A Poignant Moment

Six Million.  Have you ever actually seen 6,000,000 of anything?  Can you wrap your mind around that number?  It's not easy.   17 years ago, Bill Walter, a Pittsburgh teacher, was trying to help his young students to comprehend that number as he taught them about the horrific events of the holocaust.  He came up with the idea of having the students save the tabs from pop cans and collect six million of them.  It took 4.5 years to collect 6,000,000 tabs with the entire school working on the project.  

Today we rode out to Squirrel Hill to see the "Gary and Nancy Tuckfelt Keeping Tabs Holocaust Sculpture".  The 6,000,000 pop tabs (representing the 6,000,000 human beings that died in the holocaust) fill glass blocks arranged in a sculpture in the shape of the Star of David. 

Looking at this memorial was overwhelming.  The simplicity of the design helps to keep the focus on the immense number of people lost in that abomination.   Contemplating all that this sculpture represents was a poignant experience.  The cold afternoon had nothing to do with the chills I felt.

After visiting the memorial we decided to stop at 61C to warm up a bit.  I'm glad that we did.  The hot tea and good company helped to lift my mood.  By the time we were thawed out I was ready to enjoy the brisk ride back.  We rode down through Schenley Park and worked our way to the Jail Trail.  As we approached the Hot Metal Bridge we decided to detour onto it for a better view of the city at night.  It looked great.

We continued on the trail and confirmed that the recently installed reflective stickers were a tremendous help.  I noticed again how well the dark wood planter boxes blended with the shadows at night.  The stickers definitely got our attention.

Toward the end of our ride we stopped several times to appreciate the Christmas tree and decorations at the Point.

My friend is very tolerant of my photo obsessions and seems to have infinite patience while I try again and again to capture the night scenes with a pocket camera and no tripod. 

While it doesn't have the novelty or draw that The Duck had, it sure looks nice there.