Tire Swing of the Gods

Ten years ago when we visited Halifax we drove in from the Eastern Shore, through Dartmouth. Last year when we arrived we came down the 102 in the dead of night. I think that the first time I saw the tire swing was on a trip out to Sackville to the only used sporting goods store in the region that carries ringette equipment.

Since then, I've passed it numerous times on the way to the airport, job interviews, sugar shacks, etc. The kids noticed it too and invested a few moments of wonder as well.

I know that it's just a tire swing, but it works in the mind like good art. It evokes a set of previously unconsidered possibilities and demands that you ask unanswerable questions. The questions tend to be mundane -- Who put that there? Why? Did it grow to be there or was it a dangerous game? -- but the hypothetical answers don't have to be.

And now it's gone. And that has evoked even more questions that all seem to be the inverse of the old ones -- Who took it down? Why? Did the branch just break or was it taken down to "manage risk"? But as memories of the object fades, and as no one will ever again notice it for the first time, the contemplation of unanswerable questions on that stretch of the 102 will stop entirely.

More's the pity.