Hi, White Sucker!

I delude myself some days with the thought that I somehow "know" the Bronx well. I guess I can find my way across it, up and down and through it, but I don't know it with the familiarity of a local or native, who sees their hometown thus: so familiar that it is superficially blinding, like smoke, and yet they can see through it like x-rays.

Upon saying this, I doubt if anyone reading could even find the location of the following photos in a year of hard searching. The other day, on a self-guided walking detour, I found this scene of utter wreckage, worthy of the opening massacre scene in the movie, "No Country For Old Men." Thankfully, it's merely toys:

Location: by an overpass, near another, above some railroad tracks, Bronx, NY.

Some big child clearly had fun with a spot of creative destruction...

Of the Bronx, one might quote the poem from which comes the phrase, "No Country for Old Men":

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees...
...Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

Not far from this scene of toy town carnage, I saw some interesting stone carvings in a park. Now, I know that a classic, often comedic, urban legend-trope might show what happens to a naive, white visitor to New York City, who gets on the wrong subway train or hails a gibberish-spouting, engine-revving taxi-driver and ends up in, God help them, Harlem, or may the Lord have mercy on their souls!, the Bronx. This next photo might just show the 'welcome' that awaits the hapless tourist:

In fact, as I quickly discovered, with thousands of bright yellow daffodils cheerfully waving, the stone carvings celebrate New York City and State's waterways and the fish that live in them.

So, hi there, white sucker, and nice to meetcha, eastern mudminnow!