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28 December 08: In the fog, On the Delaware
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
So said Carl Sandburg in his breakout book from 1916, Chicago Poems. The six line poem almost reads as a throwaway between such heady narratives as
"Nigger", in which he sentiently puts himself in the shoes of a black migrant worker while using a voice stereotypical of its time, and "A Teamster's Farewell",
which peels back a union laborer's corruption to find a sad nostalgia for the everyday things he'll miss in prison. But "Fog" is a felicitous selection among so
many Chicago-centric compositions of industry, agriculture and sociology. He could have written it anywhere; perhaps Penn Treaty Park.
The Delaware River may not be within the lexicon of Famous Fogs -- London's Fog named a coat company and San Francisco's is the muse for countless an artist, among them the 1934 film "Fog of Frisco" -- but when it
visits, fog on the Delaware is as stunning as any famous fog in the world. With an open-ended post-xmas/pre-NYE weekend, I had intended on spending at least one
of the days exploring parts of the Delaware River I'd not seen. Turns out no one could see the Delaware on Saturday, or at least no one could see the other
side of the Delaware.
New Jersey, and the world with it, had disappeared into the dense Delaware despair.
I headed for the Ben Franklin Bridge, hoping it was still there. I was relieved to see its Pennsylvania anchorage when I got there around 10am, but I couldn't
determine New Jersey's fate. I stopped next at an all-gray Penn Treaty Park, where the photo above was taken and where foghorns could be heard but no ships could
be seen. With a northbound ramp a short right turn from WIlliam Penn and his elm tree('s descendant) away, I took to the Delaware Expressway for the River
Roads, the canals that parallel them, and a 114 mile miasmatic march.
View Larger Map
There were stops along the way for the R3 train bridge and the I-95 (Scudder Falls) Bridge in Yardley, some historical considerations in Washington Crossing, a
bleu cheese and bacon burger at John & Peter's in New Hope, a footbridge and some lumber in Lumberville, a tube launch and former bridge in Point Pleasant, and
several other spots in several other townships. Collectively, these stops bring about the 44-photo essay in the fog on the Delaware just below; we end back at
Penn Treaty Park for sunset over the lingering San Francisco-esque fog.
To begin the series of 44 photos in the fog on the Delaware, please click
HERE.
–B Love
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