Some justices now seem to have morphed originalism even further to lessen a reliance on the old dictionaries. They simply pronounce that the constitutional text controls without ever referring to the original meaning of the words. This approach is evident in Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s opening address to the Federalist Society convention a year or so ago. He paid tribute to the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision of District of Columbia v. Heller guaranteeing an individual’s right to own guns. Alito criticized Justice Breyer’s dissent in that case. Breyer had proposed a balancing test that would weigh self-defense against public safety. Alito stated that if a judge uses such a balancing test, the balance will almost always come to rest where the judge wants it to. Instead, Alito told this conservative group, “Heller, I am sure you know, holds that the Second Amendment actually means what it says.” Breyer was allowing personal values to control the constitutional right. Alito, certain that he knew the “proper” interpretation of the text, claims an unbiased conclusion.

This is not the place to trace the history of the Second Amendment’s interpretation or what it now does or does not mean. Instead, I am struck by the implications of Alito’s statement. He implies that those who would allow some gun control are using Breyer’s balancing test, and that means that they are relying on their own preferences rather than adhering to the Constitution. The conservative majority in Heller, Alito maintains, was not following individual preferences but was simply reading and enforcing the words as written. We in the majority are constitutionally pure (he implies); the dissent is not. (Thought experiment: For how many of the justices in the majority did the outcome in Heller fail to coincide with their individual preferences?)

But how should we interpret the words as written? The Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” I don’t mean to delve into those opening “militia” words about which much has already been written. (Reports state that that first clause is not reproduced in the lobby of the NRA headquarters, only the last part of the provision. Why is that?) Instead, I ask whether there is one, single unambiguous meaning for “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”? (I will also ignore the intriguing question of why that last comma exists.)

For Alito the Second Amendment words say unambiguously that individuals have the right to own guns. Period. Full stop. The end. The provision, however, does not expressly grant rights to individuals as Heller held it did. It states that it is a “right of the people.” Wouldn’t the Amendment more clearly have granted an individual right if it had said, “No one’s right to keep and bear arms, shall be infringed”? (Okay, we’ll keep the mysterious comma.) Or perhaps it would have been even more clear if the Second Amendment read: “Every person has the right to own and use firearms.” But it does not make these more unambiguous assertions. Instead, on its face, the provision grants a collective right, not an individual one.

The text also does not grant a right to “own.” Instead it says there is a right to “keep and bear.” Does “keep” mean the same as “own”? Have you never kept something without owning it? And you can keep an object in many places. I might keep a boat at the marina. I keep my tools at work. If a law required me to remove my Winchester or Glock from my home and store it at an armory, wouldn’t I be keeping a gun at the armory?

The Second Amendment right, however, is not just to “keep” guns; it is to keep and bear them. Why the conjunction? The right is not just to keep but to keep and somehow use. “Use,” however, is not the word in the text. Instead, it specifically reads “bear.” That could imply that only those arms are protected when they are “borne,” which seems a narrower word than “use.” And what does it mean to “bear arms”? What did it mean then? What does it mean now? Do we “bear arms” outside the military? When I go deer hunting, do I “bear arms”? (If so, don’t hunting seasons and other hunting restrictions infringe on my right to keep and bear arms?) When I grab the revolver because I think I hear a burglar, do I “bear arms”? Did Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton “bear arms” in their famous duel? If I drunkenly point a pistol at my spouse during an argument, am I “bearing arms”? (That last one was a hypothetical; the spouse and I never argue.)

Furthermore, the Amendment does not directly refer to guns. It reads “arms.” The Supreme Court shrugged off an originalist notion that “arms” must be limited to eighteenth century weapons. In this instance, Heller allowed the word “arms” something other than an originalist meaning, but then how are we to decide what arms are now included in the protection? Perhaps the 1828 Webster’s dictionary would provide an approximation of what is meant. If so, “arms” are defined there as “Weapons of offense, or armor for defense and protection of the body.” If a rifle (clearly a weapon of offense) is protected, why not a machine gun, a flamethrower, a cannon, a killer drone, a switchblade, and so on? Aren’t they all “weapons of offense”? Does the text really make it simple to decide what kinds of firepower and killing machines are protected?

Finally, the Second Amendment on its face does not create a right. Instead, it indicates that a right is not to be violated. This, of course, only raises the question, “What was that right?” It is not spelled out in the Constitution, only that the right “to keep and bear arms” shall not be infringed. The scope of that right is not actually in the Constitution’s text, and we must have to look outside the document to find it.

(Concluded August 29)

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Original public meaning at a superficial glance is a more promising method of constitutional interpretation than original intention and original understanding. It would have the Supreme Court use the original meaning of the words and phrases in the Constitution to interpret it. This interpretive method has judges jiggling off to ancient dictionaries to find that original meaning, but problems still appear. Perhaps Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, published in 1755, was the most well-known one in the founding era, but Johnson’s definitions were often as prescriptive as descriptive. That is, in the opinionated Johnson’s opinion, he listed what a word should mean, not necessarily what it did mean to all or even most English speakers of the day. And, of course, what really should matter for the United States Constitution is what words meant in America, not England. This is made more difficult because the first relatively complete American dictionary of English was not published until 1828, some four decades after the Constitution was adopted.

Other difficulties with the ancient dictionary approach have also emerged. The Constitution includes the word “emoluments,” but what does that mean? In a lawsuit involving that seldom-considered part of the Constitution, the Justice Department said that it applies to benefits to the President from services rendered by the President in his official capacity. Georgetown Law Professor John Mikhail along with student Genevieve Bentz examined forty regular dictionaries and ten legal dictionaries published from 1604 to 1806 and concluded that 92% of the dictionaries had a broader definition of “emoluments” than what the Justice Department contended. But the remaining ones did have the definition that favored the president. How then should we determine the original meaning of “emoluments”? Do we say it was what the majority of the dictionaries say? Would we come to that same conclusion if the split had been 60-40? Are seventeenth century dictionaries really relevant? And language is always in flux. Was that true for “emoluments”? In a summary of Mikhail’s research, no dictionaries define the word as a benefit, profit, or advantage without linking it to an office, as the Justice Department sought to do, until 1759. But in that dictionary and ones published in 1761 and 1774, the definitions specifically say an “emolument” is a “profit from an office or employ.” Around the time of the Constitution, the meaning of the word might have been narrowing. Indeed, 20% of the dictionaries published between 1759 and 1787 when the Constitution was written had the definition of “emolument” Trump’s Justice Department favors. Can we really be positive that the office-linked definition was not the one being used in the Constitution? It turns out that even using a comprehensive set of dictionaries does not eliminate choices, and when choices must be made, personal values, predilections, and experiences may influence a judge’s selection.

(In a constitutional area where I have researched and published, Justice Antonin Scalia quoted Noah Webster’s dictionary for a definition of “witness” that supported the conclusion he reached [sought?]. That was only one of Webster’s definitions for that word, and some of the other definitions seemed to require a different result from Scalia’s. Scalia did not address the alternative definitions or explain why he had plucked the definition he had. But, while perhaps pretending otherwise, he had made a choice.)

(Continued August 27)

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With the United States Senate about to consider a nominee to the Supreme Court, we can expect to hear about “originalism,” a philosophy or method for interpreting the Constitution. Conservatives often assert it is the only way to properly interpret the Constitution. The originalism label makes it seem as if this interpretive method was the one our founding fathers mandated. Not so. The Constitution itself does not say how it should be applied to any particular dispute, and those who framed our fundamental charter in the Constitutional Convention and those who adopted it in the states were silent about the “proper” method, if any, for later generations’ constitutional interpretations.

Originalism, instead of being an eighteenth-century doctrine, only emerged in the 1980s when President Ronald Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese started advocating the constitutional jurisprudence of “original intention.” He asserted that a constitutional provision should be interpreted today to reflect what the drafters and adopters of the Constitution intended for it when the charter was adopted. This interpretive method, according to its proponents, gives a fixed meaning to the Constitution, thereby preventing “activist” judges from breathing their changeable, subjective predilections and values into our fundamental law. They believe that judging can and should be essentially a mechanical affair. The judge seeks out the original intention of the constitutional provision at issue, applies that intention to the case’s facts, and an inevitable result will be apparent. Only by applying the constitutional meaning that had been unbendingly established in the eighteenth century, the cant goes, can judges remain neutral.

The jurisprudence of original intention, however, never passed its beta test. Whose intention or purpose? That was left unstated. Perhaps the original originalist meant those who drafted the document, but problems quickly appeared with that idea. The historical record of the drafters’ intention is sketchy. James Madison kept notes of discussions at the Constitutional Convention, but we have no verbatim transcript. Madison could only record a fraction of what was said, and we don’t know what he left out. Furthermore, his notes were not published until decades after the convention and by then many of the framers had died. Others who might have corrected or added to what Madison wrote could not do so. And the framers’ thoughts had often been affected by readings of enlightenment thinkers—Locke, Hume, Montesquieu, and others. How should this affect any conclusions about original intentions?

Besides these difficulties another fundamental issue arose. The Constitution was written in the Constitutional Convention, but it was not adopted there. The draft was sent to state conventions where upwards of two thousand Americans considered and adopted it. We know little about the discussions in most of these conventions other than, usually, the final votes. Even if we would find more records of the state conventions, however, they would likely say little about specific constitutional provisions. The states were only allowed to accept the Constitution as written or to reject it as written, although many states did suggest amendments which led to the Bill of Rights Discussions of many specific provisions that might now be under dispute were unlikely under these terms. If we are to look at original intentions surely it is the intentions of those who adopted it that should count the most, but finding an “intention” out of the collective will of thousands is, to put it politely, a fiction.

With these shortcomings apparent, originalism morphed. Of course, that it morphed says something about the assertion that this is the only proper way to interpret the Constitution, but now the originalism advocates dogmatically asserted we needed to examine not the original intent but the original meaning (sometimes amended to the original public meaning) or the original understanding of the fundamental charter. Original understanding seemingly refers to the impressions, views, and interpretations of the original readers of the Constitution who were part of the adoption process, including not just those who drafted or voted on the document, but also those who wrote about or advocated for rejection or ratification of it. Seeking a common understanding from this broad group is even harder than finding an original intention out of the delegates to the state conventions.

(Continued August 24)

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No matter what reasons you might give for the lack of fulfillment of many the Trump’s promises and no matter whether you agree with Poltifact’s categorizations of compromised, stalled, or in-the-works promises, only a fraction of the President’s pledges have been kept. Even so, educated, knowledgeable, historically and politically astute friends maintain that Trump is keeping his promises. That disconnect makes me think back to Ronald Reagan. Reagan was politically popular even though polls often showed widespread disagreement with many of his specific proposals and policies. Even so, Reagan was able to project an overall message that resonated with many. Ethan Bronner in Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America examines this phenomenon and finds this lesson: “People would go with you if they were attracted to the feel of your campaign, even if they disagreed with many aspects of it.”

Something similar is happening with my friends, and I assume for others. Trump’s promises projected a feel. His speech announcing his candidacy was important not for its promises but for an attitude. Trump said that existing politicians could not make America great again because “they’re controlled fully by lobbyists, by the donors, and by the special interests, fully.” The public does not want the usual “nice” person in office because “they’re tired of being ripped off by everybody in the world.” America is no longer a winner. “We used to have victories, but we don’t have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China in a trade deal? They kill us.” The world has taken advantage of the United States. America, battered, stands alone. For example, Mexico is “laughing at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically. The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everyone else’s problems.”

There are no promises here, but in this opening salvo Trump projected a tone or a feel. His promises have been consistent with that tone. For many that feel is what was promised and is being kept no matter what the score is on specific promises. It may be overwhelmingly likely that Trump will keep only a minority of his promises, but it does not matter to many because what he does and says all seem consistent with that feel he has communicated to so many in the country. If we think that what he promised was that feel and don’t look at the specifics of his pledges, then it feels as though he has been keeping his promises.

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Many presidential promises require the action of Congress. Trump does not have the constitutional authority to enact the tax plan that he promised. It requires congressional passage. Perhaps we can conclude that a president is hypocritical in making promises that are not entirely in his control, but many, if not most people, know this when the promise is made and reasonably conclude that the promise really is, “I will work for the enactment of a law that will do this.” On some level the promise is broken if the promised law is not enacted, but this broken promise is not as bad as other unfulfilled promises if the president has worked sincerely and diligently for the passage of the promised legislation.

More blameworthy are Trump’s promises where a president has no role or authority in their implementation. For example, Trump said that he would sign an executive order that would require convicted cop killers to be executed. No president has the authority to do this. The sentences for killing state and local police offers are determined by state law. The president does not have authority over state criminal laws. The federal government does have a death penalty, but not one that imposes that sentence on cop killers. Even if the federal government could constitutionally authorize executions for the murder of police officers (and that is a big if), it would require legislation passed by Congress, and the president has proposed no such legislation. Instead, he said that he would sign an executive order to accomplish this death penalty, but the president does not have the constitutional authority to decide how and when crimes are to be punished. (Dare I say that that only happens in dictatorships.)  Furthermore, the Supreme Court has held that the Constitution forbids the automatic imposition of the death penalty for any crime and that juries must weigh aggravating and mitigating factors to decide whether a death sentence should be imposed. A mandated death penalty for cop killings is unconstitutional. In other words, Trump made a promise that would require him to take an unconstitutional action.

This promise of executions for cop killers may have just been empty words. Trump may never have had this as a policy goal; perhaps he made the statements merely because the statements appealed to his supporters. If so, however, it falls into the hypocritical category. If he was sincere, he had to be ignorant of presidential limitations and the basic structure of separation of powers and our federal system. If the promise fell into this latter category, how should this death-penalty promise be considered? My view: A person in authority or seeking authority should comprehend the limits of that authority. The promise that the maker knows or should know cannot be fulfilled is the equivalent of being hypocritical. The adage is appropriate here: Ignorance is no excuse.

Politicians may also backtrack on promises claiming that circumstances have changed since the promise. For example, Woodrow Wilson ran for re-election in 1916 proclaiming that he had kept us out of the Great War. Less than a year later he was asking Congress for a declaration of war, but he said that the continuing destruction of neutral shipping by Germany now made war necessary. A politician may acknowledge that he promised to build a dam, but he no longer would support the new dam. He might say that when he made the promise the dam would have cost $1 billion and now it be $2 billion. The dam no longer makes sense, he says, and it will not be built.

Surely promises should not be followed if changed circumstances make a once wise promise unwise, but in judging the broken promise, we should not just accept the changed-circumstances rationale. With that dam, for example, we should question the cost estimates. Were the numbers sound or the product of ignorance or fabricated for the politician’s purposes? If the promise-maker knew or should have known that the estimates were not truly sound, then the promise and its breaking was hypocritical or ignorant. However, even if the numbers are solid, it still may be hard to determine if the new circumstance is the real motivation for the change. The politician may have promised a dam he did not intend to build and seizes the fig leaf of valid numbers to explain a result he always intended—no dam.

Trump’s promises so far, however, have not fallen into the category of not-fulfilled-because-of-changed-circumstances. They probably won’t in the future either because it seems unlikely that Trump would ever admit that he had not kept a promise.

(concluded on August 20)

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At least some right-leaning pundits suggest that Trump has not kept promises that Politifact has not rated as broken. Consider the conservative columnist Ross Douthat who writes that Trump has to be strong on tariffs “because it’s the only remaining economic issue where he’s stuck to his campaign promises. . . . . Those campaign promises, as everyone is well aware, were generally more populist than the official G.O.P. agenda: Trump promised middle-class tax cuts and a generous Obamacare alternative, he stiff-armed the entitlement reformers and talked up infrastructure spending, and he railed against free trade deals with every other breath.” Douthat states these promises were essential to his victory, but as President he has mostly reverted to traditional Republicanism and he has not fulfilled his populist promises: “The infrastructure plan never materialized and the tax cut was a great whopping favor to corporate interests and the health care repeal-and-replace effort was a misbegotten flop.” Attacks on free trade and imposing tariffs are all that is left of Trump’s economic populism.

Douthat’s opinions indicate that different people can come to different conclusions about whether Trump has broken his promises. While the conservative columnist sees important broken promises, Politifact sees the enacted tax plan as a Trump compromise; the infrastructure promise in the stalled category; and the Obamacare pledge as in the works.

Douthat also indicates that in judging promises, all promises are not created equal. Assessing the relative importance of a promise is even more subjective than categorizing whether a promise has been broken or whether someday, somehow, even though unlikely, it will be fulfilled. What did you consider Trump’s most important promises? That list is probably different from mine, and we no doubt would differ as to how Trump is doing in keeping or breaking his promises. There is great value in Politifact tracking 102 promises, but it treats them all equally when, of course, they are not.

Which promises are kept and broken is important, but perhaps it is also important why a promise is broken. For example, the President promised to do many things on his first day in office, at least some of which he did not do.  Does that really matter if he does them a month or two later?

On the other hand, some Trump promises may not have been kept because he was not sincere in making them; fingers were crossed behind his back. Of course, any insincere promise-maker is a hypocrite or a liar. If there are gradations for broken promises, this is the worst, and I am sure anti-Trump people see many of his unfulfilled promises in this category.

While it is difficult to determine whether a promise-maker was insincere, a related category of unfulfilled promises broken is more objective. These are promises that were uttered to please the listeners but were made without any plan for their implementation and no efforts made to fulfill them. Replacing Obamacare with a system that would have better coverage with lower premiums falls into this category. Who wouldn’t like the country to have this? But there was never a plan for it or even an attempt to devise such a plan. This is not surprising, because, in all likelihood, it is impossible. Perhaps Trump really meant to propose this golden health care system, but the promise was so problematic that it comes close to a false promise. Having Mexico pay for a border wall also falls into this category. (My friends who say Trump keeps his promises tell me that this is not a broken promise because no one could take this promise seriously. Yet, I have seen many Trump supporters say that, of course, Trump will get Mexico to pony up. My friends’ conclusion that the promise was so ludicrous that it should not have been taken seriously seems to be in effect saying that Trump was lying when he made the promise.)

(continued on August 17)

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In separate conversations, two of my very smart friends who regularly criticize Donald Trump have pronounced that they give him credit for keeping his campaign promises. These mirror signs at Trump rallies: “Promises Made: Promises Kept.” My reaction has been “Really!”

I remember him whipping up his campaign crowds with four major pledges: To build a border wall that Mexico would pay for; to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a better system where all would have health insurance at lower premiums; to bring back manufacturing jobs; and a tax plan where everyone would have a tax cut and businesses would be taxed at a 15% rate. And, of course, in addition to these biggies, Trump made a slew of other promises.

I went to look for a more objective source than my memory of how the President was doing in keeping his myriad promises. I turned to Politifact.com, a fact-checking website that has been awarded a Pulitzer Prize. Politifact had kept score on Obama’s promises and concluded that he had broken about a quarter of them. That website now has a Trump-O-Meter which tracks 102 promises made by Donald Trump. Its summary states the President has kept twelve promises and broken eight. It concludes that seven have been “compromised,” thirty-three are “stalled” and the other forty-two are “in the works.” The Trump-O-Meter makes interesting reading, and I urge my friends and everyone else to look at it.

You can argue with some of Politifact’s assessments. Take the tax cut. By most analyses, everyone does get a tax cut for a while, but taxes will increase on many people in a few years, and the business rate is 21%, not 15%. Politifact places the tax cut promise in the “compromise” category, a defensible categorization, but others might conclude that a compromised promise is a broken promise.

The “stalled” category contains promises that conceivably might someday be fulfilled, but for many of them, the President could have taken action but has not. Thus, Trump said he would propose a constitutional amendment to impose term limits for all members of Congress; impose a hiring freeze on federal employees; and appoint a special Hillary Clinton prosecutor. Presumably such promises can be categorized as “stalled,” not “broken,” until his last day in office because there is a chance they will be kept one day.  On the other hand, the chances that some stalled promises will be kept seem so slim as to be really non-existent. What odds would you lay that, as Trump promised, the federal debt will be eliminated in eight years or that the federal budget will be balanced “fairly quickly”?

The Obamacare promises are rated “in the works.” The plural is used because Trump’s pledges on the topic varied. As a candidate, he sometimes said Obamacare would be repealed and replaced “immediately.” I would say that promise has been broken. Other times he left out immediately but said that Obamacare would be replaced “with a great, great plan” with premiums at a “fraction” of existing ones. Other times he promised that all would continue to have their present doctor. Sometimes he promised more complete coverage than under Obamacare. Other times he would just promise to “repeal and replace Obamacare” without further elucidation. Congress, of course, considered repealing Obamacare, but the effort failed. While actions have been taken to undermine Obamacare, I am not aware that Trump ever proposed any replacement plan that was “great,” that had extensive coverage, allowing all to keep their doctors, and paying only a fraction of existing premiums. If the President is working on such a replacement plan now, he is uncharacteristically quiet about it. But Politifact categorizes the Obamacare promises as “in the works” as they do many other promises, including ones that I was hoping for, his pledges on improving our infrastructure.

(continued on August15)

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When I worked in White Plains, a city in Westchester County north of the Bronx, I would take the subway from my Brooklyn home to the northern reaches of Manhattan and run the eight or ten or twelve miles to White Plains. That meant crossing the Harlem River. There are a number of bridges with walkways that do that, and I ran over quite a few of them, but I don’t remember their names. I did not especially enjoy these bridges. I almost always ran them going to the Bronx. The views of the Bronx were uninspiring, and often I was thinking about how it was going to be running through the South Bronx, a very tough neighborhood in those days. These bridges were utilitarian, only part of my route to get me from point A to point B.

Just as I ran over the George Washington Bridge only once, I ran over the Manhattan Bridge but once. In my running days, the Manhattan Bridge walkways were not open. The plural is correct because that bridge has walkways on both north and south sides. I call them walkways even though one is now supposedly reserved for bicyclists and the other for pedestrians. I have gone over both walkways since they opened, but by walking or biking, not running. Neither is pleasant.  Both are narrow and on the same level as the road and the subway tracks.  With trains rattling twelve yards away and cars constantly on the move even closer, the bridge is hardly a respite from the city. On the plus side, however, I like peering down into Chinatown, a place that still retains some mystery for me.

The only time that I ran over the Manhattan Bridge was in a race, put on by a newspaper that printed legal news. It was billed as a courthouse-to-courthouse run.  It started at the federal courthouse in Manhattan, went over the Manhattan Bridge on the roadway to the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, turned around, back over the bridge again, and ended at the federal courthouse in Manhattan’s Foley Square. We ran on the bridge’s road, not either of its walkways, and the entire race may have been four miles. I remember nothing of what I saw.

I do remember, however, many of the runs over the Williamsburg Bridge. Those runs were not nearly as frequent as my passages on the Brooklyn Bridge, but I ran the Williamsburg Bridge frequently going to and from my office when I worked in lower Manhattan. If I wanted a short run, I ran from my home over the Brooklyn Bridge to my law school or vice versa, a three-plus-mile distance. If I wanted something longer, I went over the Williamsburg, about a 10K run.

The Williamsburg Bridge walkway was not in good shape when I ran it. It was supposed to be covered with something like tiles, but many were missing, giving a sense of decay. The path did not seem unsafe, but it was unsightly. It, however, was elevated above the roadway allowing unimpeded views. The bridge is situated at a dramatic bend in the East River. To the north, one can see to the United Nations and beyond; to the south, to Governor’s Island, the Statute of Liberty, and beyond. No bridge I had crossed before or since offered better views. If you get the chance, walk or bike or run across that bridge. But stop in the middle of the span and admire the view.

But running in New York also brought me to many other bridges because, as I said, New York City is a city of bridges. Many of the bridges are not widely known, but I have run over bridges that span the Newtown Creek and the Gowanus Canal; that are above waters in Mill Basin and Gerritsen Beach; and that separate the Rockaways from the mainland. I have run over bridges to get to Roosevelt Island and City Island. There are bridges in Central Park and Prospect Park.

Running has given me memories of many New York City bridges. They gave me vistas and skies and waters I would not otherwise have seen or noticed. But there was another good thing about those bridge-crossings. They often brought me to a new neighborhood, places to learn about and explore. But that is for another day.

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It may not be apparent when walking the canyons of Manhattan, sitting on the stoop of a Brooklyn brownstone, or gazing longingly at the single-family homes of Forest Hills, but New York City is a city of bridges. When I was younger and a runner, I experienced many of those bridges and in a different way from driving over them. Each time I ran over a bridge for the first time, I was aware it was a new experience. I felt as if I had “collected” another one.

I have both walked and run over the Brooklyn Bridge, but I have run over it many more times than I have walked it. Early in my running days, I would run over it and back at lunch time. Later I would run to and from work over the Brooklyn Bridge several times a week. I have tried to calculate the total number of trips, but those calculations are not precise. I’m guessing it was more than a thousand times. I have run the Brooklyn Bridge in the heat and humidity of summer and the cold and crispness of winter, early morning and at night, in rain and in snow, and almost every time its Gothic arches, its supporting wires’ parabolas, its views gave me some sort of thrill.

While I have been over the Brooklyn Bridge many times, I ran over the the George Washington Bridge that connects New York City and New Jersey but once. It was after seeing a doctor in upper Manhattan. I ran from the office to nearby parks on the Manhattan side of the Hudson River and then north to the bridge. I had driven over the bridge many times, and I always admired the view north up the Hudson. The Hudson is a majestic river, and I envy those who have homes overlooking it. However, I was a bit disappointed as I ran across the GWB. The walkway is on the south side of the bridge, so the view up the Hudson is obstructed. On the other hand, this walkway is higher than any of the other bridge walkways and this allowed me to feel as if I were taking my place among the birds. The sun was strong and sparkled off the water far below. The views of Manhattan were spectacular with the sun mirroring off skyscraper windows. Everything looked like a stage set.

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge that connects Brooklyn and Staten Island is also high above the water. (New York arcana: While the structure is the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the water it spans is simply The Narrows.) I have run over that bridge only while participating in New York City marathons. That is hardly surprising since that bridge does not have a walkway and the only time it can be traversed on foot is during that event. I understand that it must cost extra to include a pedestrian path, and that it might be seldom used on this particular bridge, but I do think all bridges should allow for foot and bike traffic.

Running that bridge during a marathon was hardly a sightseeing opportunity. The marathon starts on the Staten Island side of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, and the runners are tightly clustered. I only could see other runners, and I had to concentrate on running my pace without either being run over or stepping on someone’s heels. If there was a spectacular view of the harbor (there no doubt is), I never saw it.

The marathon goes across the 59^th Street Bridge, also known as the Queensboro Bridge connecting Manhattan and Queens, too. (Now that bridge has an additional name because, for reasons not clear to me, the city or state, or whoever is in charge of such naming, adds dead politicians’ names to them.) I hated it. During the race, we were allowed to run on the roadway or the walkway. The first time I ran on the road because it was more open with fewer runners than the walkway, but the road has little metal projections, presumably to give cars more traction, but they felt like spikes and hurt my feet. In subsequent years I tried to run on the walkway, which was covered with matting.

Even if my feet were not hurt by the bridge, it was hard running. The 59^th Street Bridge comes at the sixteen-mile mark of the marathon. Sixteen miles is a long way to run, but there are still ten more miles to go! It was hard not to be psychologically drained at this point, and, of course, the half the bridge uphill. That incline seemed a mile long, and that was tough to do after sixteen miles. That bridge itself was the loneliest part of the marathon. The runners by now had thinned, many were struggling, and there were no spectators to cheer us on. Thoughts about dropping out surfaced, but I struggled to make it over the bridge each marathon.

Even though I have no pleasant memories of the 59^th Street Bridge from the marathon, I did run over it a few other times. When I was not so exhausted from having run sixteen miles before encountering it, it was not so bad. But still I never enjoyed it. The walkway is next to the highway, and the bridge’s structure impedes views of Manhattan and the East River. I decided to avoid the 59^th Street Bridge on my runs as much as possible.

(continued on August 10.)

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I didn’t know what to make of the man who asked for money saying he wanted to buy food because he was hungry, and he was wearing earbuds.

New Yorkers are not always as tolerant as I would like. Someone made fun of me for eating sushi at a Yankees baseball game.

Why is it that conservatives refer to the Democrat Party but not the Republic Party?

The package for the mini-cucumbers bought at a fancy, and therefore overpriced, food mart was labeled “locally grown in New England.” If those cukes had come from California, Mexico, Peru, or Timbuctoo, wouldn’t they still have been locally grown?

At a different market, the sign above the cucumbers said, “3 for $3.” I was unsure if that was different from a dollar apiece, so I bought three.

Over breakfast at the recent stay at a Virginia bed and breakfast, I met a woman from New York who worked in “wealth management,” a field I only vaguely understand. She said that she had a client worth over $100 million who was very pro-Trump. I asked why he felt that way. I expected the answer to be something along the lines of liking the tax cut and how good it would be for the country, something I have heard from other rich people who will pay tens of thousands dollars less to the government. She said, however, that her client said he was behind Trump because “he felt so disrespected by Obama.”

“Fucked up is the universal condition of man.” Rinker Buck, The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey.

In a park or outside an old house, I would come across a hand pump as a kid. Of course, I had to try it. The first couple strokes always seemed hard, but with minimal persistence they became easier. As I pumped, I would wonder if the pump still worked. Was there really water down there? Sometimes the effort produced nothing, but with others, a little water would spurt out. That sight produced a quickened, more forceful stroke. Then larger spurts, and finally, a stream without interruption. These efforts always produced a smile and a sense of accomplishment, a satisfaction that most in a younger generation will never have.

“The speed of light: It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law.” Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.

I didn’t know what to make of the man who asked for money saying he wanted to buy food because he was hungry, and he was wearing earbuds.

New Yorkers are not always as tolerant as I would like. Someone made fun of me for eating sushi at a Yankees baseball game.

Why is it that conservatives refer to the Democrat Party but not the Republic Party?

The package for the mini-cucumbers bought at a fancy, and therefore overpriced, food mart was labeled “locally grown in New England.” If those cukes had come from California, Mexico, Peru, or Timbuctoo, wouldn’t they still have been locally grown?

At a different market, the sign above the cucumbers said, “3 for $3.” I was unsure if that was different from a dollar apiece, so I bought three.

Over breakfast at the recent stay at a Virginia bed and breakfast, I met a woman from New York who worked in “wealth management,” a field I only vaguely understand. She said that she had a client worth over $100 million who was very pro-Trump. I asked why he felt that way. I expected the answer to be something along the lines of liking the tax cut and how good it would be for the country, something I have heard from other rich people who will pay tens of thousands dollars less to the government. She said, however, that her client said he was behind Trump because “he felt so disrespected by Obama.”

“Fucked up is the universal condition of man.” Rinker Buck, The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey.

In a park or outside an old house, I would come across a hand pump as a kid. Of course, I had to try it. The first couple strokes always seemed hard, but with minimal persistence they became easier. As I pumped, I would wonder if the pump still worked. Was there really water down there? Sometimes the effort produced nothing, but with others, a little water would spurt out. That sight produced a quickened, more forceful stroke. Then larger spurts, and finally, a stream without interruption. These efforts always produced a smile and a sense of accomplishment, a satisfaction that most in a younger generation will never have.

“The speed of light: It’s not just a good idea, it’s the law.” Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.