Last night, I stopped along the first trail on the way home. The rubber bands securing a visor to my helmet have stretched. They no longer hold the visor in place. I rig something up in the dark, with extra rubber bands I carry. This works until I get to work the following day, when I stumble upon a solution with two rubber bands and a single paper clip. That would be Friday, the 1st. In the morning, I'm coming down the block next to the open field. A lone and familiar camper is parked at the end of the block. It's a hazy sky of long thin broken clouds. Autumn temps have al last settled into place. I enter the trailhead. Directly ahead is someone dismounted from an electric scooter. He is staring at some geese sitting on a golf course, on the other side of a split rail fence. Approaching us along the trail is another guy. This one is pulling a big cart piled high with stuff.
A year after her exit from corporate America, [a new thrift shop owner in the metro area's most expensive neighborhood is open for business with the wealthy.] ...she had curated...her own life... ...vintage glassware and handbags... [She and her husband are averse to saying] used or thrift or resale. They used..."rescued"... ...they're saved...from a sorry fate languishing unappreciated at a charity shop... - Littleton Independent, week of 11/23/2023
...the concept of micro-communities is pretty new for the city. The idea is pretty new for...the new CEO of Colorado Village Collaborative. ...communities of shed-like units - as well as safe outdoor spaces...tents protected with fencing... ...neighborhood residents have kicked up a lot of dust in response... "...once we're in a community for a while, a lot of the concerns abate." - Westword, 12/28/2023-1/3/2024
"Children living in poverty are more likely to be in poor health, less likely to graduate high school on time...more likely to live in poverty as adults,' states...a local nonprofit in Broomfield... [This nonprofit] provides resources so children and their families can be successful, happy, and healthy. By supplying...necessities, parents are able to put their limited resources towards crucial living expenses like housing, utilities, transportation, healthcare, etc. "...more than 250,000 children...are living below the self-sufficiency standard in the eight-county service area that [the non-profit] serves... ...children aren't able to go to school with the supplies they need..." - Colorado Parent, 12/2023
Englewood Public Schools, FedEx and Operation Warm provided hundreds of new coats to students... ...to focus on "the whole child. ...coats and shoes...provide...the confidence to socialize and succeed..." ...the coats were manufactured at their warehouse. - Littleton Independent, 11/30/2023
...the Sock It To 'Em Campaign, a local nonprofit that provides new socks... - Greenwood Village Newsletter, 12/2023 - vol. 39 no.2
...local hiring crunches, deferred maintenance, programs approved by local voters and uneven distribution of...spiking property values... "...the goal of reducing property taxes...is not our primary role," said [the] Colorado House speaker...who serves on...the State Board of Equalization... A densely populated community with soaring property values can squeeze more money from...its...mill levy than a sprawling rural community with stagnant values... ...a cut to [the latter's] mill levy would undermine [smaller counties'] required services. cities and towns get the bulk of their revenues, not property taxes. - The Denver Post, 12/19/2023
The Denver Basic Income Project...has given...cash payments to adults experiencing homelessness. "We have...a lack of...affordable housing...an eviction crisis in 2024 and...an influx of migrants..." Eligibility included...not having severe and unaddressed mental health or substance abuse needs... ...a participant...said... "I was able to pay for my phone... ...to build my credit (and) [stop] going to food banks. [And no longer] borrow money from people." ...it's about acknowledging unhoused people with respect... - Washington Park Profile, 12/1/2023
In the past two decades, Denver has...an award-winning coffee city. ...touting single-origin craft beans... Such shops are reminiscent of Denver's...coffee revolution in the 1970s [which] sought to redefine coffee, community, and a collective identity... "We felt like a better world was coming..." "Coffeehouses were pretty far and few between. {there weren't] places that were open late and had a non-bar atmosphere. Places where people could gather and talk." Artists, poets, hippies, belly dancers, musicians and restless youth... [One particular customer] sat in his booth nursing a single cup of coffee for the entire day as he worked on yet another volume of his sprawling self-published memoir, "Man, God and The Universe." "We viewed a coffeehouse as kind of a radical step. It was a place to talk about the world, innovation - how things might be different." - Westword, 11/30-12/6/2023
The inhabitants of the congested cities of Europe and America found themselves increasingly in need of distraction. ...fiction...became the opiate of the people. The pace of progress was quickening. The cities were growing. The wildernesses were being tamed. ...the emergence of..."escapism"...probably, from the repressed "civilized" self. ...a wish to escape from claustrophobic urban culture. War, too, is an escape from personal responsibilities and problems, from the "civilized" self. The savage hero has a real function - to defy the march of Progress. ...a way of dealing with...anxieties about...ability to cope with day-to-day existence. - Aldiss
Sunday. The last advertised book sale of the year is yesterday and today. It's at the library where, last September, I and at least one other shopper saw pretty much the same books there from 2022. So I'm not motivated to return only three months later. Besides, I'm off to the gym and then the supermarket. By the time I leave, it's snowing. I elect to leave the bicycle at home and rely upon the transit system. And my own two feet. The transfer station where I will disembark is not a long walk to the gym. I grab a bus on my corner. Onboard are who appear to be a family of street folk. Everyone is in winter gear, instead of having simply thrown on hoodies. One guy with a headband is conversing with a couple. Everyone speaks with an accent or cadence to their voice, as if perhaps they have just woken up. The woman mentions having learned about "loyalty out on the street." Her guy tells the other about a photo he still has of him. The woman first takes off her knit cap, and then struggles to put it back on. I've never seen anyone have trouble putting on a knit cap. It's knit... On Monday, I'm on my way to work down the trail. I'm along the long bank of trees. I come upon an earthwork. It's a mound which stretches across this width of the Platte River. It is, for all intents and purposes, a dam across the river. There are drainage pipes at the bottom which allow water to flow through. I get to work and my coworker goes home. Before she does, she tells me about a homeless guy who showed up after she got there, but before we opened. He stood next to the bench outside. with a coffee in his hand. At one point before we were open, he spoke to her from outside, asking if we were open. An hour after we did open, our delivery driver arrived. He was still there. Later on she calls me at work. I will be working for her tomorrow.
The following morning, I'm out the door at 4:30 AM. The lone camper is still at the end of the block next to an open field. Only bow, it's joined by the little falling apart pickup truck with the bed piled high with junk. An hour later, I'm all the way down the first trail, and not long onto the connecting trail. In the dark, it begins to get brighter behind me. Immediately I know another cyclist is approaching. I look in my mirror and see lights like a train's. I can tell the other cyclist has slowed down to pace me. I don't know why they don't pass me. So I slow to a crawl, and a young woman on a ten speed finally goes by. She then vanishes ahead of me, like gone. Whether I work my regular shift of all day, it goes flying past. This season is full of work to do. I head home after work by way of a supermarket which carries a product my regular grocer does not. I'm locking up my bike when someone materializes out of thin air. He's an elderly guy dressed head to toe in black. Hoodie and skinny pants. He appears to have an America flag scarf around his neck. On a leash in his hand is a tiny beagle, with a vest which reads "service dog". At least this dog isn't trying to kill me. He asks me if I am familiar with the area. I am not. He wonders "if it's safe to light up a [marijuana] pipe out here?" We both go inside. He and his dog, and another younger and tall homeless guy wander the store at the same snail's pace. I collect my item, along with a sandwich for dinner. I check out and sit and eat at one of a handful of small tables in a corner of the supermarket. At another table is seated the younger homeless guy, who gets up and slowly drifts away. At a third table is a middle-aged woman. On her table is a laptop with several faces on a zoom call. The voices must be confined to an earbud or two. Both the laptop speakers and she are silent, until she enters the conversation. "Yes, I think that would demonstrate who we are. That's good leadership." A few seconds later, she says, "If we can get into Peru. That would be good." I'm done. I'm out. I'm soon home. I get the call. Can I open again tomorrow? Hey, why not? Maybe I can light up a pipe...
Thursday. I had to dig out a pair of shorts at work today. I'm not opening today, but I stay late an hour and a half after close. I grab the bus, which happens to come along. At the train station, I'm out of the bus and searching one bag for something which I forgot I put into another, when a small young woman approaches me. The station is on the campus of a private university. But right away, her slow approach to me raises my doubts as to her possession of a student ID. She's sizing me up. She asks for a cigarette. I still don't smoke. We're both at the gate for the bus I just stepped out of. She stands as if she's waiting to catch the next. I'm unconvinced she is. I hear my train and step aboard. She follows me inside and takes a seat among the chattering passengers. She looks so small sitting there. Staring out a window at nothing but the passing concrete wall between us and Interstate 25. Clutching her coat in her arms. Or is it only a hoodie. She has a pair of Converse High Tops on. Both are untied. After I get home, I get the call. Can I open tomorrow? The next morning, I'm out the door an hour and a half before dawn. I'm only just at my own corner, where the new Vietnamese supermarket is located. Standing right next to the entrance is a guy with long grey hair and a long beard, again dressed head to toe in black. And again he has a scarf around his neck. He's holding his own bicycle. The place doesn't open for another 3 1/2 hours. It smells like moisture out here. At each major street I cross, though it's before 5 AM, I still have to wait for cars to pass. It's a busy early Friday. I'm on and off the trail, and climbing the bridge over the interstate and train tracks when my visor comes loose. The visor is from an old helmet. I can't get it back in position, and I snap the thread with which I have it tied on. I put it into the pouch on my handlebars. It falls out. I stop to pick it up when I notice the bag I have bungeed on my back rack has slipped over to one side of the frame. I pull it back into position. I have a bus to catch, and this is shit which I don't need right now. This morning, I also have by snow boots secured on top of the bag. I heard that snow was on the way at some point. From shorts to snow. I remount and feel my right heel kicking something behind me. I stop once more and readjust the bag. Over the bridge, I'm approaching a busy corner. I hear someone yell, "FUCK!" Across the boulevard is another guy with long hair and a beard. His are white. He stands at a bus stop cursing. I'm through the intersection and make the first left. A homeless cyclist suddenly appears in front of me, making the same turn. He vanishes just as fast as he appears. Down a residential street, I pass a guy walking a pair or what appear to be small Dobermans. Each has a string of lights around its neck. As I pass, they begin snarling and growling at me. The owner keeps a tight grip on the leashes of his disco dogs.
"Ever since COVID, people have just felt like there's no speed limit." ...to see protected bike lanes, especially on major streets near schools and parks... "Paint's not protection. It's not a low-stress road to go on." "There are still people out there that want to stay in their cars. ...they don't want to slow down - even if they should. They don't want streets to be narrower to make more room for bikes..." - Littleton Independent, week of 12/7/2023
[In the Denver suburb of] Greenwood Village... During snow events, it typically takes about eight hours to clear all trails...with crews starting as early as 5 a.m. Trail crews will periodically check trails for problem areas if the temperature remains below freezing for extended periods. - Greenwood Village Newsletter, vol. 39 no. 2
The Line Between Sanity and the Absence of Traction
The entire day saw the familiar grey cloud of death dominate the sky. But no snow. When I get home after work, I'm headed to bed at 9 PM. Just before I do, I hear something small hitting my back patio door. The snow has begun. I won't be carrying my boots tomorrow, I'll be wearing them. Saturday morning, it doesn't appear to be much snow. I elect to do the ride, at least back to the bus stop across town. The going will be slower and I don't trust the full bike ride will get me to work on time. Here are some dynamics of riding in this mess, the parameters along the line between sanity and the absence of any traction under your tires. You require traction not only to stay upright, but in the process make turns. There will be patches where the two work against each other. Down the streets as the dawn breaks, my front rim briefly slides during a slight adjustment in direction. Even a momentary loss of traction is a step across that line, into an entirely different reality. It's an instant kind of unknown. Chaos. Across the bridge and down the residential street, I hit a patch of trouble. Sand on top of snow. The traction is gone and I'm turning to stay upright, but I'm headed toward the curb. I'm off the patch and back on my way. These are the only trouble spots. The rest of the ride, with a light snowfall such as this, is a matter of testing the street. I try to stay over snow as opposed to ice, or even slush. Some ice has frozen with a grated surface you can traverse. As you gain confidence, you can increase your speed. Until you cross the line again. I make it to the bus and to work, where I stay a little late. I do another bus, train, bus home. I'm sitting at my bus gate before I notice a large group on the train platform. The next time I notice them, a train has pulled into the station and they're all in a single car. The car behind them is almost empty. The train isn't moving. I spot a transit system security guy and another guy in an orange vest enter the almost empty car. They speak to a middle-aged guy in a seat for a few minutes before I see him exiting the train. The guy is in a fleece-lined coat, and pulls a wheeled suitcase while carrying another bag in his other hand. He exits with a lanky teenager. The guy takes off and the teenager bums a cigarette from someone on the platform. He has a smoke with the guy. The teen is only in a long-sleeved shirt, his hands inside the cuffs. The security guy rousts him from the platform. I board my bus, and as we pull out, I see the two of them standing out in the drive.
The following week is already the week before Christmas. This happens when you work so much. A customer comes into work and it feels as if they were there dropping off just yesterday, or the same day. And it was three days ago. This month has established a pattern. Grey sky days, from which both day and night a very small amount of snow collects. Which then quickly melts. Interspersed with almost warm days. Today through the weekend is forecast to be in the 50s or even 60s F. I've been staying perhaps a half hour late at work, even on days when we aren't busy. Simply because customers come in late. And I continue to have late starts in the mornings, or calls to come in early. Which means riding to the bus or the train to work, and grabbing the bus home simply because it comes along when I get out of work. I wasn't going to purchase more transit system ride coupons until next month, simply because they are only good though the end of a year. But I got another book of ten, and I'm sure they will all get used. A funny thing happens Thursday toward close. I don't feel like riding all the way home. I enjoy getting home faster with the transit system. But even with a sizable late drop off, I have no excuse not to ride all the way as I'm out on time. Once I'm out in rush hour, which immediately get crazy once I detour off the trail home, I'm out and on and off the street and the sidewalk, ducking in and out, dancing with traffic. This long street I stumbled onto, which isn't much more than a simple two lane, but because it goes such a distance is a street of choice and busy all the time. And I'm glad that I didn't waste a transit system fare simply because I'm lazy. But before I do exit the trail on the way home, I'm coming along the river along a huge golf course. At first, I meet an oncoming motorized scooter. Then up ahead in the dark are bright taillights, alternating between each other as the blink. Someone is stopped on the trail in my lane. I hear him on his phone as I swing around him. Was he discussing a court case? In the dark, he appears to be pulling a trailer with a big guitar case. I suspect he isn't homeless. His headlamp and taillights are strong, and he wears a helmet. He shortly passes me and vanishes up ahead.
And just like that, it is the week before Christmas. Monday I am again working open to close. I wake up way too early and can't get back to sleep. I do the entire 11-hour day with four hours sleep. The entire day goes past in a flash. At close, I'm too tired to ride all the way home, so I head for the train, which then takes me to a bus home. I'm securing my bike to the front rack as I watch someone inside through the front window. He's in a leather jacket, a knit cap, and appears to be writing something on a tablet. I step aboard and realize that he's attempting to communicate with the driver with written notes on a pad. I don't know why this is, because he can speak just fine. He takes a seat in back and strikes up a conversation with another passenger. He does not use a note pad. He speaks about Jesus. About getting an operation. I've been spending more time using the transit system to and from work for one reason. I may get late starts in the morning, but my customers have been almost clandestinely coming right up to, and after, we close. I'm staying just late enough when the bus comes along, if not staying a full hour late. I don't know what it is about this month. I'm glad I took the calm before the post-Thanksgiving storm to write my Christmas cards. Tuesday, I step onto the bus after work. The driver comments, not on my increased work load, but upon the increased rush hour traffic along this boulevard. He tells me he got to the end of this line, not far from here, and it was time for him to 'turn and burn,' or skip the scheduled layover. He tells me that he took a break there anyway before heading back my way. He must wait for traffic to let him in before we can even pull away from the bus stop.
Wednesday. I'm out of the house early. The opposite of a late start. I'm headed for the supermarket down the street. More diet soda. I forgot parmesan cheese over the weekend. ...and I've decided, all things considered, that I will no doubt end up using an entire book of transit system ride coupons. So I elect to pick up another book from the supermarket. I turn down the street to take me there. A couple of blocks later I'm at a busy intersection. A little almost elderly guy waits to make his own way across. He moves as if he's homeless: slowly, as if he has nowhere he has to be. We both make out move at a break in the traffic coming from each way. He's unimpaired, but simply stepping so leisurely that I must turn around him to make it across before the oncoming traffic gets here. Oblivious to me, he steps my way, and I slow and turn sharply in an attempt to move to his opposite side. We barely miss each other...and both continue on our way. Up the long hill, I'm then at the supermarket where the clerk first comes to the conclusion that the manager did not pull any transit system ride coupons from the safe. With a phone call, she discovers that they are out of the coupons, which expire at the end of this year. Another 12 days. The transit system surely has stopped printing them. I will have to wait for the 2024 issue. I head for my bank across the street, for a roll of dollar bills. Local fare for the transit system is an even $3.00, mercifully requiring the carrying of no heavy coins. At this point, I decide to make a break for the bus to work. I have a document to drop off at my financial advisor's office before work. I wanted to do all this yesterday, but I had a later start and had to pick up a prescription. Soon I'm across town to the bus stop. There's a woman on an opposite corner. She's flying a cardboard sign which, in magic marker, announces she has seven kids and needs drivers to purchase her flowers. A couple of children sit on the corner next to her bucket of flowers. Her sign is in English, but when she says, "Merry Christmas" to a driver who just purchased one of her arrangements, she speaks with a Slavic accent. She speaks a language to the children which isn't Spanish.
My bus pulls up. I step aboard behind a young guy. The driver asks the guy why he isn't paying any fare. He reminds the driver that there is no fare for passengers under 19 between September of this year and August of the following one. This info is posted inside the bus. There's a middle-aged guy in a seat with a red and white Christmas hat on his head. Laughing, he replies, "Bullshit." It isn't clear if he's commenting on the uninformed driver or if he doubts the age of this young guy. He gets off at my stop and tells the driver, "Thanks for making me late." I watch him cross the middle of the busy boulevard and walk the wrong way, in the street, down the turn lane for my old shopping center. Friday is three days before Christmas. Wednesday, my coworker asked me to come in a hour early Thursday. Thursday, I asked her if she still needed me to come in early on Friday. She said, 'Nah.' I get a call Friday morning. 'Can I come in early?' After my paycheck from last week, I'm already close to $300 over my personal budget. I get my Christmas bonus from the boss. Thursday I deposit it. Today, it's cleared, along with an enormous paycheck from all the hours I've been working. All this means that I don't have time to go shopping for more hot dogs for work. Because I decide to head crosstown to the camera shop. I have photos ready. I decide to ride into my old neighborhood along the way. I want to stop at a branch of my bank there to order more checks. I roll up to my old street. Shit. There's a brand-new medical center on one corner where a Burger King used to be. I know it was over 30 years ago. But I used to go there Sunday mornings for their breakfast burrito. I head up the avenue only to find that my old bank branch has been sold to another bank. I turn toward the camera shop. Down the sidewalk of the busy boulevard I called home for 16 years, this side of town also has its hills. I get to the shop a half hour before they open. I cross the street to an IHOP and order breakfast to go. It's ready just as the shop opens. My omelet has been put into a giant plastic tub, with a lid which won't stay on. I shove it into a bag and cross the boulevard at a red light. I step into the shop when a clerk suggests I bring my bike inside. The street has become a place to steal bicycles. I reply that I won't be in here that long. Photos in hand, I race to the train station. I'm sitting on a bench at the platform when a middle-aged homeless guy comes walking along. He has a big round broken-off fence post he's using as a walking stick. He has a seat on another bench and fires up a sound system. Out from a speaker comes Motown songs from the 1970s.
I get out of work when we actually close. After a busy week the customers have something else to do today. I ride all the way home, for the first time this week? I'm on a final leg to my townhome complex when I'm passed by a homeless RV. When it stops at a light ahead, I can tell it needs new brakes. It turns and heads down a busy avenue. Before I get to the light, I hear the same brakes squeal. It's going to turn the same way I'm going. I try and guess where it will park. Park? Right, the park. I stay straight for the park I pass on the way home. I begin a loop around it. I don't see any camper. But there in the dark, at one lonely corner of the park, are some twenty to thirty people gathered. It strikes me as some kind of vigil. Some have balloons. Everyone is absolutely silent. I head home to turn on my lights. Along the way, I stop at the shop of the Vietnamese lady who cuts my hair. She sneaks me in between a couple of appointments. Christmas Eve is Sunday. There's a dusting of snow on the ground, which means that the sister is staying home today. I decide to take a couple of buses to the rec center. In between this pair of buses, I decide to grab breakfast/lunch at a deathburger, on the corner across from the transfer station, down the street from where I live. Inside is a homeless guy in a seat. His table has no tray. It has no cup. It's clear of any trash. Eventually he gets up to ask for the code to the men's room. I few minutes after, I hear a female voice say, "Bitch." I glance around the corner to see a woman at another table. She appears to have trouble keeping her eyes open. Another guy comes inside and makes his way to her table. He's bundled up all in black. He has a seat across from her without taking off his full black backpack. Soon, the pair get up and make their way to the exit, the woman pausing to adjust her jacket. I'm ready to go myself and happen to look out the window. The woman is at the far end of the parking lot. Her back is against the snow-covered grass between the lot and the busy boulevard. Her legs are in the air as she wipes snow off her butt.
My bus arrives and I board before another guy whose pants are falling down. He says something to the driver about gambling before he takes a seat. He gets on his phone with someone he mentions out loud is out shopping. "Yeah," he says, "I didn't know you had that dollar. You have a dollar." It's a short ride to the rec center. I walk inside at noon. I am informed that they are just closing. I call my other rec center. They close at 1 PM. I'll never make it. I walk back to the bus and return to my own neighborhood. I step out next to my supermarket, where I pick up some hot dogs. This is my new diet. I take a last bus back home. A woman steps on with a couple of kids and a baby in a sling around her shoulders. She must pull up her hoodie, underneath which is her backpack, out of which one of her kids must open a zipper and get out everyone's fare. Wow, a passenger who actually pays not only her fare, but her family's. I hear her speak to her kids in Spanish. She sits right next to me, and I ask her in Spanish how many months old her baby is. It doesn't appear to be anywhere near a year. "Un mesa," she says. Just a month? I reply in Spanish, happy birthmonth.
...once a journalist, always and forever a journalist. There were three of us, all newspapermen, the only passengers on a little tramp steamer that ran where her owners told her to go. [One of the three was] myself...vowing to forget that I had ever known the difference between an imprint and a stereo advertisement... ...we were men of the same profession... We annexed the boat formally, broke open the passengers' bathroom door...cleaned out the orange peel and cigar ends at the bottom of the bath, hired a Lascar to shave us through the voyage, and then asked each other's names. We, by virtue of our craft, were anything but ordinary men. We told...in the intervals of steady card play, more personal histories of adventure and things seen and reported... ...till the first mate, who had seen more than us all put together, but lacked the eloquent words to clothe his tales with, sat open-mouthed far into the dawn. - A Matter of Fact, by R. Kipling, reprinted with permission of the National Trust in OMNI Magazine, 10/1982
To the outside world, Dubai is...crass materialism... It was the modern New World...young people who didn't go to...elite colleges [or]have...connections in the right industries could still thrive. I could find my way in Dubai regardless of my upbringing. Exploitation of expatriates brought in as foreign laborers...continues... ...places where yet another glass building would rise from the desert. Those working in the newsroom were a fantastic mix of cultures and backgrounds. ...the recession finally made its way to Dubai. Thousands of expatriates just left their cars at the airport...unable to meet their debts. ...through the busy first months...as a real journalist...this was not the plan. ...each day at my desk...I would look up at the TV...correspondents reporting from all over the world. I was sitting on a folding chair inside a Mazda showroom... "I don't want to be here," I thought. "This spot is close to the airport." Terminal two...to Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan. ...more...than beaches and hotel bars. I bundled myself into the Porsche I pretended to love. - No Ordinary Assignment, by J. Ferguson, 2023
"We must pool our notes. We three trained journalists - we hold absolutely the biggest scoop on record. Start fair." Nothing is gained by collaboration in journalism when all deal with the same facts... "Let's go to the telegraph office and cable," I said. "Can't you hear the New York 'World' crying for news of the great sea serpent, blind, white, and smelling of musk, stricken to death by a submarine volcano, assisted by his loving wife to die in mid-ocean, as visualized by an independent American citizen, a breezy newsy, brainy newspaperman...?" "What are you going to do?" "Tell it as a lie." "Fiction?" This with the full-blooded disgust of a journalist for the illegitimate branch of the profession. ...for Truth is a naked lady...it behooves a gentleman either to give her a print petticoat or to turn his face to the wall and vow that he did not see. - Kipling
I went for a drink with a media consultant friend I was staying with in Dubai... ...he said..."you are no Lara Logan... So, it's going to be much harder for you..." Her beauty and flirtatious on-camera style were celebrated and rewarded with swift promotions... I thought back on Martha Gellhorn, Gertrude Bell, and Dervla Murphy. - Ferguson
Christmas Day. My sister is on her way to pick me up, to take me to her place. It feels below freezing all day. It was 10 degrees F. earlier. I run across the street to the gas station. Gonna be lotta food at her place, so I'm just having chips for lunch. And I have trash to toss into the can at the bus stop. There are a couple of homeless, one at each spot. Here's what they are doing for Christmas. Outside the bus shelter is parked a stolen shopping cart. Standing with the cart is a woman. The cart has a smattering of clothing as well as a backpack. Out in front of the gas station is a guy I recognize. Some weeks ago, I was coming home after work. I was on the corner opposite this one when he crossed the boulevard to this side. I recall he asked me something unintelligible. This early afternoon, he's picking up microscopic pieces of trash from the parking lot and throwing in the trash can. Both when I enter and come out, he says the same thing to me and another customer. It sounds as if he combining the words "window" and "dollar." "Windollow," he says. "Windollow." It's been a strange Christmas. I did get the usual Christmas cookies from my next-door neighbor. He's the HOA president. His sister bakes the cookies. Tuesday morning, I am sitting at a pancake house across the boulevard from work. Snowflakes are drifting down outside the window. It's a rare moment between the madcap weekend and the beginning of another open to close shift at work. I'm listening to a band called The Cure of all things, over the speaker system. Christmas was the first day below freezing which I can remember this season. I'm glad I got my neighbor's sister's cookies. My own sister was probably too busy to shop for her customary chocolate candy. She did make fudge but ended up giving it all away. And she didn't want to hassle with putting up the tree this year. Like myself, she just has too damned much to do. And it isn't as if we have any children, or at this point grandchildren. We have neither.
Pick me up she does, and we make our way past traffic which is crazy on our boulevard even for the quick Christmas Day ride to her home. I'm there just long enough for us to open presents, eat food, and have a little pie. Her drapes were closed to eliminate the glare, on the big screen TV with three football games her husband was watching. He went downstairs to get some laundry out of the dryer and watched some down there, before he came back up. The Eagles were killing the Giants with a passing and running game. She gave me some leftover mint candy from the fudge. I took some recycling out to her can, through her backyard. I could hear a neighbor over the fence. A young woman was speaking to either a child or a dog, saying, "Don't lose your balance.". They were taking the time to do some kind of activity together on Christmas Day. Which the three of us were not doing. And I was out of there and back home. As I recount the weekend in this restaurant, I now hear a song titled Moondance, not sung by Van Morrison. My sister had called me at work Friday morning before I got to work. She had simply assumed that my coworker called in, so she could have a four-day holiday. What my coworker did instead was call me the evening of Christmas, to ask me to work for her the following day. She still got a four-day holiday. I leave the house as it begins to snow. It isn't much snow and I make pretty good time. I walk up a couple of hills on the trail. I can hear the snow crunch. It's packing snow. It snows off and on all day. It's a slow day and I ride home as well.
Thursday. Today was scheduled for a month, my open to close shift. I'm out the door just before 4:30 AM, and I'm just across my boulevard. Before I turn onto the very next street, I pass a small figure in the dark. I first hear them wheezing. The figure is out here in the cold, wearing an unzipped winter jacket with the hood over their head. Wearing an unzipped coat in the winter is something I see many homeless do. They are slowly making their way down the sidewalk, leaning to one side. These on again, off again open to close shifts at work make the days with my regular shifts feel odd, suddenly having my mornings to myself. I get in the shower and it feels as if I was in there just a minute ago, instead of 24 hours ago. I'm at work with less than 4 hours to go when I spot a homeless guy making his way through our parking lot. He's young and on a bicycle, slowly coasting along with a dog on a leash. He has no helmet and shoulder length black hair, and a black beard. Together with his long-sleeved T-shirt, he appears to have pedaled here from 1976. Then, my ten-hour day is done. As usual, it wasn't busy until the last 3 hours, when the customers wake up. I circumvent the bike trail for a ride to the shopping center with a little pizza place. I think it's run by Indians. From my table, I can see the big screen TV they're watching in the kitchen. It's a period action movie, in what I assume is Hindi. Every actor is wearing a turban, and they're all on horses. The dining area is small and feels warm and cozy. One of them brings me two slices of pizza on an aluminum platter with wax paper. The daily special, chicken biryani, has been the same every day for a year. I get home and, again, am about to go to bed. When I get the call. I am opening for a third time this week tomorrow. Just as last week.
A Ghost Before Dawn
The following day, I wake up too early. My Christmas lights go on before 3 AM. They may as well. They will be coming down in three days anyway. What I was going to take care of this morning will have to wait. If it weren't for these pre-dawn displays, my lights wouldn't be on nearly as much. Yesterday and today, I've been doing in reverse the route I take home, detouring off the trail. I pass some Christmas light which are on through the night. Instead of turning toward the trail so soon, I follow a street which runs all the way down toward a US highway. It's lined with lower class homes and, further along, light industrial businesses. In the dark, I come upon a huge water tower which I don't recall seeing before. I'm yards away from the highway when something stops me. There's a sign which commemorates the traffic death of someone here. And leaning against the pole is something called a "ghost bike." It's an international symbol of someone killed on a bicycle in traffic. It's a bicycle which is painted white. Not a ready-for-action white, vibrating behind a layer of gloss. But a coating of primer, a spooky, ethereal, other worldly bone white. This one here is a child's bike. I have to pause, I have to stop. Before I climb back onto my bike and turn toward the trail under the streetlight on a remarkably quiet and empty street. The memorial is in front of a home. An outside light comes on. It goes out after a minute. If they see me here, they know exactly what I'm looking at. On these predawn mornings, I change trails at the city dump. Garbage truck drivers are just starting their engines and honking good morning to each other. On the street before the trail, I pass the lot where the city buses are parked and just getting warmed up. This morning, I watch across the river as passenger train makes its way along the track.
There's an 11-year-old's name on the memorial sign. I look it up online when I get to work. What I discover when I look up the name of a single child is the result of a five-year investigation done by a local television station news team. I never heard about it because I don't recall the last television I watched, news or otherwise. In May of 2016, a sixth grader rode out into the intersection in front of her house. An SUV came either whipping down the access road, fresh off the highway, or down a steep hill which intersects her street. I'm not sure which intersection. It attempted to brake and swerve. She never had a chance. There is a hospital with a trauma center two miles from her home, but instead she was transported to another trauma center downtown, six and a half miles away. She made it through two operations but her injuries were too extensive. She didn't make it. The mother wanted to know why she was taken to the farther trauma center. In 2021, the news team produced a half hour special which uncovered a pattern of paramedics bullied into passing up the closest trauma centers with their patients. During the news investigation, paramedics came forward to testify about their supervisors' reprimands for not transporting trauma patients to this particular hospital downtown. The very same hospital I've been going to for the past three years. The administrative chief of paramedics for that hospital resigned in 2022. That hospital's CEO retired as well. It's remarkable that I am only now dropping into the middle of this news. And that it comes at the very end of this year, the year in which she surely would have graduated high school. Instead, there's a hospital downtown with a new CEO. And a new chief of paramedics. And along a long street with steep hills, a detour to a bike trail, there's a home a few yards from the highway. It's nondescript. Inside lives a middle-aged woman. Outside, right next to the sidewalk, is a pole with a sign which bears the name of a child who will always be 11 years old. And leaning against the pole is something called a "ghost bike." This one here is a child's bike.
