The most interesting truck moved in fits and starts through the neighborhood yesterday. It was an enormous Palfinger stake truck carrying a load of utility poles. This looks a lot like a logging truck, only more so, with some of the new poles extending several feet beyond the length of the truck bed. And did the longest pole in the load bear a red flag to warn against the extra-long load? Nope, it did not.
On the other hand, a “wide load” chase vehicle did follow the stake truck everywhere. Which is a good thing, as the stake truck operated as if it were not subject to any rule of the road that might prove inconvenient. Such as driving and parking only on the right side of the street. And the stake truck was correct in that assumption, given that it was too big to argue with.
Yesterday’s mission moved slowly enough that, even on foot, I got to see the routine, which was off-loading utility poles here and there onto people’s lawn extensions. First, the truck pulled up somewhere near the curb, and the driver deployed mechanical legs to stabilize the front of the truck. Then, he exited the vehicle and climbed into a chair that sat higher than the cab.
From that chair, he operated a crane built into the truck. Segment by segment, he unfolded the crane in a process that looked like unmaking a huge origami insect—a praying mantis, perhaps. He positioned the grabber part of the crane over the utility pole of his choice and, with great precision, picked up the pole. He eased the pole up and over the stakes that held the cargo on the truck, and set that pole on someone’s grass.
He then refolded the origami mantis, descended from the elevated chair, reentered the cab, and retracted the mechanical legs. He was gracious enough to smile and nod at the audiences that gathered to admire the whole maneuver wherever he performed it, but he didn’t slow down to do so. Some spots—our court, for instance—apparently needed more than one new pole. Neither the Palfinger Steel Giant nor the man putting it through its paces had any difficulty managing multiple poles at once.
Don’t you marvel at human ingenuity? Someone’s thought about replacing utility poles and how to do it. How do you tell if a pole needs replacing? Google leads you to believe the poles around here probably aged out, as they’re all being replaced at the same time. How do you suppose the replacement process goes? For instance, how do you pull the old poles out of the ground? Will Palfinger be back?
Sometimes, the fascinating things you see around the neighborhood are more subtle than the Steel Giant. Through the fog, one morning recently, I recognized an acquaintance of many years. She was half a block ahead of Rascal and me and traveling in the same direction on the other side of the street. The acoustics of foggy days did not lend themselves to hailing her and, besides, I didn’t want to interrupt her.
She is a composer, concert organist, and conductor. And she was conducting as she walked along. Perhaps she was wearing earbuds. Perhaps the music played in her musician’s memory or her composer’s vision. It was, in any case, so much a part of her that she’d moved on to considering how to present it, how to share it, how to elicit it from others. The fog afforded me a glimpse into her artistic process, then cocooned her again as she turned at her house, and we walked on.
Last Sunday was a glorious Michigan fall day. It was also the day we had folks visit from southern climes. We took them to lunch at the Sidetrack in Ypsilanti, and sat outside on the covered back deck. The dear ones don’t often get this far north, and they enjoyed our time together in no small part because of the weather. Where they live, it’s still hot at this time of year. Quite hot.
Up here, the temperature hovered in the low seventies. The sky was blue. The clouds were decorative. The breeze was gentle. In short, it was pleasant to sit outdoors and tell stories. They say that, at home, two minutes is about the limit for sitting outdoors. They treasure the sunshine they get there, but they mostly need to enjoy it from somewhere air conditioned. We’re glad the weather was conducive to a leisurely visit. They even went for a long walk in the university’s Arboretum later. Autumn is a wonderful season.
17 October 2025