If this were jail, I'd find another new jack and break him down in the mess hall, just to show everyone that I mean business. But alas, this is the web and I'm a pacifist to boot. I'm also an engineer and "we" aren't usually much for writing things so I thought I'd add a little something to show that I, an engineer, have in fact contributed something to literary world...okay, that's a stretch but I did have the good fortune to publish the following essay in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about a year ago.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/240075_firstperson12.html

Lamenting the loss of brick beneath our feet
Wish we could follow the red brick road

KEITH HARRIS

I haven't many things in common with Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, but I do suffer the same laments as one in particular. The thorns in our respective sides are probably somewhat common in people all across the land, although I have never met a kindred spirit. I would try to explain the ailment myself but, hey, when you buy one of his books, it has a little gold seal of approval on the cover. It's safe to say that his words are certainly more precise than mine and are, therefore, pilfered here for everyone's benefit:

I suffer intensely from bouts, at times almost disabling, of a limitless, all-encompassing nostalgia, extending well back into the years before I was born.

My most recent encounter with the debilitating condition, which I share with Michael Chabon, was while walking down Third Avenue in Belltown. Road crews have thoroughly stripped the upper layers of asphalt from the roadway and thus exposed the beautiful, yet faded red brick that once carried the load of my fellow townspeople. How long has it been since those bricks last saw the seasons? Why would anyone cover this red-brick road with asphalt?

I had an idea and it seems to be a recurring theme these days: Pragmatism versus Idealism, Cost versus Beauty. My initial reaction was along the lines of riotous acts, civil unrest and the like. I could picture the young urban dwellers, led by Chabon, up from Berkeley with a vengeance, storming through downtown toward Pioneer Square, where the newly reunited Rage Against the Machine would perform a set for the masses along the streets of the only remaining pure part of town -- and so on.

But as I returned to my office, I returned to reality. Rage Against the Machine is not getting back together and the streets of Seattle will most likely remain asphalt. It's a shame, on both counts, and I am sure there is utility in the use of asphalt. My tax dollars surely are going to street repair (I travel mainly by foot, on the sidewalk) and repaving asphalt is probably significantly cheaper and faster than having a crew of masons replacing cracked bricks.

It's the same old tune sung over and over again: another case of pinching pennies for the sake of convenience, modernity or just plain bad taste. It's a tired argument, I know, but anyone else who feels our pain should make their way down to Belltown and see what has been beneath our feet, or tires, all along.

"So much for days of old," I say to the author. "Some of us have been mistakenly placed in a time in which we don't quite fit."

Keith Harris lives in Seattle.


So there you have it. A piece of my mind from summer '05.