Another Keely-led walk this chilly morning led me along the usual southern loop over 5th Ave. to Duval/MLK and up to Publix, where she veered off her usual path and took the high road. Literally, as the drop from the sidewalk to the asphalt there is significant.
Walking along MLK behind Publix is a lesson in fencing.
Walking around a neighborhood is a good way to know fencing, really. The strange fencing going on at O’Hara Electrical is the most egregious but fences abound and what I’ve learned as a pedestrian is that most of them are not fencing anything in or out.
The 6’ high chain link fence behind Publix is a safety fence. It is there to keep people from falling down the 20’ drop to the loading zone below. But you walk around it and there you go, you are at Publix. It is not a useless fence, but it is not, I suppose, holding to the grand tradition of fencing!
What fences do work as Platonic ideals? The one around the auto body shop at 5th and Monroe does, but only because it is closed circuit topped by barbed wire. Truly testament to the history of fences!
But most fences, if not solely for liability purposes like the Publix Plaza fence, are barely more than metaphorical. I walk around many of them, not as a trespasser (…I don’t think?), but because they are mostly symbolic: THIS LINE HERE IS IMPORTANT.