for a walk yesterday and she became very interested in taking blocks of Ice from along the sidewalk and placing them in a pattern of her own devising. She selected the blocks, large and small, and I pried them off the ground for her. (She let me place one.)

If a child does this, how much more subtle are adults, and the wise?

I find these interesting patterns of stones and they lead me to places in the wilderness where people have built shrines of fallen sticks.

The people of the stone are with us still.

There are obvious eagles all over La Cross, but the People of the Stone have been leaving their subtle eagle symbols here too.

One, I found on an old Indian mound. There is a neighborhood by the railroad tracks, and this mound is the only piece of property not used. Except for a short sidewalk to nowhere on top of it. It is made of two long pavement slabs, one short square, and two long ones. Beneath the roughly eagle shaped symbol, there is a pattern in the grass, over which the snow melts in lines that make it appear as if there are feathers under the eagle. Very subtle.

And there is a more recent structure. A playground is being renovated behind a shopping center. It is a massive playground operation for a poor neighborhood. It just isn't the way cities spend money on playgrounds. There is a sweeping berm around the north side of the playground. And somebody decided to build a massive cement bridge through it. I try to imagine how much a solid cement bridge would cost, and why it would be needed. La cross is deeply into land and water management. The idea is to direct rainfall to places where it can soak into the ground and you can rake away the garbage. It is a cheaper and more natural way of filtering water back into the land, without the use of sewers, and the need to crawl underground to clean them.

The underland bridge may be a way of directing water from the playground to the field next to it. The work isn't done yet if all they mean to do is flood the field. They will need tree, bushes, hedges, and maybe an island or two. (No park is complete without a little wooded area for the kids to explore and find frogs and turtles.

Anyway, it's the symbolism that interests me. The berm resembles an eagle with wings outstretched and the playground is under its wings.

Yep, it's A Tale of Two Eagles.

(Make it Four Eagles in Two Cities.)