Saturday, October 11, 2008

Heather


I do not know who Heather was, but for a long time between 2007-08 the street corner memorial to her on PCH & 6th St. in Huntington Beach captured my eye. While heading south, I seemed to always get caught at this intersection's light, my eyes usually beginning on the ocean but ending across the street looking and thinking about who Heather must have been. Somebody lost somebody very special and as time passed, the memorial would change to suit as the landscape behind it did. This went on for well over a year, maybe two. The intersection went from a simple street corner with a vacant lot behind it, to one with graded land and a chain link fence, to a construction zone, to the beginnings of a grand hotel. All the while, Heather remained. Now, I wished I had taken photos of the memorial as it morphed to accommodate the changing backdrop. As it turns out, the photo here is, I believe, of the last memorial version. The what surely will be a glitzy new downtown hotel has taken over and whoever maintained this tribute to Heather has finally succumbed to its urban reality. I, for one, will always remember this street corner as hers.