Bridge to the Future

The Colonel conducted the first full operational test of the Bridge at Eegeebeegee --known within the Colonel's immediate family as Caleb's Crossing, in honor of the Hope of 21st Century Civilization, Dash One (H21CC-1)--this morning and is pleased and relieved to report that the Colonel's trusty red tractor (Semper Field) is not at the bottom of the thirty foot chasm spanned by said bridge. In fact, the bridge, engineered and constructed to withstand the blast effects of a low-yield nuclear explosion, did not even creak as the Colonel eased Semper Field across. Clear of the concrete ramp on the far side of Caleb's Crossing, the Colonel gave an unabashedly exuberant "Ooorah!!" to usher in a new chapter in the work-in-progress that is the Colonel's vast holdings here at the shallow northern end of deep southern nowhere.

Inaccessible to all but foot traffic for better than two years, the fields on the far side of Caleb's Crossing have overgrown in a tangle of blackberry brambles, bushes, tall grass, and hardwood saplings. Into this jungle, the Colonel and his steed, Semper Field, plunged--bush hog in tow--and the field's overgrowth surrendered itself to the rapacious blades spun by the tractor's power-take-off. Lest the five of you (the Colonel has been advised that there are now that many) who regularly waste rod and cone time perusing posts hereon--as well as the casual reader who stumbles blindly into this literary morass--think the Colonel a completely thoughtless destroyer of nature, he would have you know that wherever his mowing uncovered an oak sapling the Colonel steered a path around it.

After a couple of hours of cutting, the field, where once stood bramble useless to man, now presents itself ready for the plow, with a dozen two-year old oaks dotting the landscape. The oaks will greatly complicate the cultivating of the field in the near-term, but the Colonel would like to think that someday in the future beyond his existence on this rock, H21CC-1 will sit beneath one of those trees and tell his grandson (H22CC-1) that they enjoy the cool shade thanks to a man who, riding a tractor one day, thought of a descendant known only to God and was inspired to veer from the path of convenience for that child's sake.