This post on the end has been the subject of my photos for twenty years. It used to stand tall for plenty of Northern Lights viewing nights and that sort of thing. Then, time yanked the earth out from under it.

With its world yanked out from under it, the post nearly plummeted into the abyss below. Instead, it’s hanging in there, even as things continue to erode from beneath it. Thankfully, its anchor holds.

This is what my favorite post sees every day now, yet it hangs on. If it were sentient, it would remember a time when the ground beneath it extended well outward, so much that a starry-eyed young photographer could walk around it from one side of the fence to another. Those days are long gone, but the post remains.

Double Ditch isn’t what it used to be; light pollution has ruined it as far as a stargazing spot. The road, which used to run all the way from the base of the hill by Eagles Park up to where this post clings, has been terminated halfway to the stone hut where I used to hang out with my friends, eat Pizza Hut breadsticks, and listen to the best alternative music the 80s had to offer. As a result, I don’t get up there as much as I used to…heck, I don’t do most of the things I used to enjoy. But it’s nice to know that this post is still in its place, for now…even as the ground crumbles beneath it.