I walked the Silver Bells in the City 5K the morning after Silver Bells (Lansing’s annual holiday night parade) and afterward on the way back to my car I snapped this photo of a nice sewer grate – actually a storm drain, since Lansing did a huge project to separate their sanitary sewer from the stormwater drains around the time I moved to Lansing. I remember being unreasonably annoyed by it at the time, since it resulted in my closest bus stop being closed for a long time, and for a portion of that the second closest bus stop too, when I did most of my daily travel by bus. Also during that time the closest USPS mailbox to my house disappeared and was never put back when the construction was over. But, of course, I look back on it now and realize that my long walks were a small price to pay for the great environmental benefits of the sewer separation. I just wonder how people less able bodied than I, or with less free time to spend on walks, dealt with the loss of bus service.

I like the detailed fish (a trout, maybe) that serves to remind one of the harm done by dumping poison into the drain. There is also a small one at the bottom of the grate. This is the work of the East Jordan Iron Works, which you can read more about in a previous entry.

This drain is on the south side of West Michigan Avenue, at the southwest corner of Michigan and South Washington Square. I remember when this was just an intersection, but now it’s a traffic circle, and they put these giant ornaments (supplied by Bronner’s, the famed Christmas store in Frankenmuth) in the middle of it each year before Silver Bells.