The Inaccessible Monument

     It looms atop one of the only hills in Detroit, emitting a lone-gravestone eeriness.  It appears to be a  stunted obelisk which has lost its point.  No doubt it is signifying something  important.  Sacred Ojibwa ground perhaps?   Maybe a marker acknowledging the Black Bottom area which once thrived near this spot?  And if you find yourself driving by it enough, amidst the tangle of freeways and ramps which connect I-75, I-375 and Gratiot Avenue, eventually your curiosity might impel you to go see just what this monument is marking.   So you approach it from a different route, and then another, only to realize, every time, there's a semi-truck bearing down on you, forcing you to keep driving.  No, this monument was not placed here to be visited.  

      

    The safest way to see it is via parachute followed by a helicopter rescue.  Arranging this can be difficult but the view is worth it.  Not to mention the serene white noise of whirring traffic.  Nice spot for a picnic really.

 

But the real question is, will you be rewarded for your effort?  Well, here's what you get:

    Upon first reading, it seems an appropriate commemoration of a job well done by the often overlooked working person.  But further scrutiny might reveal otherwise.  Let's start with the first word.  Just who is this "we"?  Is this some sort of Jungian collective unconscious "we"?  There is nobody taking credit for the thanking here.  It seems suspiciously like the workers are actually thanking themselves.  Furthermore, what's up with the syntax?  I know firsthand, writing without an editor, despite being liberating, is also very dangerous.  You would think a plaque writer would get a second opinion.  

    But what calls for the most scrutiny here are the numbers.  The original contract time for this, by the way, unnamed, project was just five days short of a year.  As you can see though, it was finished in less than five months. Left unwritten is how much financial incentive there was to complete it so swiftly.  Regardless, a four-month and three-week job deserves its own monument?   That's the equivalent of every awful summer job anyone had as a teenager.  And it would seem to me that a marriage jeopardized by 144 days of high-paying hard work probably has some other issues.  Also, the loss of personal time and "precious time with loved ones"  could most likely be made up in the, presumed,  remainder of the year the workers now have off.  

    I'm not saying highway construction (assuming that's the project referred to here; because if it's just the placement of the monument itself I would say it should have been completed sooner) is easy, but we have all, undoubtedly, done some hard work for at least five months in our lives; most of us do it for a lot longer at a lot less pay.  And yet, not one monument stands in recognition of this fact.  But then I realized, this is our monument.  It is mine and it is yours.  For all the hard work we have done and will continue to do.  It wasn't meant to be read,  that's obviously why it's inaccessible. 

    So enjoy your monument, you deserve it.  Just remember, if you visit, please be careful.