A lot of cannabis and arts couplings are fun. Taking people on a RiNo graffiti art tour after they get nice and stoned is always really popular. - Westword, 4/16-22/2020
...the ripe Disney dream of homecoming, the ravenous ear of an information-hungry global economy. A constant stream of raw data goes pulsing home to Earth, a flood of rumors, whispers, hints of transgalactic traffic. - "Hinterlands", by W. Gibson, OMNI Magazine, 10/1981
Day 10. And I thought, without a job, I wouldn't have anything to write about. Yesterday I had my long overdue check up with my PCP. Everything look great...except she wants me to keep riding my bike, at least as much as a round trip to and from work. So today, I'm on my way to a restaurant a block from work. Essentially, I'm on my way to work while not currently working. At the entrance to my parking lot, city workers are doing some kind of work on my street. They have one lane of the avenue blocked off for a few yards. A car pulls up to the barricade. The passenger wears a mask and speaks through the open window. It isn't clear how much English he speaks. He asks one of the workers, "Sir," as he gestures at the barricade. The worker responds with, "I can't understand what you're saying." A truck pulls up from behind the car and passes it in the open lane. The car then follows the truck. I cross my avenue and proceed to ride my route to work. I stop into the eatery, pick up a delicious Greek salad, and head back the way I just came...without having worked an eight-hour day. On the way home I scout out the lightrail station. The restaurant, like the others, are take out only, and I'm looking for a bench upon which to pretend to wait for a bus or train while actually eating lunch in the cold damp. Of the two shelters, one is occupied by a trio of homeless. The lone female is yelling at one or both of the others. The other has a transit system security car parked across the street, and I don't know if they are savvy to anyone with a plan such as mine. I scout out the train platform. All the benches are wet. I ride over to another shelter out on a boulevard not far away. I take some bites of my salad before a bus approaches. I get up and move away until it passes. I sit back down and have a few more bites before another bus approaches. It does not appear to even notice me as it doesn't stop. That's the first time in my almost 30 years in this town that I'm glad that happened. With a warning from my intrepid doctor to get my butt back on my diet, I stop into the nearby supermarket to collect some salad ingredients before heading home.
Day 11. Today, I'm headed for our plant. Our drop off stores are closed, but our plant is open to process clothes picked up from individual customers. I take with me the cookies and potato chips which I bought the day before my doctor's appointment. My doctor wondered why my blood pressure was headed up. She noticed I've gained 10 pounds since my last visit. I mention my attempt to add the aforementioned snacks to my diet. She got a laugh out of that one. This morning I take said snacks with me to the plant. The plant manager is there. She's happy for the snacks. With the drop in business, the clothes being picked up require only her and the general manager. Between the two of them, they can handle cleaning and pressing everything coming in right now. I ask her if I can use the plant as a destination for my doctor-ordered cardio exercise. She tells me she would like the company. No, there isn't anything going on between us.
Day 13. I didn't go see the plant manager yesterday. I didn't go anywhere, too much to do around the house. I haven't spent nearly as much time at home as I am now for the past several years. Today however, I am on my way to one particular supermarket. It's one of only a couple chains who carry one particular product which I can't find at my usual supermarket. This other store is some thirty blocks north of me. It should satisfy my doctor's desire that I maintain my cardio exercise. I think it was yesterday or the day before that my mortgage company sent me an email. It's an animated video with numerical figures, and a voice of a woman young enough to be my granddaughter. She cheerfully explains that, long story short, my escrow account for my property taxes has a shortfall. The shortfall needs to be met...by me. Otherwise known, more commonly in the healthcare system, as "out of pocket." My monthly mortgage payment fluctuates every year, as my property tax estimate collides with the actual amount. The projected estimate for the next year then determines that year's monthly payment. So a fluctuating monthly payment is part of the process. This time, chaos has caught up with the projection, and the result is a miscalculation. Or so I assumed. Some time during the past 2 weeks, I left a message with my mortgage company, as the line was going to voicemail. Before their most recent email, they sent me a prior one, suggesting that I give them a call to inquire about what they have to offer customers who are currently on furlough from their jobs. The day before they sent me their most recent email, they returned my message. The most they can do is suspend payments, but those payments will come do either in short order or at the end of the loan. So, they called me to let me know that I wasn't off the hook for any monthly payments, and the following day send me an email to cheerfully that my monthly payments are going up. And they won't rise quite as much...provided I send them a check before next month.
So I gave them a call to get some more details about payment. In the process, they informed me that the reason for the escrow account shortfall is that my property value has jumped 20%. It did this during a pandemic in which tens of thousands are dying. I didn't know property could do that during a pandemic. The final two dots to connect are that the increase in value is the reason for the increase in taxes. I have this in mind during my bike ride north to the supermarket. My own side of the municipal equator is, for the most part, not yet a patchwork of bungalows from the middle of the previous century and brand spanking new wrought iron, glass, and steel condominiums. There are some steep hills between my place and the westside lightrail line. Lightrail stops are magnets for new residential development, and if I had to guess, these new condos ain't cheap. Even though they appear to be smaller than the enormous new complexes I've seen in other neighborhoods. North of this lightrail line, I'm headed through the end of a neighborhood who's demolition is creeping south. It's known as Highlands, a name which sounds innocuous enough. Just as soon as my wheels are over the tracks, I'm climbing a steep hill past a construction zone on one side of the street, and completed condos on the other. It already feels different. The lightrail runs along the north side of a creek, with park space and bike trails along each side.
Across the tracks, it already feels like a different place. The park and trails are full of young Caucasian couples. They are riding bikes or walking dogs. In spite of media warnings about this being the peak of virus infections, and with some in the occasional face mask, it's a beautiful afternoon in the 60s F. I'm pedaling past new four or five story dwellings and new landscaping. Behind me, at the top of a hill, is a beautiful view to the south, with the southern end of the Rockies coming around from the west. To the east, almost within reach; downtown with both it's newest office towers and others under construction. I've landed in a bohemian enclave, seasoned with progressive expectations. At the supermarket are young couples in denim cutoffs and groovy scarves around their faces. I run into a checker I knew at least 13 years ago, from a supermarket in another neighborhood where I used to live. The store in that neighborhood is no longer there. On the way back toward the lightrail line, I ride past young Caucasian women in sunglasses out on their balconies. I immediately feel as though it's 35 years ago, and I'm back in college. In fact, I'm coming down one street. There's one new condo in between older bungalows. I can almost smell new caulk. In the driveway is a young blonde-haired guy. He's sitting cross-legged in shorts, his own sunglasses, a scarf around his neck and a college sweatshirt. He could have stepped right out of 1985. One of his neighbors is out on his front lawn, a few doors down. He's turning something with a spatula on the grill for his family. Mexican music is wafting from his speakers. And his little house, for all of its unannounced sweat equity, lacks the condo's spit and polish. Across the tracks, I'm back among homes of older brick and siding. I'm climbing yet another hill when I pass one of the largest homes on the street. Two young couples are all conversing out by a car parked in the street. Someone appears to be holding a clipboard. Was the purchase of this place just transacted? Among this group appear to be three different races. None are Hispanic.
I'm back in my neighborhood now. My newly purchased single grocery item is in the fridge. Later in the afternoon, I must make another journey to my usual supermarket. My doctor should be thrilled with all my biking. Inconvenience translates to a happy internal medicine specialist. My usual supermarket has low-carb milk. The supermarket 40 or 50 blocks north of the other one, from which I have just returned, does not carry low-carb milk. And I'm out of low-carb milk. This trip is not as far. Inside, at the deli counter, is a young guy and his young lady. He's talking to her like he may be a gangsta. Instead of a mask over his nose and mouth, he's wearing a black hood. He looks like a Zapatista in jeans. He spots me eying the cold chicken wings and says to his lady, "Give the man six feet, baby. Give the man six feet." I'm in and out of the store. I have milk and a quick dinner, and I find a seat on a bus bench. I'm not waiting for a bus, but I hope I look like it as I eat and read the book I brought with me. Another couple comes along with a suitcase on wheels. The woman disappears. The guy is in a jersey and looks in the trash can. On the busy avenue, a white car pulls up to the light. The shape of its body appears as if it may be a nod to the old Lamborghini. The driver, customary to these streets, has his left arm resting outside his open window. The guy in the jersey acknowledges his approval of the vehicle. At the green light, it makes a U-turn and accelerates the opposite direction. More approval from the guy.
He made it his personal mission to defeat the Hearst newspaper empire, which he regarded as "something evil," preying on the ignorance and fear of the "Catholic, lunchbox...working man" with its "yellow peril" sensationalism, right-wing demagoguery... - Talbot
...ego is a healthy, sometimes inspired creative confidence that gets where it's going with drive, steel, and integrity. ...not...egomania, which bears the same relationship to creativity that Nero did to urban planning. Egomania is uncertainty's bluff, anxiety's mask, and its lack of discipline is ultimately self-defeating...
...she trashed the conglomerates...that owned the movie companies. "Part of what changed American life in the past decade is the change in book publishing and in magazines and newspapers and in the movies as they have passed out of the control of those lives were bound up in them and into the control of [those] who treat them as ordinary commodities." Perhaps perfectly true, but not much help. ...her sweeping denunciations seemed unlikely to lighten the mood at a meeting I had hoped would remain tactful. Transamerica's chairman...had plaques and scrolls testifying to his contributions to American life, not to his derangement of it.
"There is a tradition that creative people like to feel a part of. Whether it's sentimental or even romantic, it's real. "What effect will it have on business?" "...of selling or...of attracting talent?" "Marketing, I prefer to call it marketing. That's where our emphasis should be. I know how...emotional Hollywood people can be. God knows they're up here fast enough to complain...every time they don't like 'your' attitude. But we depend on you to handle the creative people." He looked into the clouds over San Francisco... "Gosh," he said..."the reason we bought the darn company in the first place was we hoped it would have some effect on [our] stock, and it never has." - Final Cut, by S. Bach, 1985, 1999
Day 14. My street has been having construction work. Yesterday afternoon, brown water began coming through my plumbing. Later this afternoon, it appears to have cleared up. In the morning, I ride back out to our plant, where plant manager, general manager, and owner are hard at work. On the way back, I stop and have lunch in the park down the street from where I live. And a little reading. A few yards away, an instructor leads a private Tai Chi class. Day 15. I'm headed back up to the supermarket where I purchase my single product. The days are in the 60s F. and it's the first day this year I put on the sleeveless shirt. Along the way I stop in a park not far from my neighborhood and eat some lunch. I watch a skinny guy with hair past his shoulders. He's in a tie-dyed shirt and out for walk while on his phone. Another guy is out with his dog. Off its leash, it rushes a flock of geese and spooks them into a pond. I have a nice little micro-picnic before I'm through the park and over the highway. Up here, it's up and down more than one steep hill. With the exertion I'm putting out, my doctor had better be jumping for joy. I'm coming down one of those hills when I recognize a homeless guy. He's climbing with his cane, and it appears as if he's wearing a blonde wig. Either he got a beautiful honey bleach job or he's disguised an a local television anchor. in faded camouflaged pants. Across the lightrail tracks, and I'm back in the "re -planned" neighborhood. Young women out walking with significant others or raking leaves. I climb past two brand new condos with two tiny bungalows sandwiched in-between. One of the bungalows has a realtor's sing in the front yard.
He called the town "Baghdad by the Bay"...conjuring the exotic wonders of ancient Babylon. But...more like Oz, Wonderland, and Gotham City all rolled together. ...a fizzy drink of a city, full of witty and beautiful people and equally amusing scoundrels. It was a shining metropolis with enlightened values and wide-open sensibilities... - Talbot
Day 15. The day begins with my decision I decide that I want yogurt. To make the trip worth my doctor's edict, I head out to the shopping center where I worked three years ago. I have an hour and fifteen minute ride ahead of me just to get there. And that's a conservative ETA, from back when I had to be there on time. Perhaps halfway there, I riding along an open stretch of the Platte River. A junkyard is on the east bank and a gravel quarry on the west one. I have memories of coming home this way after work, the moon over the water in winter. A motorcycle officer comes over the hill on the trail. His yellow flashers are on. Five-oh in the hizzy. He's past me and up a gravel exit ramp. I have memories of this route. Just over the hill and right after the underpass, I turn onto a bridge over the river. I'm through several parks and past the waterpark. I hope I get to swim there this summer. Past the trailhead, around a corner and through a ritzy residential neighborhood, and I'm there. I used to have lunch at the fish place across the boulevard. Or I would eat at an Italian place which closed perhaps only a year ago. I remember a cute waitress there. I grab some Japanese chicken before I get my yogurt. Then I'm headed back the way I came. When I cross one wooden bridge, I happen upon one park where I see a smattering of people. Four guys are playing soccer. Another woman is soaking up the sun. I decide to pick a spot and eat my giant triple fudge yogurt. A white Toyota, a city vehicle, comes down the trail from the way I came before it turns around and leaves the opposite direction. I finish my snack and am back on the trail. I'm rolling past a golf course with a gravel shoulder. A maintenance cart is oncoming as it turns onto the gravel. It hauls ass past and leaves a cloud of dust behind it.
Day 16. I headed downtown to pay a visit to a friend at restaurant close to where I hope to return to work at some point. When I get there, he tells me that the governor has decided to "reopen the state" on the 26th of this month. Cases appear to be declining here. So, if we continue to practice safety first, customers may begin showing up. I swear, unless I come in here, I never hear about any of this. On the way home, I stop and have lunch on a bus bench. Police are patrolling my neighborhood for a change this afternoon, and a patrol car rolls past. The bus comes along and I wave it off. I finish eating and decide to get out of here. No sooner am I back on the bike than I'm passed by five-oh coming back the other way. Day 19. I'm back at the supermarket with my one product. As soon as I pull up I notice a drunk. He looks familiar. He tells me what a great bike I have. I vaguely remember him saying the same thing to me someplace else. In no time his pal comes out of the store and they mosey along.
...a siege - something that had happened only once, fifteen years ago, when a strong raiding party had come up from the south. Two fifty-caliber machine guns - salvaged from an Army jeep that had been abandoned on the old state highway a few weeks after the War - were mounted on top of the school's roof, where their field of fire would cover most of the town. Times had become more settled, almost sleepy now. ...it had been three or four years since they'd had a skirmish with anyone; the flow of hungry refugees and marauders and aimless migrants had mostly stopped by now - dead or else they'd found a place of their own. - "Executive Clemency", by G. Dozois and J. C. Haldeman II, OMNI Magazine, 10/1981
Day 22. Yesterday the early summer vanished as snow blew in with below freezing temperatures. I'm standing across the street from the local CBS station, downtown. The station is across the street from where the company I work for used to have a store and a plant. The old store and plant is next-door to a restaurant I've been coming to during my doctor-ordered bike rides. (I enjoy telling anyone that my doctor ordered me out on my bike during a pandemic. I'll let others argue with science.) As I was coming up the hill toward the restaurant, I saw a CBS SUV pull up in front of the station. Along the sidewalk comes who you would expect a homeless guy on TV to look like: long grey beard and hair. The guy approaches the cracked open passenger side window. "Hiiii," he says to the guy behind the wheel, who is texting. He strikes me as perhaps a producer. He gestures at the guy that he isn't buying whatever he's selling. The guy comes closer to the window and attempts to decipher what's taking place in front of his bewildered eyes. "Whaddya' doin' in there?" The driver continues texting. The guy continues staring. The driver waves him off. The guy says, "Oh, alright." and moseys on his way. I walk next door to the restaurant. I was just there yesterday. I surprised the manager, who told me customers were complaining about the cold. "And here you are out on your bike." This afternoon, it's dark inside and the sign reads "closed". There's a police car parked at the curb. Suddenly, a police officer walks out of the dark eatery. He gets into the car. I don't know if the manager I know or anyone else is inside. I don't see the office lock the door.
Day 23. I wonder if my present status as a homebody is interfering with my internal clock. I woke up thinking that today was yesterday. Today, I decide that I want more yogurt. This means another 25-30 mile bike trip, one way. But, why not? So, I find myself back out on the trail along the South Platte River, one of the most popular trails for biking, running, and walking your dog. Today is no exception. I'm coming up on the entrance to a golf course, and I'm surrounded by bike traffic. A woman sneaks around me on the left, just missing oncoming bike traffic, specifically a middle-aged guy in a yellow reflective vest. As he whizzes past, he says to her, "Dipshit." Then it's down past the entrance on the river for kayaks and tubes, and left onto the trail east. I did this route six days a week, back and forth, for a little less than two years. One chapter in my three decades travelling the curious path along the drycleaning business. I pass through a few tunnels beneath several roads and along a dog park. Over one of the wooden bridges along this way, I approach a steep hill before the waterpark entrance. Passing me is a woman on a fat tire bike. It has some kind of electronic chime instead of a bell. On her back, she wears a handmade sign, which reads, "Don't support bike shops." Before I can read the rest, namely her objections to them, she's up the hill and away. As much as I've relied on bike shops, it's a new one on me. I'm through another tunnel and another park, condominiums on my left and a car dealership on my right, before I reach the trailhead next to a high school. A few more corners and I enter a ritzy neighborhood. Three young children are playing outside their home. One tells me he has a "magnetic speaker. That's why it sticks to stuff." Another steep hill and down a street, and I'm out on a busy road. The next corner is the shopping center. I arrive at the yogurt place. It's also a bakery which used to be a hangout of mine before work, when I worked down here. I collect my yogurt, sneak a rest on a bench to consume some of it, and then I'm off back the way I came. Somewhere along the trail, I want to say back at the dog park, there is a homeless woman standing behind her stolen shopping cart. The cart the single suggestion that she lives outside. Her clothes are not disheveled, she's without the slightest dirt. She even appears to be looking at her phone. It's as if she was plucked from the aisle of some supermarket and dropped out here, perhaps somehow without her even realizing it.
Day 24. Yesterday evening rain has turned into more spring snow. I'm back at the restaurant which yesterday appeared to be closed. The manager is there. I ask him about the police officer. He tells me that someone left a door either open or unlocked, and an alarm went off as a result. Again today, he is surprised at my cycling in inclement weather. I grabbed a steamed milk from Starbucks and have it with me in the falling snow. On the way back home, I'm passing beneath the last underpass along the way. Standing inside, out of the snow, is a guy in a poncho. He's fumbling with something inside his poncho. As I pass him, I think I smell a skunk before I realize that he's blazing either some medical or recreational marijuana. Day 25. I'm headed back to the downtown supermarket. Today, sunshine and rising temps instead of day-long flurries. So sooner am I out the door and across the street but I'm coming around the corner of the liquor store, to toss some trash in the can at the bus stop. A couple street guys are sitting in the shelter. As I am braking next to the can, one of these guys yells at the top of his lungs, "WATCH OUT!" I reply at the top of mine, "OKAY!" I've been going into downtown over the bike trail, and then with a long climb on a bridge over the lightrail tracks. I've been swinging by my rec center to check on any notice of when it will reopen. I pass another neighborhood's group of street guys. They're sitting in the tiny skateboard bowl next to the center. They're silent and I don't notice them sitting, each with cigarettes, until I'm on the way out. One says to me, "Papa Willie!" (?)
Day 27. I'm headed back up at the supermarket with the single product I like. I'm pedaling past more brand new condos. I roll past an entire couple of blocks of a new complex. Right after it is a slew of crumbling homes. Along the way are young Caucasian couples, some with dogs. At the supermarket, outside is a homeless guy speaking loudly to no one I can see. When I come out, I see that his right arm is gone up to the elbow. A young woman is telling him about a shelter somewhere near a big stock yards, perhaps 20 blocks north of here and a city block east. She tells him that this shelter is accepting occupants. The guy acknowledges her and says, "I'm goin' there now. I'm goin', I'm goin'." Day 28. I'm headed back downtown. I'm coming down a big hill on the way to the bike trail. It's the same way I take to work. I always pass the home of an old guy who spreads his collected aluminum can out on his patio. Then he steps on each one before they get recycled. I haven't seen him since at least this winter. Instead of him, I see someone else, at the home next door. The Spring days have been in the 60s. There is a young shaggy blonde Caucasian guy in shorts, out on his front step, attempting to play acoustic guitar. Inside an hour, I'm sticking my head inside my friends restaurant to say hi. When I come out, all I can hear is a dog barking. What I see is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. A truck is making its way along the downtown avenue. Behind the driver is a dog yapping nonstop through the open window. It's head is sticking out directly at the rider of a motorcycle keeping stead pace alongside the dog. This goes on all the way down the street as the guy on the chopper, baseball cap on backwards, is doing his best to look cool. I wish every guy on a chopper had a dog in his face. Clearly this is a sign I'm getting on in years myself. Soon my back patio will be covered in aluminum cans...
Random Road On the 100 Mile Bike Ride
Day 28. I've been wanting to do what I did today, which didn't occur to me until later in the day could be a 100 mile round trip. I do the first third with a trip to get some yogurt. Then I decide to pay a visit to a couple of places where I used to work. I take a ride up an avenue which I used to ride alongside some 15 years ago. Those times I ride this way take me over ground I used to ride, some of it almost 20 years ago. I turn down a trail along a road which will take me to a store where I worked, for a previous company, both before and after the company came under new ownership. Under the latter, employees would be hired and then fired or quit in rapid succession. It's where I learned the latest industry standard software, from a young woman who was later fired for complaining to the new owner, about customer complaints about the company no longer having anyone to call for supplies. The new owner discontinued production and shut down the boiler, thus removing any source of heat in the winter, one of which I worked there. Along the way there, I'm coming uphill, past a road called Random Road. There are families out riding bikes among the residential neighborhoods. A mom and her two daughters come down Random Road to the intersection with the busy street. I ask her if she lives on Random Road. At first, she thinks I'm serious. She spots me taking a photo of the street sign and laughs. I tell her to have a random day. She replies that it hasn't been random for the past four weeks. (Day 28? Four weeks to the day indeed.) Her youngest is the only one on a bike with no gears. She has to walk it up the hill.
It's a busy streetside trail this afternoon. I turn off onto an intersecting trail, up a big hill, and over to the shopping center where the old store was located. It appears as if the current stay-at-home order is being taken advantage of. The entire strip mall is getting a new coat of paint. The old supermarket, where employees at this former store used to get breakfast and lunch, is having a similar restoration. Last time I was here, both it and a deathburger next-door appeared to be slated for demolition. Then it's north again, across the highway and down the street, onto another trail and under the interstate. The trail comes to an end and I'm off and on residential streets. I'm walking my bike on a sidewalk when a middle-aged guy comes out of nowhere with his own bike. He spots me eyeing an approaching thunderstorm, first of the season. When I turn and notice him, he says to me, "Someone's gonna be pissed." I'm clueless as to what he's talking about. Soon I'm back on my bike and I pass him turning a corner. I'm coming upon the very first shop where I worked when I moved to this town, 29 years ago. It's one of those places where every garment is a dollar. Actually, in 1991, shirts were a dollar each. Drycleaning was $1.25. After almost 3 decades, it's only gone up to $1.70 per piece. I cross the street and cruise past the place. And...they're open. At first I'm surprised. Then it occurs to me that they probably can't afford to be closed. As I recall their business model, something about having to deposit the day's earnings immediately to allow the low price. I ride alongside the busy highway. I used to walk to work here, three decades ago. It took me 54 minutes each way. Along the road I stop into a grocery for some vegetables. A Gunther Toodie's restaurant used to be here. I come to and cross my old boulevard, pedal past where my old home was, now a pair of two-story duplex condos. Each have the old street numbers respectively of the previous pair or little houses.
Then it's through my old neighborhood. If the single remaining office building is the one with my original mortgage broker, it's the only one which hasn't been replaced with condominiums. He helped out with my refinance ten years ago without charging me a thing. If this isn't his building, he's gone from the neighborhood. I remember when this place was a collection of individual shops. My old shop I just came from had an old guy who once gave me a ride home. He told me he remembered when this neighborhood was "all woods," he said. I'm across another busy artery, past the building which housed my old supermarket when I lived here. The employee I saw, where I get my single grocery product, used to work down here. At the corner of the following boulevard is where I still see my old dentist. I'm across and down another busy bike trail, across a bridge and down an avenue lined with old apartments. Across the last busy avenue before my own, I roll up on a supermarket of the same chain with my on e product. At the bike parking are a pair of street folks. One is a short middle aged woman with a freaking hula hoop. She's in sandals and has mud on her feet. She sounds more lucid than the lanky guy she's talking to. He has a bike with a bike trailer attached. They are holding court in the corner of the supermarket next to the bike rack. His trailer contains a collection of who knows what. I'm in and out of the supermarket. A third street guy has joined the original pair. Along with his own bike, he has 1970s hair, a red bandana around his neck, teardrop sunglasses and a denim jacket. He would fit right into Easy Rider. I repack my groceries and I'm on my way. It's overcast now, and a few drop come down. I take a long sidewalk underneath the lightrail tracks. Standing on the sidewalk are a trio of smore street guys. I'm whizzing downhill, past a guy adjusting his underwear. I make it home just before a light rain falls. What a day.
Day 31. I head for the single-product supermarket. I'm going past a condo unit under construction. It doesn't have any glass in the windows yet, and the entire thing is already sold. Day 32. It's Arbor Day. It's also a year to the day that my mom passed away. I'm headed for more yogurt. The past week or so has been following the same pattern. At some point, it's cold and raining lightly. Then the sun comes out and it warms up. Today, this cycle happened twice in the same trip. There's a place along the way to the yogurt place, the bike trail goes across a second bridge over the Platte River. The trail turns toward a long, tree-lined stretch before it breaks out and turns across the third bridge. Under a shady spot are a couple who appear homeless. Both are dressed all in black and they each have a bike. The guy appears s working on his front rim. The lady is laying on top of a black bag. She's staring motionless at anyone who comes across the bridge.
At the end of last year, I quickly realized that I didn't have as much money to pay certain annual expenses as I needed. My mom had been supplementing my income while she lived with me. Now, this source is gone. These expenses came on top of unexpected dental work. I had to suspend payments to my retirement mutual fund, and since then I have been mulling the consequences. After two or three years of not updating changes to my income with the state health care exchange, through which I have insurance, I decided that it was time to finally do so. My wages had been fluctuating during this period, I depend on my advisor no navigate the exchange, and I had a health care exchange advisor who I decided was less than competent. When I secured a new advisor at the end of last year, he updated my income with the exchange. He also mentioned that the system didn't like too many updates throughout the year. The money I otherwise usually used to put into the mutual fund was now being saved for required dental work. The result of my not updating my income means that the exchange had underreported figures. And they collect their back payments through income tax. In 2019, for the first time since I can remember, I didn't get a refund. Which I money I use for annual expenses. Instead, I owed money in an amount comparable to the cost of dental work I was planning to schedule. For which I had saved by suspending my mutual fund account payments. At that point, it looked like an uphill slog to collect the money to finish my dental road construction, and get back to making my damned mutual fund payments. And there I've been. Yet, pathology had yet to play its own hand in this game between income and health, where health had been running low on chips. A month ago, the Coronavirus pulled out a chair at the celebrity poker table. And as is laid down deaths by the hundreds, and the then thousands, it called the bluff of the mightiest nation states. Politicians and branding advisors and who the late Hunter S. Thompson called wizards all took the obligatory emergency meeting with their doctors on staff. I once heard science described as something treated as one of several "opinions," as it is considered by politicians. Opinion indeed. After a handful of weeks, the result is some financial "assistance" to citizens of this nation, at least to those who pay taxes. Including this particular taxpayer who lost his last hand to the wizards. As plans are revealed, harried wizards are folding and my own fortunes are reversed. Instead of money disappearing from my checking account, it's being direct deposited into it, and those of others on unemployment insurance.
This has resulted this year in more than a reversal of, excuse the pun, fortune. The sister pointed out that I may get more money than if I was simply (for some odd reason during a pandemic) still employed. Until of course I go back to being fully employed. This may make perfect sense to the wizards. Though all I hear is that, for others, the assistance offered still isn't enough. I had a meeting this month with my investment advisor, to whom I finally sent in a long awaited list of my monthly expenses. She referred to those expenses as "reasonable" with a tone which approached envy. But I came of age during the 1980s. And I'm more familiar with the words "unemployment" and "socialism" having themselves been treated as a virus. As the socialist soccer mom replaces the welfare queen, I have yet to hear that past complaint so familiar. That "the rest of us" are expected to pay for "special rights for the unemployed." Okay, maybe that's more than one familiar complaint. The remarkable thing is, with so many of us clamoring for government assistance without so much as a nod to the classic deadbeat assistance addict, it's as if we're all socialists now. That's the problem with western governments, death scares the shit out of them. And while some are taking to the steps of state capitols, and hospital employees are being assaulted in checkout lines, my own experience under the official pandemic response has been a world away. While the president is getting high injecting Windex (where is Dr. Thompson when we need him?), I've been following my doctor's orders. I've been taking wonderful springtime bike rides on paths I haven't been on in years. I begin by lamenting the long ride ahead and it turns into an adventure of changing weather and unplanned treats. I end up at a place where I can get some Japanese shrimp, and yogurt for dessert. And the sequester at home allows me time to read a book from an unread pile stacking up, or a magazine collection I enjoyed during my youth, back when the government was going to war against the social services for its citizens. I have stacks of recorded music I haven't listened to in decades. I watching online old broadcast TV series I never saw the end of. I haven't had a vacation since 2009, and while mass death ignites vigilante panic... I'm relaxing and having fun. And doing so strikes me as somehow crazy. I should be pulling a gun on a nurse. I should put on a mask from the movie V Is For Vendetta and pick up an American flag. And there are thousands dead. What of all which they won't live to accomplish? But the planet spins so fast. Stop the world and let me off. But the days keep coming, and they're getting warmer. This week will break into the 70s. And the state government refers to me as "job attached." And speaking of the state, it "reopens" tomorrow. And the mayor will decide if the city reopens this Thursday. My vacation doesn't have long to go. And I shouldn't be out of books until the next pandemic.
The Forrest For The Trees
Day 35. The state reopened yesterday. This will become less clear later today. It's been some time since I've read about any crime in the neighborhood. My neighborhood has a Facebook page. A resident posted that, last night at 10:38 PM, she heard 40 gunshot rounds in the street outside her home. Five or six ended up through her window, in her wall, in her couch. She's a new resident and this is her first post. Someone replied that "Mexican gangs are out of control." It appears that she's a couple of streets north and less than three city blocks to the west of me. Today, according to my back patio thermometer, we broke 80 degrees for the first time this year. Just a couple of weeks ago we had several days of snow. Today, I'm off to see my friend at the restaurant. I slept in and didn't make lunch. I get there and order a salad. He tells me that the news is confusing. Either "non-essential" businesses in the state will remain closed until May 8th, or "non-essential ones", or public gatherings. He's not clear. But his brother tells him that some businesses have already reopened. We appear to be together, waiting for the wizards to make up their minds on the truth, not unlike talking to my own family. I'm off to a park, next to the rec center where my gym is. I've been stopping by here to check on any potential new notices posted on the entrance, with clues to it's reopening. Nothing yet. I have my salad, soda, and book to read. I find a shady patch under a fir tree. The golf courses have reopened, there are fishermen and women strolling the banks of the Platte River along the bike path, and the parks never did become abandoned. I'm reading my book cross-legged on the grass and munching my salad. Owners are out walking their dogs along a gravel path a few feet from me. Today is really the first day it's been warm enough to do something such as sit outside in the park. I'm never outside reading. I'm either on my bike going to or from work, or on the weekend during the summer, I'm on my bike going to and from the swimming pool. Later on today, this will occur to me as I'm reading out on my back patio. In a moment of clarity, I look up at the sky and realize that I don't remember the last time I sat and did this either. For the moment, here in the park, a young woman is out with her Labrador, over by another tree. It's about this time when I begin to hear someone yelling a string of "Shit!"s, "Fuck!"s, and "Goddamnit!"s. I look toward another end of the park. What to my wondering eyes does appear, but a man underneath his own tree. As I see no one to whom he is directing his enthusiastic denouncements, I assume that he is cursing the tree. I glance at the woman with the Lab and he appears to have caught her attention. I watch him shake the liquid out of a cup nd begin walking down the gravel path, my direction. As he goes past, he is talking out loud. "...I'm so fucking stressed out right now..." With this, he disappears along the gravel path.
Day 36. I'm headed back to the park. Before I do, I stop off to see my friend. I tell him that I went online to see what the story is on the postponement of the municipal reopening. It appeared to me that the city stay-at-home order is indeed extended until May 8th. He tells me that businesses may reopen on the 1st, and that I need to check with my boss. I plan to do this tomorrow. Before heading home, I stop at the downtown supermarket for a couple of items. I'm locking up my bike at the rack when a guy comes along. He has a kind of brunette Serpico hair and beard and teardrop sunglasses. He scolding someone who, at first glance from the corner of my eye, I think is his girlfriend. He's preparing to lock his bike with hers. He strikes me as too cool to get upset as he suggests to her, "We need to come up with a signal so you know which direction I'm going." When I eventually glance her direction, I see it's instead his daughter. Day 37. I'm off to our plant in the morning, to catch the general manager before he leaves. It's some time after 9 AM. I'm headed along one side of the park in the neighborhood across the boulevard. There is a young Caucasian guy standing and talking to a middle-aged Mexican guy. The former has glasses and a huge beard, and he holds a baby in one arm. He's a relatively new sight 'round these parts. As I cruise past them, the latter is telling him something about possible teaching him. I arrive at the plant and speak with the manager. He verifies the plan that, indeed, our satellite stores will remain closed at least until May 8th. He tells me that I'm number one on the list to get a call back to work, which is always nice to hear. And once the 8th rolls around (as in just around the corner), the owner will still have to wait for our customer to reappear before he so much as thinks about reopening the location where I work. I decide to make today's ride at least long enough as if it were a trip to my own store and back. Instead of heading back west to the trail I came south on, I go north before then turning west. I end up at a big park in a longtime trendy neighborhood. Though the morning is still chilly, the place has a collection of dog-walkers, stroller-pushers, cyclists, and at least one sunbather with a hardback book. I scout out the place to make sure residents are occupying spots on the grass before I claim my own under a tree. Along the way, I pass a guy in his sixties. His shirtless body is muscled and tanned brown. He stands along the bike lane as he takes a swig from a water bottle. As I'm pulling lunch out of my pack, he strolls past with a friend. I hear him tell his friend how lucky our nation is to have the leader it does. Following them are a trio of other elderly men, each with a little white Terrier on a leash. One guy is telling the other two how Canadians visited Mexico and stole $50 million. Torches, pitchforks, and fifty million dollars aside, and despite the lingering chill, the park is percolating with the energy of young mothers and singles. After lunch, I'm off for home.
Day 38. It's a day I'm headed back for yogurt. This means the long haul on the trail. Along the way, this overcast day feels muggy. When I get home, I see today's high. Holy Christ, it's 88! I'm out the door and down the street. I turn a corner and pass an old coworker's home. Her two daughters are out on the porch with their laptops, no doubt attending their virtual lessons. We exchange waves. After a downhill coast to the trail, it's a long pedal along this trail. I've been riding my weekend bike, the one from Walmart. The axle connecting the arms, each with a pedal on the end, has either lost bearings or is broken, or both. It pedals with a lot of noise. I wonder if this is the reason I need to stop three times to rest along the way. It's the first time this has ever happened to me. Businesses are still closed, but the golf courses are open. I slog along with my broken bike. Right after I turn onto a connecting trail, I notice something I don't ever remember seeing in my two years riding to work and back along this route. In a lot across the creek are buildings being used to train firefighters. A collection of them are out this afternoon doing just that. Up a steep hill is the ride along the back of the waterpark. I wonder if it will open this year. More slogging, and I'm there. I get yogurt, and then go back for seconds. The two girls behind the counter are the kind of very earnest students you may see in any American high school. I don't want to slog the same way back home. I head north alongside the busy boulevard. When I get out of the municipalities zoned for horses, I turn off onto residential streets. There are kids out on bikes. It feels very much like a summer afternoon, very wistful. I haven't been this way before that I remember. I roll past my first doctor's former place of employment. My final northbound leg takes me past some old homes. I cruise past a yellow-brick duplex with a porch swing which appears to have been painted last perhaps during World War II. Then, I cross a street, and I'm out of the neighborhood of my childhood and smack into a canyon of giant condominiums. Speaking of World War II, these condos were built on the site of a former rubber plant, built around the beginning of the 20th century. Home isn't far from here. When I get there, it feels like a typical summer evening. My neighbor's kids have depicted an admirable likeness of SpongeBob SquarePants characters in the courtyard of my townhome complex. And the Caucasian Latter Day Saints are holding court outside their apartment building directly across the street. I'm trying to remember the last time I saw pens in a shirt pocket. Junior high school? The Hispanic pickups and street racecars fly past to and fro.
Presumably, the end of this viral tunnel is within sight. This depends on the revelation of continued unknowns at this end of the timeline. I began this year not knowing how I would continue to meet existing expenses and save for ones due again at this year's end, as just happened at the end of last year. This month, I've been collecting not only unemployment insurance, but extra money through this very same agency given to them by the federal government. As of now, I have May bills covered, I've paid the sister back for covering my health insurance, just like that I have the money to complete the replacement of my long suffering crown, and enough left over to return my bank account to a cushion of funds which disappeared along the way. Just like that. Thanks to a pandemic which has killed thousands. Just when I think I've seen everything. And I thought, without a job, I wouldn't have anything to write about.
...between which there should always be "creative tension": the light on the hill versus the arch of salvation. ...great purity and enlightenment...can be so pure that it reaches no one and becomes a movement to irrelevance. But the arch of salvation... With all welcome, no dues to pay, there can only be darkness. The twenty-first century needs the light on the hill. ...a "prophetic minority." "...a church only of elected, purified monks?" I ask. "That would be okay, provided...biblical insights illuminate...life, and...that salvation is for everyone, including us few monks." Morality never captivates the masses. The majority usually stone the prophets among us. - OMNI Magazine, 12/1981
