The Long Shadow
It could be said that misery lives in the moment, but lingers in the moment's long shadow. Blacktail Viaduct, MP 1510 It's not hard to look at the stately symmetry of the Milwaukee's trestle at Blacktail and wait, expectantly, for Boxcabs to grind across it on their way up the hill to Pipestone. Or perhaps sets of SD40s working hard to handle increased traffic from the BN Merger's opened gateways. The opened gateways of 1970 provided a reason to hope, hence the misery is not just the collapse and removal of America's final transcon, but the failed promise that seemed ever so close. C.S. Lewis penned that "part of misery is .. the miser's shadow or reflection. [1]" Blacktail casts a long shadow. Reference: 1) CS Lewis, “A Grief Observed”