Flying High and Walking Tall
Beautiful weekend around these parts. Temperatures are in the balmy 60’s and there’s high talk by the weather people that perhaps even 70 is a possibility sometime this week. Today is shaping up beautifully for the return of baseball and the Twins season opener later this afternoon. Thank god baseball is back! I’m rested and ready for another season of fierce fun coupled with low moments of frantic frustration.
Being as the sun was jumpin’ Saturday, I ventured out for a stroll around my fine neighborhood. I had never walked around little Diamond Lake before, so I thought I’d see what all the hullabaloo was about. It was an odd walk for sure. Essentially, I learned that if you live in a residential neighborhood densely populated by families, and you are not: a) walking a dog, b) pushing a baby carriage, or c) decked out in workout gear and traveling at speeds that indicate you are out for serious exercise, then the gaze of the community becomes quite suspicious and your motives come into question. Worse yet, if you enjoy a good cigarette on your stroll, then your situation downgrades enormously until you actually think that that cop car coming down the street is going to roll up next to you and ask to see your papers. Seeing the cop car I played out different scenarios in my head.
Cop: Let’s see some ID bubba. What exactly do think you are doing?
Me: I’m on a walk officer.
Cop: A walk? What the hell is that? Where are you going?
Me: Nowhere in particular, Sir. I’m just on a stroll.
Cop: A stroll? Don’t fuck with me punk. I don’t have time for your games. Consider your strolling days over. When I come back around here you best be strolling somewhere else.
Confessions of a paranoid mind no doubt. But just to be sure I think I’ll stick to the paths where they have those white stenciled blocky stick figures graphics of a singular person walking. The designated walking zones.
Also this weekend I got a chance to see Spider John and Tony Glover rock some olde tyme music down at the Cedar Cultural Center. Great show with five gallons of honest strumming. Not surprising, but I thought the tunes would make a damn fine soundtrack for some epic strolling.