Section IV: Crowdsourcing the Storm Boards
2022
Crowdsourcing the Storm Boards
The following composition appeared on RichardHowe.com on March 10, 2021, and was built with comments by dozens of people in a discussion thread on social media provoked by a question I threw out to the crowd. On February 13, 2019, I asked friends on Facebook if they knew the name of wooden panels that for decades were installed in the late fall on city bridges in Lowell, Mass., to shield pedestrians from snow and wind in the months ahead. I once knew the name, but had forgotten—in the category of stuff you know but can’t name. By the end of the day, the dialogue had 165 comments. Excerpts from the discussion, slightly edited for easier reading, are presented unsigned to emphasize the collaborative effort to answer the question and accept the result. Contributors are acknowledged at the end. My apology to anyone whose name slipped by. Joe Donahue of Lowell and Duke University called the resulting composition a group poem. Special thanks to photographer Greg Marion, a far-flung cousin of mine.—PM
Question for Lowell folks. Asking for a friend. What is the name of the wooden panels that used to be installed on city bridges to protect pedestrians from snow and high winds? Storm boards? Snow barriers? The Dept. of Public Works had a name for those panels. I wrote a newspaper story about the ones at Pawtucket Falls decades ago, and I think they were called flashboards. No, flashboards are on top of the stone dam used to keep water high and flowing into the canal there. Was it wind something? Wind barriers? Wind breaks? Speaking of Lowellisms, the mounds of snow are called “snow bankins” instead of snow embankments. Is “bankin” a Lowellism, and how is it spelt? I just now realized it means “embankment.” “Bankin,” n., North of Boston. Embankment. The septic tank is at the top of the bankin, the leach field is below it. Yup. The bankin was what the kids in Dracut said when we first moved there as kids. I thought it was weird. Are you looking for what people called the wood? There was a name for the panels used by local people, something like storm barriers, but that’s not it. I thought it would be easy to get the answer. People don’t seem to have it. Me and my father say wind breakers. Thought they were ugly and useless and hated it The Lowell Review
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