Hometown Pride
Your faith in humanity is shaken when the last thing you hear on the local news before going to bed is that two men, arguing about which area code (612 or 651) is better, got into a shoot out on a stretch of I-94. Read the story Man dies in I-94 shooting.

I’ve been going on brief little walks everyday in order to upset the sedentary nature of work and stretch my legs a bit. The last couple of days, I seem to have chosen to take my walks at the exact same time that the local Middle School gets out. There I am strolling amongst the shorter people of society who are darting about with little backpacks, racing to get home and play internet or Xbox no doubt. I’ve also noticed that the kids have been trained very well to avoid people like me. I’m slowly learning that adult individuals, who are not walking dogs, have no business wandering about the neighborhood three to four hours before the accepted post-dinner time when the curfew on adult walkers is lifted. To be fair I don’t make things easy on myself, what with my black jacket, and black wool skull cap pulled tightly over my dome, and sometimes rocking the three day old beard. I guess I just have to get comfortable with the fact that I look like some sketchy dude prowling the neighborhood. But damn do you really have to cross to the other side of the street and start running in the opposite direction when I come walking down the sidewalk?

But these are the days of ‘Fear-Factor’ alert orange. Even I fall into the same pattern given the right opportunity. I read an article about iPod thievery the other day. Basically the little white ear buds are such a brilliant branding idea that they’ve become a prime reason for getting jacked, much like Air Jordans in the 90’s. So now I’m on the alert when I walk around with the iPod. Two days ago I went for a walk down by the creek. The path I take to get down to the creek goes through a Holiday convenience station. As I was walking through the lot of the Holiday, bobbing my head to the beat, I noticed that a group of men were standing outside, one was holding a huge wad of cash out in the open. He started motioning me to come over. Apparently, he wanted to have a polite chat. I thought about it for a split second: group of large men, one with huge wad of cash in hand, it’s pretty dark outside, is this something I want to get involved in? Answer: no. Absolutley not. It was a safe bet that no good would come from me responding to their invitation. Unfortunately, I pointed directly at my earbuds and made some sort of half-assed gesture that was meant to be interpreted as: “Sorry sir, I have headphones on and cannot understand what you are saying, so I’m just going to keep walking, thanks anyway.” I could faintly hear them yelling towards me as I walked away and turned the corener. Well that pretty much ruined the walk for me. You see, as soon as your clear of the Holiday station you descend a large stone staircase that empties onto the path down by the creek. Picture a scene from any 80’s horror flick where dim street lamps are obscured by a soft frozen mist coming off a creek and you can see what I was up against. Just like that I turned into the Middle School kid with the fear radar going bananas.