8/19/2011 19:23

Old Stories On a New Day

The weather was nice this morning when I took the book back to the library. I don't often give up on a book, especially a novel that I've read 3/4 of, but in this case I just didn't care anymore about what happened to the fictional characters which populated the wandering narrative.

So, as I said, I took the book back to the library. Then I took out a different book and a movie. But the weather was too nice to ignore. Instead of heading for home, I turned my bike the other way and headed off through the familiar residential area of Spence Street first, to the west, and then South Oakland Avenue, to the east. I came across from west to east on Western Avenue and Clinton Street -- that used to be south of the railroad yard, but the yard is pretty well reduced to just a few tracks; in any case, it is south of the tracks.

I didn't want to ride across Ashland Avenue; it is too busy to enjoy. The traffic on a Friday morning wouldn't necessarily have delayed me inordinantly but it would have required my attention. I was making a pleasant meander through a pleasant summer morning; there was no call to give undue attention to motor vehicles.

Instead, I turned on South Oakland Avenue. The right of way for Oakland Avenue crosses the remnant of the east end of the yard, but the street itself has long been cut off there in order, I suppose, to avoid the dangers from the railroad switching which formerly was incessant in the yard. The sidewalk, however, has been continued. I was pleased (and a little surprised) to see that the walkway has been recently improved where it crosses the tracks, so that it is again possible to ride the bike, rather than having to carry it across the tracks.

With this advantage, I coasted easily into Seymour Park. The South Oakland Avenue, used to run through the park, just as once it ran through the rail yards. Recently -- to my almost 60-year-old mind -- the park has taken over the street and cars have to turn through what had been an alley to reach Ashland Avenue (which still runs through the park, one block to the east). There also is no walkway on the old street within the park, but that doesn't mean that bikes are barred; it only means that we need to shift down in order to run on the grass. Which I did, reconnecting with the traffic lanes on the far side.

As I rode the block north of Seymour Park, I noticed a car pull into a driveway and a boy there stand up, greet them, and proceed to retrieve some material they desired. As I rode easily past the scene, I slowly began to make some rational connections.

"That was Josh," I said to myself.

"I should stop and say hi," I thought.

"I'd have to turn around and go back."

"Where could I turn around?"

"I could turn here at the intersection."

"I should go slowly, so that the car can back out and leave."

And so it happened that I returned to the driveway and found Josh sitting next to a white 1979 pickup truck with automotive paint in his hand.

"1979," I mused. "What was I doing in 1979? Oh, yes, I was in Madison wasting my time." Which is a bit of an exaggeration, but accurate enough for casual conversation on a summer morning.

"You didn't have to go to Madison to waste time," Josh said. And so we continued in conversation about his truck, the rust which was mostly well remediated, the dent in the left front fender and the possible solutions to that, the mileage he can expect to get with it, and the contrast between the 17 miles per gallon he found on an internet page for this vehicle and the ridiculously poor mileage of some much newer vehicles -- I cited the Hummer specifically -- which other people, adults no less, have foolishly embraced.

As we talked, I noticed the flowers which Josh's mother raises along the foundation of the house. Suddenly, a monarch butterfly approached one of the blossoms and perched. It was shortly joined there by a large bumblebee.

"It's unusual for me to see a butterfly and a bumblebee sharing the same flower," I observed. "If I had my camera I would try to get a picture, but they'd fly away as I approached, and anyway I don't have the macro lens to really get the shot even if they didn't. So it's probably better that my camera is at my house."

This reminded me of my friend Randy, who is a better photographer than I, but a poorer analyst even within the realm of photography. At one point we convinced him to take a photography course at NWTC, since after all he lives across the street from there. He couldn't get into the basic photography course so he was taking the advanced course.

"Was that because of scheduling or because they wouldn't let him into the other course?" Josh interrupted.

"I'm pretty sure that it was the schedule," I said, struggling to remember whether I really knew the answer to this question. I think I did at the time, but I'm not so sure any more.

In any case, I continued to tell how Emory, one of Randy's classmates, had been taking pictures of dragonflies. In fact, he still does. Emory was recently invited to the museum to show some of his dragonfly photos, and Randy went to see. Emory also talked about his equipment and the camera settings which he uses in order to get impressive closeups of insects.

Subsequently, Randy has made renewed attempts to add insect portraiture to his reportoire; he sent me two of the better examples and also reported his enhanced appreciation of Emory's choices in equipment and settings.

"One of the things I've noticed," I told Josh, who is only 17, "is that once you get to some age over 50 you have so many stories that gets difficult to stop telling them."

"I've noticed that about you," Josh said tolerantly.


The book that I gave up on was a long and wandering narrative with excessive discursions into matters which could have been important for some other story, but not for the one in the book. I'm pretty sure that in actual reality the author must be a garrolous old man. Like me.