In 1984, I studied Spanish for six weeks in Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico. The school was on a major avenue in the city center, but my lodging was with a family toward the edge of the city. In the afternoon, after classes, I would walk back to my neighborhood on the far side of a small river, a river that was basically a straight ditch with foul-smelling water. One day, I discretely snapped a photo on the river bridge.
The Man on the Bridge
Morelia, Michoacan Mexico, 1984.
Nearly every afternoon when I crossed the bridge, he was there. An older man, leaning against the pedestrian railing, staring fixedly down the straight, narrow channel of the Río Chiquito. He could have been a mannequin, standing so still in his white hat and faded denim jacket.
I never learned much about him. I’d seen him walking, and I knew he had a bad leg. I never talked to him, but I got the impression he might not have been in his right mind.
Like the light posts or the railings, the man seemed to be another fixture on that bridge.
I like the cropped image (above), but also the original (below), with its view of the tall street light and the wide avenue. That part of Morelia was urban, but it was not densely built-up nor busy with traffic.
