When Close to Home is Close to Home

11-17-2004, 03:47 PM

This happened about 200 yards from my front door:

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

You can see the spot in my homepage photo:

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Pecos is the four-lane road with the wide median at the
very bottom of the picture. The shrine is about midway
between the two power-pole shadows that fall across it.

I remember seeing the shrine (it's a hispanic thing;
usually a cross and some plastic flowers, but it can be
more elaborate) the day after it happened. I thought it
was just another traffic accident. Then I read the story.

It's now one of two shrines to cyclists killed within
the confines of that photograph. The other is on the
south side of the intersection of Liberty (the darker
road with the center-turn lane) and 17th Street (the
short north-south street on the left). It's for a 9-
or 10-year-old boy, also riding in a bike lane, hit by a
car 4 years ago. His family still maintains it.

I ride past each of them four times when I'm doing my
normal loop-ride, east on Liberty then west on Pecos.

Anselmo's shrine is growing. Clearly a grandfather with a
loving family. I was wondering if the local riders would
add to it as well. Then on my third lap this morning I
noticed someone had left him a water bottle.

--Blair
"Two wheels good."