Tim Engstrom, Pothole Prairie

Lisa called me at the office at 4:45 p.m. Wednesday and reminded me that she had a haircut appointment at 5 p.m.

&8220;Yes, honey. I&8217;m just heading out now.&8221;

I shut down the computer and walked toward the door. Someone here at the office said something to me, and I mentioned that I needed to go home to baby-sit my son. Someone hollered as I walked away that it isn&8217;t baby-sitting when it is your own kid.

I turned and quickly said, &8220;You&8217;re right. I guess I am going home to solo-parent my son.&8221;

That&8217;s better, someone said as the door closed behind me.

Happy at the end of a busy day, I drove my pickup home. When I arrived, Lisa handed me Baby Forrest and away she went, first to her haircut, then planning to work out. I told Forrest, who is 5 1/2 months now, and our dog, Alta, that we needed to go for a walk. I put the baby in the stroller and placed his baby sunglasses on his chubby baby face.

We walked east up our street and north on another to the Lakeview Elementary School playground. I tossed the ball with Alta. She retrieved it many times &8212; she really needed the exercise.

The dog is very talented. She has the playground equipment figured out. I told her &8220;Up!&8221; a few times and she figured out I meant to go up onto the equipment. She knows where it is easiest for her to climb, how to walk over islands of steps, which tunnel to enter and how to find the slide closest to where I stand. Then I say, &8220;C&8217;mon!&8221; and she slides down the slide.

One of the next times, I called upon her to go to the biggest slide &8212; the tornado slide. Alta, obedient as ever, slid down the tornado slide.

&8220;Good girl!&8221;

And then we began to walk home.

It was about this time when the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed.

When I came home, I still did not know. I fixed an easy supper and settled with Forrest in the basement to watch one of the DVDs Lisa had checked out from the Albert Lea Public Library. It was some chick flick, but oh well.

I had seen about 10 minutes of it when my cell phone rang. I paused the movie and clamored up the stairs.

It was Tribune Publisher Scott Schmeltzer. He was watching TV at his home, and he told me a freeway bridge had collapsed into the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.

Really? I couldn&8217;t hardly believe it.

He said I should turn on CNN.

I said that I had canceled my cable last winter because I was frustrated with the rates. I just have aerial TV.

He said I should find a way to watch TV news, maybe come to the office.

I said I was stuck at home with Forrest. I told him the local TV stations should have a live feed. I said I&8217;d call him back.

Our TV set was in the basement, not a good place for reception. I hauled it upstairs, but I couldn&8217;t find the antennae. I called Lisa&8217;s cell phone but had no answer. I walked toward the radio when my phone rang. It was Lisa.

She had hidden the antennae in some remote corner of the house. I told her what Scott told me, but I don&8217;t think the significance had sunk in for her at that point. It still really hadn&8217;t for me, either.

I dug the antennae out of the closet of the guest bedroom, hooked it up and turned on the TV news. Channel 6 did not have a live feed. Channel 3 and 10 did, but 10 didn&8217;t come in very well.

Forrest and I sat and watched.

The screen displayed images of a collapsed bridge from a camera aboard a helicopter. Now the significance was real. Now it was sinking in.

I called Scott. We shared our amazement at the development of events and talked about the last times we had driven over that bridge.

For me, it was July 15. I helped my brother move into an apartment in Nordeast Minneapolis, and after the last trip I needed to return to my parent&8217;s home in South Minneapolis, so I took I-35W over the bridge and exited on Hiawatha Avenue.

Scott and I talked a bit about the next day&8217;s Tribune and then agreed we needed to call people we know and so we hung up.

I called my mother&8217;s cell phone. No answer. I called her land line. She picked up. She said my stepfather, Jere, was in Memphis, and, obviously, she was OK. (She works in West St. Paul and doesn&8217;t use I-35W much.) She hadn&8217;t talked to my brother, but we assumed he was OK because he doesn&8217;t use that bridge much either; he doesn&8217;t drive.

Then I received a call from a reporter friend who lives in Virginia. He was checking up on me and other connections he had in Minnesota.

And then I watched Channel 3 some more. Eventually, Channel 6 also had a live feed. Bits and pieces of information trickled in, and I flipped back and forth.

Reporters spoke with eyewitnesses and survivors. Once, just as the anchorman was about to say what an eyewitness had said, a motorcycle outside my window turned up his throttle, sharing his exhaust-pipe noise with the neighborhood, and I missed the description.

It was a nice evening, a good day to be outside. Many people still didn&8217;t know.

When Lisa came home, she said she hadn&8217;t turned on a TV, but then I urged her to watch. Once she did, then the weight of the matter sunk in.

The next day was strange. Many people still didn&8217;t know. My reporters were having to inform a suprising number people about the turn of events just to our north. These people were probably like me when the bridge fell &8212; outside enjoying life on a beautiful summer evening. We knew by the end of that day, however, everybody would understand the closeness of the bridge collapse.

After all, people in Albert Lea go to Minneapolis a lot. We had a meeting and set out to find local connections to the news.

And that we did.

Reporter Sarah Light did a great job last week tracking down Albert Lea angles to the story. She was on the spot in Minneapolis with photographer Brie Cohen, who used her wits to get excellent photographs. Reporter Sarah Kirchner stayed behind in Albert Lea and followed up with stories that answered timely questions &8212; such as the status of the bridge over Albert Lea Lake. The rest of the staff pitched in to put this top-notch journalism into the paper and in a fitting manner. It was difficult to find outstate newspapers of the same size getting the quality of local-angle stories and images we did.

Take notice of your Albert Lea Tribune. It&8217;s got a good news staff right now.

As for Forrest, well, he might not have understood the news he watched with me, but he&8217;s making all kinds of sounds. That&8217;s a start.

Tribune Managing Editor Tim Engstrom&8217;s column appears every Tuesday.