Everyone crowded around Wilfred -Brimly-look-alike Richard Miles, U.S. charge' d' affaires...as he walked slowly up a desolate hill... ...all was quiet for a moment as Miles shook hands with the commander. "Have you seen much fighting?"
"Not much." There were bullet casings covering the ground like spent confetti.
"OK, thank you," Miles said. A bit further down the road was an ancient bus, which couldn't get past any of the press cars... [The author stuck his head inside the door and asked,] "Anybody speak English?" [They erupted] into hysterics all at once, trying to tell me something. I grabbed a passing reporter...and asked him to translate.
"They say the shooting stopped just a few hours ago. All these people are running from here." [We left] the people on the bus hoping they could manage to get out of the Serbs' sight by the time all the press vehicles vanished.
I envisioned a gang of reporters milling around a house that was filled with holes and carrion birds, fighting each other for the best angle, stealing glimpses of family pictures that had been left behind and trampled in the pandemonium. The things that had once been important had become detritus, littering a fire-scarred floor...for refugees to pick through. The reporters didn't stay long...enough to burn through a roll or two... In the corner of the house, buried under other items that had suddenly become less important than immediate escape was a jumble of books: the collected works of Dostoyevsky, translated...into Albanian. - Campbell
"A revolutionist is sad when the people are poor or when they are oppressed and colonized. ...it is the kind of sadness that makes him fight against oppression and colonialism. The revolutionist is happy when...there is a good and improving society, and when the working class is well cared for. This is the exact opposite of the imperialist. He is happy only when he has control of many countries and can exploit their people and resources for his own interests, when he has many wives, many children, and an easy life."
"I am safe and well after accidently entering liberated territory...and being arrested. ...current investigation shows that I am in fact a newspaperman and not a United States Government agent. ...writing...about this accidental opportunity... When my credentials are established...I will be shown...the revolution and...interview some of its leaders." What if they were trying us out...to see if we could be converted into permanent captive propagandists for their movement? ...writing from captivity articles that the...leaders would consider useful... - 40 Days With The Enemy, by R. Dudman, 1971
MARK I've been homeless since I was 11 years old. When I wasn't in prison... I've been writing a book [about political scandals in Arapahoe County]. JESSICA ...I was renting a janitorial closet...$450 a month. I can't get an ID so I can't get help getting off heroin.
...the Colorado Safe Parking initiative, a campaign to allow people experiencing homelessness in Denver to sleep in a legally parked car that they own.
I bought a camper. I found myself putting a lot of money in the camper just to keep it running. It scares me that the City isn't nice to people that own [the campers]. ...my camper wouldn't work sometimes, and it didn't feel like home. ...I had it parked...by the Crossroads Shelter...for 9 months. ...people with tents set up camp over there. That's when it changed. You had people doing drugs. ...gangs over there, people who would steal cars and leave them there. ...a guy got killed there where I parked my camper, and the City made us move. That's when the nightmare began. ...the policeman didn't leave me any warning that he was going to tow my camper. i was shocked that they left me with a broken-down car in the freezing cold. I...talked to the lady [at the front desk] of the impound lot. She said "Why don't you have a tag?" ...it was hard to get down to Colorado Springs [where I bought my camper] to get my tags. She said that she didn't care and told me that "cops ow the city." ...we got to do something about the City robbing people and taking their cash. - Denver Voice, 4/2021
There a lot of ways to explore...Colorado, but few afford the sense of freedom...that a recreational vehicle does. ...from quaint and cozy to downright behemoth proportions... The pop-up [tent] turned out to be [a] "gateway drug" to RV-ing. She and her family have since owned a fifth wheel, a Class C camper, and now a travel trailer... "We're searching for real life..." - Colorado Parent, 5/2021
[Camping in the park,] the rangers generally didn't give him a hard time. "As long as you weren't with a lot of people... If...everyone was bringing all [their] stuff and all of that, that's when they would kick us out." - Westword, 5/20-26/2021
I'm paying a mortgage on 1100 square feet, for $14 less per month than Jessica's closet. Saturday the 1st. The neighborhood in which I work is a horse of a different color from the one where I live. No beat up pickup trucks down here, no female passengers yelling and jumping out, as unfolded yesterday up north of here. I'm coming up one of the last streets to work. I look for oncoming traffic down a residential street. No vehicles, but a guy carrying a full bag of golf clubs balanced on one shoulder. In his free hand is a leash with a small dog on the other end. His two small daughters walk alongside them. This week, the final remaining vestiges of this chilly winter are giving way to temperatures closer to the summer ahead, and the neon spandex cyclists are back out on the trail. Yesterday, along the detour back to the trail from the branch of my bank down here, I roll past the waterpark. The pool is already full of water. At work today, men stroll the shopping center, waiting for their wives to come out of doing their shopping. A dad waits for his kid to drop off homework at a math tutoring place. The guy sits behind the wheel with his arm out of the window. A cigarette burns between two fingers. A bleached blonde comes in, wearing a black halter top and matching black pleated skirt. She picks up, heads out the door and steps into a mirrored convertible. In the driver's seat is the obligatory grey-haired guy. The rear plate reads "Oh boy", and the pair go speeding out onto the boulevard. Sunday is another busy one. My desk lamp gave out, the switch is broken. One pair of shorts which I wore to work in the summer are also wearing out. There's a department store where I got my new bike helmet, across the street from my supermarket. And on a third corner is my bank, and I need a withdrawal from the ATM. Rain is forecast, and a big front appears to be upon us. After doing some cooking and washing dishes, I elect to take the bus. The department store yields no men's shorts that I would wear to work. But I do indeed find a lamp. I don't like the lamp shade. I'm convinced I can find something unique at the ARC in my neighborhood. I get the withdrawal and the groceries in jig time, and grab lunch at a deathburger before I arrive back home. I picked up some flowers for my pots outside. They appear as if they haven't seen much water outside the supermarket. I plant them quickly before I'm off on my bike, to downtown, and shorts. I ride to the train and am on the pedestrian mall downtown in a flash. I lock the bike and enter a store with marked down brand names. Here I find the perfect shorts. Alas, they don't sell lamp shades.
It's back to the train station. A vendor of the local homeless newspaper is out on the corner. I haven't seen one since this time last year. I run into a drug store to change the twenty I got from the ATM and pick up a copy. A short few yards away, along the sidewalk next to the train tracks, another guy is approaching passersby for money. He tells one guy he needs new shoes. The train hauls me back to where I got on, and I'm off an on the way toward home. I want to drop off the shorts and another small bag I found. I currently carry assorted items of clothing back and forth to work. The end of a season approaches, during which the temperature fluctuates, requiring any potential combination of dress while cycling. I haul these clothes in a sizable bag on the back rack of my bike. In the summer months, I need far less, and use a smaller bag. The previous smaller bag has recently been retired. I make it back home with more than an hour before the ARC closes. I take a short ride up the street. Along the way, I see a flyer on a light pole. There's a photo of a middle-aged guy on a motorcycle. Someone else has been shot and killed in an alley. There are only one and a half of these flyers. Every single pole, however, has copies of a flyer for a lost dog. I lock up my bike at the ARC as a grey-haired woman makes her way along the sidewalk. She asks me if I was here yesterday. She mentions that her car was broken into. "All they stole was my sewing stuff and some music books." Sounds as if she's homeless. "I suspect it was someone from over here where I've been staying." She asks if I smoke. So that's what this is all about. I go inside the ARC with a backpack which has cameras and a phone. I'm told by a clerk that I can't bring a backpack inside the store. And no one will watch it for me. I have the stuff in the backpack inside a much smaller tote bag with handles. It pays to be this organized when I least expect it. I roll the small backpack up and fit it in the big pocket on the bottom front of my hoodie, and carry the tote bag inside. There are no complaints. Hey, it's an ARC, in a neighborhood where homeless car owners who smoke get their sewing kits and music books stolen. We got this. I can't help but sneak a peek at their shorts. There is an interesting pair here. But despite the potential savings, I'm happy I have a pair which is brand new. And then I find the lamp shades. Oh my God. There's a small lime green shade with a double set of beads around the circumference. It's in 99% perfect shape, and despite "99% perfect" being an oxymoron, this is exactly what I came here for. It's always nice when it pays off. Just before I left for downtown, the slightest smattering of rain fell, and none since then. On the way back down the street from the ARC, the sun even comes out. After I'm home for good, and the old shade is on the new lamp, we get a decent rain.
This week, I first notice a pair of homeless campers parked just beyond the spot where I turn to cross a bridge over the river, before I approach the last golf course on the way home from work. One camper has a flatbed trailer hitched behind it. At the start of the week I'm on the way home. Down the first trail from work, I'm swinging around a small parking lot next to the trail. There's a camper parked across several parking spaces. I suspect it's homeless. A good hour later, I'm just off the trail and climbing the hill off the street with the campers. Up the hill, I can see across the open field to a parallel street, with the camper which is covered by strips of tarp with enlarged photos of groups of young student types. I spot a newly arrived trailer past the tarp-covered camper. The following morning, I'm coming down that parallel street. I roll past the trailer. The back end has a huge corner missing its outer skin. One of the tarps from the camper is wrapped around a wooden telephone pole. This morning, I hit the gym before work, which I couldn't do yesterday as I was called into work early. I'm in the locker room with a regular grey-haired guy. After his shower, he likes to use the hand dryer on the wall in what appears to be an effort to blow dry his penis and butt. While drying his butt, he says to me in his gravel voice, "Nice socks." On the way home, I'm coming down the connecting trail where it follows a busy street. I believe I recognize a homeless camper drive past. When I get home after work, I get a call from the manager. They are offering me four and a half extra hours for the next three days, and three extra hours on Saturday. They are also offering a full five days each of four and a half extra hors. I jump at the offer. On Friday, I'm coming up the sidewalk along a busy residential street. At the crest of a hill are fur motorcycles lined abreast of each other. They come down the street past me and disappear. I then hear a shout and tires screeching, and the distant sound of one vehicle impacting another. I turn and continue down and around to a light at a main street. Along the way, I wonder if I shall see ambulance or fire truck. Down the busy street, I first hear and then watch a fire truck head the direction of the impact.
Saturday. The first day in three days on which I'm riding to work, instead of only riding home. Along the connecting trail to work, I'm swinging past a small parking lot where a camper was parked across several parking spaces. It's moved just a few yards, along the curb of the street which leads to the lot. Today, after my regular shift at my store, I get a ride to the plant, where I put in another six hours getting ahead for Monday. It's almost a twelve hour day. Toward the end, I hear raindrops on the roof of the plant. I end up riding home in the rain. I'm closer to home at the plant. I'm coming up the steep hill, just off the trail and along the street with the campers. Over the crest, I can see someone shoot off a firework in the rain. (?) Week two of being picked up in a van and driven to our plant to work for four hours, and riding my own store. It's another rainy week. On Monday, I'm on the way home from work, just off the bike trail. I watch a pickup truck, which is not run down, pulling a Starcraft pop up trailer with it's tent removed. Scrap metal in its place. The truck turns down the street along the river. This week, as I come home down the bike trail, I swing past the parking lot which had a camper parked there. It's now gone from the street which connects with the lot. Further along, I turn onto a connecting trail. I'm soon rolling past a big golf course. Two groups are each in a golf cart. One guy yells hi at me and waves. It's the first time I've seen anyone at either of two golf courses, which I pass twice a day, who has acknowledged anyone on the trail. There is now a camper in another lot, next to the bridge which leads to the playground along the river, along the connecting trail home. This is a lot where sometimes street racers park, or homeless will car camp. This camper is a striking brown and white camouflage pattern. Hooked up to the back hitch is almost what appears to be a cart. One of three guys at a car parked behind the trailer has long white hair. As I turn onto the bridge, I hear someone across the street. He's yelling at someone else, calling them "a thief!" I look in my rearview mirror, and I think I see two people at a shopping cart.
Thursday. Tomorrow is my final day doing a morning shift at the plant. It's been fun being back in production. Our plant is in a working class neighborhood., as opposed to my own store, which is an upper-middle class neighborhood. Instead of parents out taking their kids to get tutoring, I've been waiting on Catholic priests and working middle-aged women, and one guy who looked like a mafia lawyer. I misunderstood him after asking his first name. "Julius?" I asked. "No, I don't know no Julius," he replied. When it's time to load my bike into the van to go down to my own store, I take it out the back to go around the building, rather than take it through the crowded plant. Out in the entrance to the back alley is a car parked with its flashers on. A woman in sweats or pajamas says to me, "Hey, can you help push her car?" She refers to the driver who stands next to the car. I tell her I have to go to work at another store. She proceeds to yell at someone across the busy avenue, "Hey, can you help push her car?" These locals are far different than the tall, chiseled, cherubic, privileged teenagers from the neighborhood where I work. Late in the afternoon, I'm on the way home from work. I'm out on the bike trail, between underpasses as I approach the connecting trail home. I slow as I approach an oncoming mom, jogging next to her child on a bike with training wheels. We both converge with a homeless guy emerging from the weeds. The mom, child, and I pass each other before the guy takes a long, slow step onto the trail. Out on the connecting trail, I'm approaching another underpass. A couple of cyclists have just come through. Halfway up the incline, a homeless guy has pulled his bike over. His camouflaged bush hat has fallen off, and lays in the middle of the path. I steer around him and the hat. Not far along after, I approach another homeless guy on a bike. It remarkable how alike all three homeless guy look alike.
Friday. I'm out of work and on the way home. From along the parking lot where a camper sat, moved a few yards to the curb on the street and then later disappeared, is back. It's in the lot now of an apartment complex, next tot he curb where it was last parked. On Saturday, I'm back to riding to work, down to my own store. No more riding to work on the floor of a van, watching the sun rise through newly budding branches. This morning, there is an entirely new line of vehicles and campers, along the curb next to the open field. A camper, a trailer, cars, none of which I recognize. Here's a forty-year-old station wagon. At the corner where I turn onto this street, here the Starcraft pop up trailer has been moved. It's sagging tent is propped up with two by fours. A little over an hour later, and I'm at the breakfast place in the shopping center where I work. The social distance rule has been lifted, and the place is on its way back to being the hopping place is used to be. A dad comes in wearing a T-shirt, with the original movie promo from The Godfather. Only, instead, it reads, The Golf Father. Saturday. My sister and myself are running around her neighborhood. We're back at her place where she mentions she saw a homeless woman pushing a shopping cart down her sleepy residential street. The woman stopped at her neighbor's carport and looked inside for anything she might want to put in her cart. The world is her supermarket. My sister called her neighbor. By late afternoon I head a couple of blocks up from my place, to a Vietnamese restaurant. Across my boulevard from there is a church building which still posts messages on its marquee. It has since been a karate academy, and this spring has become a car dealership. Good thing it has a decent parking lot. On Monday, I'm on the way home from work, turning off one trail and onto another. Late in the afternoon, it's drizzling rain with blue sky in the distance. This is a trail junction with a small shelter, with a metal table and benches The table and benches are completely surrounded by shopping carts and a wall of belongings, of two homeless guys on the benches. Their stuff appears as if it's been meticulously arranged to all fit under the shelter.
Bike Helmet: "Amazing" Or "Fucking Unnecessary"?
Tuesday. I hit the gym for the first time in a couple of weeks, because I was working 12 1/2 hour days. No more reservations are required for the rec center. The governor's mask mandate has been lifted. I will see online at work that Denver's mayor is lifting all mask mandates for the city. After the gym, I have time to hit the bank for the first time since I got both my state and federal refund checks in the mail. Along the way to work from my bank, I stop into a deathburger for some food. There a couple of guys at a table, shooting the breeze. It's late in the morning. They are either homeless, or eccentric regulars. They both notice my new bike helmet. They think it's amazing. From there, I ride past the waterpark. Their marquee announces that they will be opening in eleven days, or the Saturday before Memorial Day. I need to inquire about appointments and season passes. Some six and a half hours later, I'm just out the door at work. I notice that my front tire is very low. I had just filled it this morning. I decide I need to head over the the sporting goods super center. I inflate my tube with my hand pump and make my way to the train station. The train comes along and drops me off downtown. I ride the downtown trail along the other river to the super center. Inside, I inquire about a tube with sealant inside of it. They're out. How about a tube with a removable valve core? Nope. I'm stuck with a tube with no sealant. I get it changed in jig time. My other bike is still waiting for parts. The tech tells me, "It's been a brutal year for parts." I don't doubt it. He recommends I wait for the email when it's done. I'm down the trail home and head down the sidewalk of a busy avenue, in the hope of scoring dinner at a deathburger. It's early evening as I take a side street which parallels the avenue, a street I' haven't ben on in a while. I'm climbing a hill past a small house with a couple of guys on the front porch. One is overweight, bald, and has a long bushy beard. I first hear him before I notice him. He says to me, "You don't need a fuckin' helmet! Look at him." Next to him is a skinny, teenaged kid who laughs at this as he eats chips out of a bag. I'm the most interesting thing out on the street this evening. I wonder if this means I have street cred. It's a short ride to the deathburger. I used to frequent this place a decade ago, when I caught the bus on the corner next door, when the place would open at 5 AM. It must be after 7 PM this evening. A sign on the door alerts customers that the dining room is open for takeout only from 7 to 7, and the doors are locked. At the drive through window, they make an exception for a lone cyclist, and let me order dinner. I jot over to the bus stop to pretend to wait for a bus as I eat my food. A guy in his 30s, in shorts and with a long beard and cigarette, asks me if he can sit next to me. He begins rambling incoherently, with the exception of the one sentence, "Hey. Dude. I'm asking you something." He wanted to know if I believed that he was dead. His cigarette smoke wafted into my face to combine with his body odor. At least he's okay with my helmet. I finish eating and swing around and down the sidewalk of my boulevard. This is a neighborhood of broken glass and uneven concrete. A few blocks down and I cross the street. I turn down an alley and come out a block or two from my home. A drunk is standing motionless on the sidewalk.
Wednesday. For the past two months, I've been trying to email x-rays from one dentist to another. I was told that I may not have enough Medicaid left this fiscal year for a new patient exam, and the most current x-rays may preclude the need for new ones, and thus bringing down the cost of the exam. So I was told. A couple of months ago. And the email I was given, to send the x-rays, hasn't been working. Today, I bring the printout of the emailed x-rays to the dentist at my Medicaid clinic. Today, I am told that they won't impact the cost of the exam, as indeed I have enough left in Medicaid for a new patient exam. So I am told. Today. My mention of the fact that I would have appreciated this information a couple of months ago also does not have any impact. Dentist appointment is made at last, better two months late than never. Yet a professional opinion, that I am in fact two months late for a cleaning, will not of course be made until an exam which happens to be made two months late...is made. Are we all on the wrong page yet? I'm out of the clinic, down the street. Where I turn onto the street with the line of homeless campers, there used to be one camper covered in strips of tarps, each strip with enlargements of photos. This camper may be one now along the street with the others, having moved. The strips of tarps are gone. Once on the trail, I'm across a bridge and rolling along a stretch with a line of trees along the river bank. According to the forecast, today appears to be the last day before the temperature flips into summer mode. The trees are beginning to show serious buds. In another couple of weeks, it will be June, and foliage will be in full bloom. The waterpark will be open, and perhaps back with a vengeance. Later today, at work I will go to the waterpark's website. "No appointments necessary, no restrictions." With a phone call I will find out that season passes are back. I must swing by the rec center, where they are sold, on the way home.
But this morning, I'm rolling past the trees. Coming toward me, on the wrong side of the two way trail, is a guy pushing a shopping cart. Inside the cart...is a woman. She sits on the bottom of the cart, her knees level with her head. She holds each side of the cart with a hand as she watches ahead, as if looking through an imaginary windshield. The guy has a mop of naturally curly grey hair, and wears an untucked buttoned down shirt. He stares a thousand yards ahead of her and steadily if not with energy pushes her straight ahead I'm not quick thinking enough myself to pull out a camera. One guy swings around us from behind me before two oncoming cyclists pass us in their lane, before I can get around the people of the cart. I don't recall the last time I saw an adult in a shopping cart. At the end of the last golf course, the trail breaks out into the open along the river. gathered at a bench appear to be five people with some shopping carts. Some have walking sticks. I pass an oncoming middle-aged woman with a walking stick, staring at the trail as she slowly makes her way along. I turn onto the connecting trail where the small shelter is. I don't notice any of the shopping carts and other stuff which walled off the table and benches. But a short few yards down this trail, a line of shopping carts is parked next to the trail, under some trees. They are full of stuff, including a kitchen sink, and the carts are connected with a tether. This I do get a shot of. Some seven hours later, I am just out of work. I'm turning off a horse trail toward a cul de sac. Coming onto the horse trail...is a horse. With a young woman in the saddle. Perhaps another thirty minutes along, and I'm turning onto a bridge across the river, past the same golf course going the other way. At this end are two young teenagers, and boy and girl, along with an adult. All are sitting on their skateboards. As I turn, the boy is describing some kind of personal impression, which is being acknowledged by the adult. It hits me that this is some kind of youth pastor. Or else he's some kind of child predator. Perhaps yet another half hour later, I'm off the trail and coming down the street a block from my own. This is the street with the long silver homeless trailer which appears as if it's from the 1950s. There's a brand new smaller trailer along this long stretch of street. It's completely hollowed out inside, just a simple shell. I can see through a rectangular hole where a missing vent should be. Laying on the floor inside is a bicycle.
Thursday. I think it's still Wednesday. I'm on the connecting trail to work. I left home in a sweatshirt and long pants, but I've taken both off. Today is the first day this year I'm riding in a sleeveless shirt. This week, I've had to fire up the AC at work. When I get home from work later on, I will have to put on the ceiling fan. Just past where the line of shopping carts were parked, they have been untethered, and moved just a few yards to an underpass. The carts are accompanied by two young men and a dog. Both are shirtless and both are wearing jeans. One has a haircut as if he's a Marine. (Is this guy a veteran?) He's pontificating about the meaning of life, or perhaps more specifically the consequences thereof to the other guy, as I climb the incline through the underpass. The Marine is describing something nefarious someone did to others. The other guy has shaggy black hair and a black beard. He's rinsing something is the creek along the trail as he questions the Marine about the validity of his story. The dog has an untethered leash and sniffs the weeds. Some seven hours later, I'm crossing an intersection, on a detour to pick up a copy of a free weekly newspaper. At the intersection across the street is a guy sitting on the sidewalk, flying a panhandling sign. Just beyond him down the sidewalk are a young couple, also sitting on the sidewalk. As I pass, the guy quickly asks me if I have any spare change. He has hair and glasses right out of 1977.
Friday. Earlier this week, I notice a big delivery truck parked in the lot of a golf course on the way to work. The lot is right next to the bike trail. Gathered next to the open rear door of the truck are a dozen or so neon Lycra-clad cyclists. Some are standing and balancing their bikes on the rear wheel, holding onto the handlebars. In the center of this gathering is their grey-haired leader. I don't know who this group is who have driven in by delivery truck, but they appear ready to ride somewhere. They have returned here again this morning. Just around the bend from here, along the connecting trail, I come upon the underpass where a pair of young men were gathered with their train of shopping carts. This morning, only a few of the carts are here, and only the shaggy-haired guy remains. He sits hidden behind one cart, facing the creek. The other is nowhere to be found. Around another bend, and another part of the train of carts sits on one side of another underpass. Overturned on top of the lead cart is a stuffed sitting room chair. The rest of the carts are on the other side of the underpass, off on the grass between the trail and the parking lot for the dog park. One cart is full of blankets. Another is full of tree branches. From there, it's just around a couple more bends until I reach the end of this trail. It comes out across the creek from the football field of a high school. I can see through the trees not yet full of leaves, the bleachers are full of people. A late morning graduation is underway, or an awards ceremony. The usually sleepy street just off the trail is currently full of parked cars.
Saturday. For some reason, I don't realize that I've left the house an hour early on the way to work. I don't recall the last time this happened to me. As a result, the sun has just begun to rise over the street next to the open field, and with its latest collection or trailers, campers, and vehicles. The morning temperature is somewhere in the fifties. One vehicle is a minivan, with a sticker on the top left corner of its back window. The sticker reads, "Stomp on my flag and I'll stomp on your ass." It's stuck on a pretty broken down minivan. It could be that it was already on the window when the van came into the possession of its current owner. I make the decision that I would like a shot of the sticker, and I pull to a stop next to the minivan. Parked ahead of the van is another vehicle with its engine running. The driver's side door opens, and a skinny young woman climbs out. She's n a hoodie and shorts, and stands facing me with her legs apart as she eats something out of a small bag. Chips? She's the second person this week who watches me on my bike while they eat chips. I recognize her as a resident of this "encampment" from perhaps a month or two ago. She has no makeup on her plain face, and looks incredibly young. I wonder how young she is. Watching her looking at me, she a vision out of some 1970s movie. After less than a minute, she climbs back into the vehicle. That evening, I get a call from an old, old friend I reconnected with at the beginning of this year. She wants to meet over on her side of town tomorrow. This, in fact, we do. I haven't seen her in a good couple of decades. It's remarkable to me how well she seems to know me.
Tuesday. I hit the gym before work, and after the gym I detour back to the trail. The entrance to the trail from the gym is through the parking lot of a golf course. As I enter the trail, I have to steer around a homeless guy on his bike. He's moving slower and right in the way. He has a full grey beard, and on his back are a hiking pack and a rolled up sleeping bag. Homeless with sleeping bags are not an uncommon sight anywhere in the metro area, and lately, neither are homeless cyclists with sleeping bags. Just around the bend is my bank. I tease the teller, who is from Pakistan, that if I don't return in a couple of weeks she should send out the Pakistani Air Force. She's serious when she tells me that her father was an accountant in the Pakistani Air Force, and this is how she got interested in banking. Never in a thousand nights would I have guessed. Then I'm headed along the busy avenue, back toward the trail to work. It takes me right past the waterpark, where workers are busy picking up the remaining leaves from seven months ago and breaking up last minute concrete. This place opens for another season in four days. I rejoin the trail through the waterpark parking lot. Down where the trail ends, I'm exiting while a couple is entering on their own bikes. The lady has a rack and frame for saddlebags on the back of her bike. Though they are not homeless, she carries a rolled up sleeping ban in the space for one saddlebag. Some six hours later, I'm off work and coming off a horse trail onto a cul de sac. In the cul de sac materializes a woman pedaling a tricycle, with two wheel on either side of a seat at the front. The guy who I assume is her husband is in the front seat. Perhaps he is unable to walk. Soon I'm on the trail home. I pass the small parking lot where a camper was parked. It was back again yesterday, and now has moved again onto the street. Further down the trail, the former train of shopping carts have shuffled position again.
Wednesday. On the way to work, I'm turning off the street with the line of campers. On the other side, the street turns into the entrance of a park. On a sidewalk along the perimeter of the park, a middle-aged guy is adjusting a baby stroller. He does not appear to be homeless, and I'm convinced his stroller has an actual baby in it, instead of loaded with junk. The scene appears funny, as on the grass next to him is a random abandoned electric scooter, as if he was riding it as he pushed the stroller. He proceeds to jog, pushing the stroller ahead of him. At the corner, he waits for a break in the traffic before he crosses on a red light. I wait for the green before I follow onto the trail. As I pass him, I notice the back of his T-shirt reads, "push your limits". Down and around a bend, and I'm rolling along a tree-lined river bank. On the other side of the trail is a street with a wide gravel shoulder. A decades-old van with the engine running is parked on this shoulder. A couple who appear to be in their thirties are sitting up front. A "for sale" sign sits on the dash board. Some nine or so hours later, I'm off work and back on my own corner. I'm waiting to cross the street to home. behind me is the parking lot for a Mexican place. Before it reopened after the pandemic as a seafood restaurant, I had many meals there. Standing in one corner of the lot is a homeless guy, talking to another homeless guy who is on a scooter. His scooter has a full big trash bag on the back. Where he puts his feet, he has a dog. He slowly rides across the street to the gas station. Thursday. These Spring mornings still have a chill, but I enjoy it. We all soon will be complaining about how hot it is. And by the time I'm down the trail, it already feels warmer. This morning, I'm detouring off the trail to pick up a couple grocery items for work. The detour takes me past a skate ramp in a park. A couple of artists are retouching a design on the back of the ramp. They are in tie-dyed painter gear. A couple of older folks are standing off observing. They are both in city administration Polo shirts. One says to one of the painters how much they appreciate the their work. Up a hill and across an avenue, and down the hill, and I'm at the supermarket. As I lock up my bike, i watch a small middle-aged homeless woman come out of the exit. She rides out on a small BMX-sized bike, with a sizable bundle on the handlebars.
Friday. I'm on the way to work, approaching the end of the street a block from my own. I watch a line of elementary school kids march across this street, up the one perpendicular to it, toward a park. They are being led by an adult in front and another behind. They may have come from the school just around the corner. Memorial Day is in three days. School isn't over yet? Not until everyone marches to the park. It's a tradition I'm unfamiliar with. Perhaps a half hour later, I'm almost all the way down the trail to the connecting one. Off on the grass, which we are supposed to stay off of because this stretch of trail is under restoration, are a couple of homeless shopping carts from the shopping cart train. The smaller cart has overturned. The larger one is piles high with I know not what. Taped to a huge duffel bag is a note from the municipal authorities. It mentions something about discarded belongings. I decide to swing past the waterpark along the way to work. It's been interesting riding past the place after going to the bank, on the way to work over the winter and spring. Now, opening day is tomorrow. The last forecast I saw was rain beginning a couple hours before I leave work tomorrow, a thunderstorm on Sunday, and rain labor Day. I'm packing my suit and towel tomorrow in the hope for a shirt in the forecast. There's not much happening late in the morning. The busted up concrete is gone. But I decide to check the place out after work as well. I see a line of lifeguards ready to practice last minute first aid drills. A guy with a rescue board is holding it upright as he does some kind of hip hop steps. Someone else sweeps up the front. I make my way back to the trail. The shopping carts are still where I last left them this morning.
This week along the street with the campers, the Starcraft pop-up tent is fully deployed without two-by-fours to prop up wither end. On Saturday, I manage to leave for work on time, instead of an hour early without realizing it. Not far along the trail I come through an underpass. Making its way down the bank from a street is a deer. It inches its way onto the street through the underpass and then back onto another bank. I'm down the bike trail and past the shopping carts from yesterday. The cart with the note appears to have had its contents reorganized, and the note is gone. Yesterday and today are busy days at work. Business appears to be ramping up a year after I was called back to work. This morning I get two customers before we open. The latest forecast is for sunshine this afternoon. I manage to get myself successfully covered in sunscreen, per my doctor's wishes, pretty much by the time we close. Even if I end up swimming under overcast skies, it's a successful dress rehearsal if I choose to hit the waterpark after work on a Saturday. Someone comes in to pick up shortly after we close. Then, at last, I'm off to opening day at the waterpark. About midday, a dark death cloud came across the sky, but it passed along and the sun is back out. I'm down the trail and there in no time. I inquire about the shrunken pirate heads, and am told that they will not be out again this year. I have a short swim, and a couple of trips down the drop slide. I've decided that this is a good weekend to take my new bike in for the free six-month tune-up. The brake pads feel worn. After the waterpark, I head out along the busy avenue for a quick early dinner at a deathburger. Eating inside, I spot out the window a homeless camper coming along the street. One big side window has fallen into the interior, and the entire camper appears as if it's in the process of slowly rotting. A rack on the back is full of junk. Then I'm headed back onto the trail. through a highway underpass I see a homeless cyclist with a shopping cart tethered to the back of his bike. The sun has disappeared and it's chillier now. I ride back past the shopping carts and exit the trail where I usually turn toward the gym. I hop onto a train downtown, get out and onto the trail downtown, and soon I'm at the sporting goods supercenter. I'm told the bike will be tuned up by Friday. The brake pads are fine, the cable just needs adjusting. I hike back to the train station, past a downtown resident on her phone. She's young, skinny, and tan. And she's loud enough that I could hear her from across the street. "They're a couple...and she's the fucking bomb," I hear her say. I jump on a pedestrian mall shuttle which detours around most of its length. Signs along the way mention that the mall is closed to shuttle traffic, because of something called "Meet in the Street." I have no idea what this is. The shuttle drops me at the train downtown, which takes me to a bus home. I will see if tomorrow's forecast of a thunderstorm proves accurate.
Well, this week, the city is all of the sudden repairing my street and sidewalk for a city block, ending at my corner. I was notified by mail of this. One result of this is a repaired sidewalk in front of, and patched entrance to, my townhome complex. At least for the first time in the fourteen years, during which I have been living here. Who know how much longer than that. I also received a separate notice this week, that my tiny street will get at least one bike lane. The traffic from the new Vietnamese market is already causing something of a bottle neck on the corner, at one time recently considered the most dangerous corner for traffic (not to mention pedestrians) in the metro area. A bike lane is only going to cause ore consternation for the racing and rumbling traffic along my street. I can't wait. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love this town. I decide to spend Memorial Day not going swimming. The rain finally winds up around noon, but it's a bit chilly to swim. I'm glad I hit the waterpark Saturday after work, albeit quite briefly. And I need more glycerin soap, which I can only find at Whole Foods. And I would like to get me some Memorial Day yogurt. These are all products which are available downtown. I might as well, after my late breakfast, grab a late lunch there as well. I head toward the neighborhood across the boulevard, where a couple of spots each host a homeless camper. I used to come this way to work through all of 2019 and early 2020. Along my street and down a big hill, and then another. Across the tracks and through an underpass. Up and over the river and then the interstate, and up and around a corner past an ongoing homeless encampment. A fence was put up to keep them off some unused loading docks, and now they simply line their tents along the fence. Across the busy light rail tracks and toward the city. I check in with a Greek restaurant where I'm told a friend still works. They ain't open today. I can't say that I blame them. They're business is all office workers. No worries. I hit a Chilis, then Whole Foods. I don't know who I'm supposed to "Meet in the Street" out on the pedestrian mall. I negotiate pedestrians and electric scooters and homeless. There are a couple of blocks where Astroturf has been laid down, and ping pong tables set up. I wonder if the tables got rained on? The rain has been going right up until late this morning. Hey, surely there's not an activity which could be less expensive for the city to set up. I find my soap and also snag some salad bar leftovers. I take the food out to a bench outside of the supermarket. At one pair of benches are a group of homeless twentysomethings. One comes over to my bench to ask if I want to share my food. I decline, and have some before I'm off to Yogurtland. I eat on the patio and have a glance at a local neighborhood newspaper before I go back for a second helping. The girl behind the counter is from Argentina, and tells me the Spanish word for yogurt. Then its back toward home. Just outside downtown, I pass under the second floor window of an old home, where a young girl say hi to me from a window. Next month, I have some bridges to cross. This week, I have a phone appointment with my mutual fund broker, who will finally tell me how fucked up my account is due to my not paying into it for a year and a half. The following week is another colonoscopy. And two weeks after that is an appointment with a dentist in network for Medicaid. June, let's all be there.
