Small Town News

Public art can provoke gratitude and appreciation

---

BAREFOOTIN'

The bronze statues at Pioneer Square in the heart of Seattle glisten much of the time. The city's famous mist keeps the heroic figures constantly clean and shining, beckoning to visitors as they pass, reminding them of the important role firefighters play in their communities.

The grouping of four statues, created by sculpture students at University of Washington, play the central role in the monument that celebrates the firefighters who have given their lives in the line of duty. Their names are carved into slabs of granite displayed in toppled manner behind the charging statues.

Public art spices much of the Seattle landscape, making it a great city to explore on foot. Some of the art is fanciful, some is solemn, some is abstract, which leaves its solemnity or fancifulness to those who do the pondering. In this week of Thanksgiving, art that we encounter which provokes our thoughts as well as our aesthetic appreciation heightens our sense of gratitude.

My daughter Megan and I spent time with the statues while waiting for commentator and columnist Amy Goodman to show up for a reading from her new book, "Breaking the Sound Barrier," at the Elliott Bay Book Company, right next to the square. Megan is awaiting her first child and as of this writing Tuesday is still looking forward to the arrival.

Goodman, who hosts a program on National Public Radio titled Democracy Now, is a tireless advocate for a free and independent media. It worries her that our major television networks, which derive so much of their revenue from big pharmaceutical companies, devote so little of their news airtime discussing the nation's major issues such as healthcare reform. "The media is like a huge kitchen table that the whole nation sits around to discuss the most important issues of the day - war and peace, life and death. It's so important in a democracy that people be informed on these issues and make their opinions known.

"The media's responsibility is to let people know what's really going on. Anything less is a real disservice to the people who serve in our military. Anything less is a real disservice to a democratic society." Amen.

A standing-room-only crowd of more than 150 crowded into a basement-level reading room in the bookstore to hear Goodman speak.

Finding the best seats

Becky and I flew on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Seattle. The airline has built a successful business model around minimal in-flight services, low fares, no assigned seating and fast turnarounds. We were in the first group to board the flight from Baltimore and also when we boarded a connecting flight in Salt Lake City. On the first plane, we grabbed seats just inside the door, which meant we would also be among the first to get off. Still we had to stand and struggle to stow carry-on bags in overhead compartments while others waited in varying degrees of patience for us to settle. A family group with a small yap-per of a dog filled the seats behind us. That's right; Southwest allows dogs under a certain size and in carriers. The dog didn't much care for take-offs and landings but behaved pretty well in between.

In Salt Lake City we decided to change seating strategy. We headed into the plane and set our sights on the last seats. The nice stewardess applauded our decision but cautioned us not to take the very last seats. "They're the worst seats on the plane," she told us. "They don't go back and they're actually a little narrower than the rest of the seats."

We took seats one row ahead of the final seats. While others were battling in the choke point at the front of the plane, we relaxed. Plenty of overhead stowage and no steady procession of people bumping by us as is the case in the front of the plane. And, the people with the dog held their original strategy and stayed up front We never heard as much as a whimper for the entire final leg of our flight. The stewardess told us that the time it takes to empty the plane at the gate averages about six minutes. Big deal. She also said that when Southwest first started, its standard time for being on the ground between flights was no more than 10 minutes. That's amazingly fast unloading and loading. "They got more use of their planes mat way and it helped them succeed when others were losing money," she said.

The flight was a good one, and for that we were also thankful.





© 2010 Cape Gazette Lewes, Delaware. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

More from Cape Gazette