Lunch Break

Some folks live – imagine that, actually LIVE! –  without seeing one sports championship parade. I saw four of them (so far) in Pittsburgh. Two Super Bowl parades, and two Stanley Cup parades. I saw all of them while at work.

I work on the 22nd floor of a building two blocks from the parade route. I watched today’s Stanley Cup victory parade for the Pittsburgh Penguins from our lunch room. (Just like I did last June.)

I had to shoot with a telephoto lens through a pane of glass. However, I don’t like large crowds of people or temperatures in the high 80’s, so this worked for me.

I watch all of the public service people hard at work. The drivers blocking the intersections (from drunks and terrorists) with city dump trucks. The EMT’s waiting by their ambulances (for drunks but hopefully no terrorists). The police on foot, bikes, and horses.

I watch all of the guys and gals holding the big cameras. Professional photographers. Men and women whose jobs and careers depend on them getting THE SHOT of Sidney Crosby and the Stanley Cup. Like these hard-working folks to the left and right of the Cup.

Do their insides clench in that first moment as the Cup appears?

Don’t blow this!

The Cup passes me, and then I go back to work in my quiet air-conditioned office on the 22nd floor.