www.quondam.com/06/0533.htm

From: Stephen Lauf
To: design-l@lists.psu.edu
Subject: "...your film will be confiscated."
Date: 2004.04.20 12:09

In an effort to get fit, I've started to take morning bike rides leaving from my back door. I make my way up to Roosevelt Blvd. (US Rt. 1) where it crosses Tacony Creek (where Indians once camped) and then head east towards the site of the world's largest building implosion (excepting the WTC), quondam site of Sears and Roebuck Northeast Distribution Center and now home to HOME DEPOT, WAL-MART, STAPLES, PEP BOYS, MATTRESS GIANT, OLD NAVY, etc., etc. I circle this complex once completely, and then head north a bit to circle the NAVAL INVENTORY CONTROL POINT (a big .US place). On Robbins Avenue, on the lawn in front of the naval depot's main office building, are three vintage fighter planes. I had forgotten these planes were there, but now I recall being always excited to see them as a young child. As I pass the main entrance gate to the depot, I think to stop and ask one of the guards if one is allowed to take pictures of the planes from outside the fence. The guard (in a very friendly manner) answered, "No, you're not allowed. If you are seen doing so by one of the security patrols your film will be confiscated." I then asked if this policy was put in place after 9-11, to which the guard replied, "No. I know the Russians have 1000s of pictures of them, but you're still not allowed to take pictures. It has always been a security breech." I then told him "I'm glad I asked" and rode off. I now head south towards the Roosevelt Blvd. again, just a block east of the implosion site. I again circle the shopping center and then head home.
[elapsed time: 45 minutes]

Much of this loop comprises long straight stretches, and the terrain is consistently very close to flat. Today, I was mostly thinking about Baroness Franziska von Ow. Earlier this year, my mother told me that, although the Baroness had her own car and, before the war, her own chauffeur, in 1943 the Baroness's car was in the garage, albeit without tires--the Baron's car was confiscated outright so he took the trolley to work as Dean of the agricultural machinery department of Munich's technical university. On many days, the Baroness left the villa on her bike and apparently rode into town, or, as my mother says, "Who knows where she went."

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