More meaningful words may come later in the sentence, but the first line in the Wikipedia entry for truss defines the term as "an assembly of members." Etymonline says that truss derives from trusse, which meant, among other things, "a collection of things bound together." The things in this collection, it turns out, don't need to be very big in order for the collection as a whole to be quite strong. As the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) tells it, bridges built out of wooden trusses can often carry much more weight than modern engineering analyses would have us believe. HAER wanted to understand just how much we underestimate trusses' load capacities, so they "instrumented the floor of a Town lattice covered bridge with transducers and then drove a heavy truck of known weight across the span while resulting strains in floor components were recorded." Their conclusion was that trusses distribute load between adjacent joists more than we would expect. If a truck comes to a stop in the middle of a truss bridge, its load is not borne just by the joists which are directly underneath its axles. The joists a foot or two over carry some load too, and the joists a foot or two over from those as well. Trusses overperform our estimates because every member's neighbors help distribute the load — and they help a lot. No individual member, then, is asked to do very much work.
I cannot tell you how glad I am about this. Not because of the bridges' load limits; no, I'm glad because it makes a really convenient metaphor for my work, which has changed so much this year, and still has quite a ways to go.
I didn't know, when I made a bunch of truss-themed postcards a few weeks ago, what metaphorical value they'd have. I made them because it seemed like the cost was negligible, and maybe they'd come in handy. But then I offered to send them to the collection of readers to whom I am bound, and I wrote a few of them while heading to my family's end-of-year vacation, and in doing so I felt like the load of my work was distributed a little more evenly. It was a little cathartic, and a little challenging, and now there's a little part of me that thinks this is how I should write everything: Start with postcard-sized bites, sent directly to the readers most connected with me, then take the best ones and build them into a larger superstructure. Maybe each postcard is just a bit of marginalia, and it gets collected into a Scope Creep issue; maybe it's an anecdote that fits into a researched, narrative piece. Either way, the weight of my writing falls not just on me. It is transferred first to the people I have direct connections with, and only later to the entire structure.
So, I want to thank you for the connection we've shared in 2024. Your interest and engagement are big parts of SOW's superstructure, and I appreciate them immensely.
If you're already a paying subscriber, thank you. You make everything I do possible, and I'm so grateful to have you along for the journey. If you'd enjoy a metaphorically rich handwritten postcard, the link to share your address is in the emailed version of this post.
If you’re not yet a paying subscriber, I must say that now — what with your holiday spirits, and any end-of-year budget you still have available, and my postcard offer — it really is the perfect time to upgrade. Paid subscribers get access to everything Scope of Work publishes, and they make [waves hands] all of this possible. You can upgrade here.
Wishing you lots of connections and greater-than-expected load capacities in the new year,
Spencer
