Saturday, November 15, cold and a little windy at 9:14 a.m. Who cares? Look at that brilliant sunshine! I should have worn my sunglasses while I was out and about before my lecture at the nearby Architectural Heritage Center. This brick and wrought iron wall surrounds an entire city block occupied by a Shell service station and its accompanying convenience store. This block is bordered on the south by SE Alder, on the east by SE Grand, on the north by SE Washington and on the west by SE MLK. The AHC is across SE Alder from the station, at the diagonal from where I stood to take the photo, so I see it every time I go to a lecture because the bus or street car takes me south on SE MLK. When it's brilliant out, I get off a block before the Shell and get in a bit longer walk.
Wet morning on Saturday, November 22, as I waited for either the street car or the bus to arrive so that I could get closer to the AHC for that day's lecture. The man who walks across carrying the large white item had just randomly announced to another man who stood to my right and me that he was going to the large, cylindrical, concrete trash receptacle to "steal a plastic bag." You see the evidence of his success. Just before saying that and going on his quest, he'd told us that he'd gotten soaked the day before, so he wanted to get under the bus shelter with us, that he needed/hoped to be able to go to a laundromat to dry everything he had that was wet. There's the justification for his decision because he could put that huge bag over his rolling bag full of his belongings. I must say that listening to him and the rainy sounds around us made me even more thankful for my job, my apartment, my mass transit pass, all of my blessings. When it's wet out, I get off at the SE Morrison stop so that my walk to the AHC is a block shorter--I'm interested in being less wet, just like the man at the bus shelter.
