The briefly lived September sunrise tunnel over the crest of Appleby.
Why does the car cresting look like an antique car?
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Sunrise Tunnel
Category Archives: Gift
Smart!
I was ambling out of a building today.
“Uncle Richard!” It was a high-pitched little girl’s voice. Looking up, I saw the most precious little girl with brightly colored glasses smiling at me. She was probably 5 years old.
Her mom stopped and softly told her that I wasn’t her uncle.
Looking at me, the mom said that I did look extremely similar to her brother-in-law.
I was going to ask if he was prone to wearing brightly colored glasses, but the little girl spoke again.
“What’s your name?”
“Do you want to play Rumpelstiltskin? I’ll give you 27 guesses.”
This is where it got fascinating.
The little girl smiled. “I don’t need any guesses. Your name is X.”
I know I looked stupid for a couple of seconds. It’s not just that I forgot about my name badge. No one looking at it ever correctly assumes that the big X on there is my name. As far as I can tell, only psychopaths and weirdos have names like mine.
“How do you know that?”
“Your name is in the corresponding space for names.”
I laughed and looked at her mom in surprise. For a child that age, her vocabulary and logical deduction about my name and badge was truly astonishing.
“You are a very smart girl aren’t you?”
“I hope I will be.”
“Say hello to your uncle Richard for me, okay?”
The little girl smiled. “Of course.”
I would say that I thought I might have just met one of our future presidents. But she’s much too smart for that.
PS The picture is one of the talkative and quarrelsome crows that likes to fly by me.
Komorezuki
Is the picture a snapshot of dirty concrete or dappled moonlight? Mottled moonbeams is another way of describing it. The Japanese call it Komorezuki.
The shimmering effect results from moonlight or light creating pinhole cameras between the leaves.
Several times this week, I’ve stopped in the dark and watched huge expanses of this effect. It’s almost like two superimposing realities are trying to click into the same space.
I can take a picture of it, but I can’t really capture it, no more than I can descriptively recall why some moments are more vivid than others.
This is just another variation of my Septembers, when the light jumps and slides across the memory markers I’m accustomed to.
I’m 59 and still waiting for the click. When you get older and look back, it’s astonishing how many of the important moments feel like they’re not?
A Story Of Revenge
Because I got up even earlier than should be possible, I walked the dead man hill route and cut south. When I made it to North Street, the number of young people out around 1:30 was ridiculous.
By the time I looped back around and walked a short stretch of Leverett, three different cars had driven by with young men screaming from the windows in an attempt to startle me. It happens a lot. I wish I could tell all these young guys who have obviously been drinking that riding around with the back passenger window open while wearing a backward baseball cap is tantamount to catnip for police.
After I turned on Leverett again, a little white Hondaesque car drove by me slowly. Can you guess? Yet another inebriated young guy leaned out the window and screamed. “Wooooo!”
Even though I was expecting it, I jumped and laughed. The young guy leaned further out the window and waved, laughing.
The car turned on the very next left onto Hazel Street. It’s very close to Leverett. For no reason at all, I walked around the same corner. The Hondaesque car had stopped at the intersection of Hazel and Storer. The brake lights were lit, so I knew somebody was in the car.
I’m pretty sure one of the occupants was either stopping to confirm his membership in the chess club or securing more alcohol. I’ll let you decide which is more likely.
It was at that moment that I realized that Bobby Dean was calling. I walked quickly across the grass and against the trees just in case one of the car’s occupants might see me. When I was about ten feet away, I darted over to the passenger side. Keep in mind it’s about 2:00 a.m.
At the top of my lungs (two feet from the car), I screamed: “WHAT’S UP C*******ERS!”
(You have to use the terminology that young university men are prone to use, not to mention a nod to my dad.)
It turns out that two of the occupants had exited the vehicle when they arrived. Both passengers in the back seat screamed like elementary school girls.
It was as if they moved in slow motion as they overreacted. It didn’t occur to me to run off.
Both of the young guys fortunately thought it was hilarious.
“Be safe and watch out for the Watermelon Man,” I said before walking away, still grinning like an idiot.
PS The Watermelon Man is a fable invented by my dad, Bobby Dean. He’s always out at night and you never see him coming until he wants you to.
.*The picture is of beautiful new buildings recently constructed on the corner of Sycamore and Leverett. I had what should have been beautiful shots of the university skyline, but both turned out to be Mr. McGoo shots.
Saturday
I had a couple of more great moments. Spending the morning watching the multiple hummingbirds jet around was definitely worth it. I have one I nicknamed “Machine Gun” for obvious reasons. It is non-stop LOUD.
I waited until later to take Güino for a walk. As soon as we got around to the back of the building, a squirrel announced his disapproval from on top of my barbecue grill back there. I don’t speak squirrel, but he called my cat every dirty name in the book.
It started sprinkling big heavy drops. Güino danced around and darted back and forth because evidently he decided that he could evade the drops if he just acted crazy enough. He led me on a fast march down the alleyway. And then decided to borrow into the deep pile of leaves close to Gregg. I had to dig him out.
He must have learned a bad lesson from the squirrel because he spent the trip up the stairs onto my landing complaining about the utter disrespect of being made to go back inside.
Orion In The Trees
Orion through the gap in the top of the old post oak tree. The Lepus constellation was visible too, even though it doesn’t show well in this picture. I earned this picture. Post oak trees don’t get massively vertical. Instead, they get broader, much like genX as supper at 5p.m. becomes the norm. That’s why these trees have huge thick branches that extend perpendicularly close to the ground.
It was easy to get into the tree. Quite another thing to get past the middle of it in the dark. Once I was up there, I defied gravity by not wanting to come down.
I already knew it would be the memorable moment for the day. Coming down felt like defeat.
McGreasy
On a whim, I went to McDonald’s for a McGreasy a little after 5:00 a.m. I walked up the hill to Gregory Park. I had this weird feeling someone was in the dark, unseen. The 19+ acres is a spectacular place to sleep.
Because of the season slipping, it didn’t occur to me that I was there too early to walk up the steep hill to watch the sunrise. You wouldn’t think so, but it’s a beautiful spot up on top.
I sat on the outside perimeter with my feet hanging off, stuffing the McGreasy into my mouth.
“Hey, do you have an extra sandwich?”
The skin on the back of my neck crawled. I couldn’t see him and wasn’t sure how far away he was.
“No, but I’ll get one and leave it here for you. Give me 10 minutes.”
I walked back down to McDonald’s and got a sandwich and drink. Trudging back up the hill again, I was just about to place the food and drink on the outer edge.
It was time for my second startle. A short man wearing an absurdly large white hat came out of the woods on the side closer to Sycamore. He had a backpack on, so he probably got up early from wherever he was sleeping. I said good morning but he didn’t answer. He cut through the parking lot entrance and went down through the McDonald’s parking lot.
I left the food and drink on the ledge for the unseen person in the woods.
I took two pictures, both of them long exposures, even though it was totally dark where I was.
Surprise Oasis
I thought I knew this area completely, almost down to the square foot. I saw what I was sure was a brilliant orange Oriole and looked at an angle through the trees. It was a canopied oasis sloping down into a little valley that I didn’t even know existed. Dozens of birds in there, singing and chirping and flying around.
Meteors
Not sleeping a lot sometimes has its advantages. Although the spot wasn’t perfect, I went to the wide spot near the railroad tracks where I can see the panorama of the entire sky.
I didn’t get to see an enormous fireball cutting across, but I did get to see a couple of dozen meteors making hyphens across the sky.
These things travel at 37 miles a second. Some of the debris is 4.6 billion years old.
It was much darker than my picture lives on. I took a long exposure picture.
Was it worth it? I stood in the silence of the night, feeling the breeze and listening to the insects as I sipped my coffee. My imagination surpassed the speed of those brief meteors.
Ordinary World
Today was someone’s last day at work after a total of 40-plus years. Such lengths of service have become increasingly unlikely given how much the world has changed and how differently companies operate.
I’ve been at my job well over 21 years. The succession of new faces renders as a blur. When an anchor person such as the woman retiring today departs, you know things will be different.
Someone who retired almost 5 years ago after an impressive run showed up for the retirement celebration. The gap between the years collapsed to such a degree that I felt like it was merely a month ago. At her party, I remember quoting Andy from The Office: “I wish there was a way to know you’re in ‘the good old days,’ before you’ve actually left them.” Everyone knew when she left that something fundamental was shifting.
It’s likely that only older people can feel the sublime emotion that signals recognition that, in some ways, regardless of our current reality, we’ll likely look back on just about every definable era as worthy of remembering.
I should have known better than to turn on the radio in the sweltering heat of my car as I left today. There was one second of silence before the next song started playing. “Ordinary World” by Duran Duran. I’m not particularly fond of the group, but this song always touches emotions that go beyond the alleged subject matter.
“…What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some’d say
Where is the life that I recognize? (Gone away)
But I won’t cry for yesterday, there’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find…”
Strange that tears would come to my eyes. It’s almost as if these moments remind me that on some secret level, we know we are not chasers of things. And yet, we are more defined by possessions, routine, and obligation than we will ever be by the wild creative potential lurking inside of us.
Hell is truly other people. But stop to imagine how much more hellish life would be without the people spanning the decades with us.
