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Second Street Waving Guy
dateline: Rochester, Mn
On 2nd Street the trees are barren. The concrete sidewalks leading to St. Mary’s hospital are a dull steel grey, a seamless blend into the darkened overcast skies on a late fall afternoon. There is no horizon. The seasonal vestige; faint, shadowy leaf prints left by tannins of giant red oaks. Punctuated by the splattered droppings of a thousand incontinent crows, I find myself hop scotching the chalky residue, as if I’m Adrian Monk tap dancing to avoid the lines.
Aside from the avian catharsis, Rochester, Minnesota is a robust city. By the numbers, one hundred thousand people enjoy an 85 mile web of bike and walking trails in a lifestyle so healthy that they, by necessity, find it necessary to import two million sick people a year to achieve homeostasis. I imagine the blackened chewing gum residue, the side-by-side companion of bird poop, must be the healthier, sugar-free variety. What is unhealthy; a belief that hockey is an actual sport, rather than an annuity established by the local dental society. Deception can be comforting, pain free.
Walking briskly to a heavy cadence; the composition of taxis, ambulances, employee shuttles, patient transport buses, horns, and everyday commuters on cell phones, the white noise becomes Mozart symphony # 35 . Up ahead, the day brightening delight, a visit with my friend, Joe, the self-proclaimed “waving guy of second street” at his 800 block apt. driveway. Joe’s wardrobe defies conventional dress code. For hours each day, festooned in elaborate bling, multiple hats and scarves, layers of mismatched colorful clothes, Joe waves a half dozen flags at passersby. His technique is graceful as he raises the flags reverently skyward, while concomitantly lifting his heels, a Julliard le grande jéte in constant motion. Perhaps an exaggeration, but to this observer, Joe appears an illusion of flight.
The choreography, while not sublime, precipitates stares from the curious, a passing bicyclist disguised as a Mayo physician commenting ‘only in America’, and the staccato beeping from the friendly and familiar; police, cabbies, and bus drivers. For most, however, a 90 degree shun for fear of peering into our collective national soul, the same eye contact we avoid while reading the crayola scrawled cardboard of the jobless at the intersection to the big box store.
Why does he do it ? A description of head case, whack job, playing without a full deck, borderline schizophrenia, or choose a diagnosis of convenience, it hardly matters. He is my friend. Does he hear voices ? I think we all do. When no one is listening. I could tell you more, his age, his life, his family, but I won’t….personal privacy has become the trampled stepchild in binary code.
What I can share; he enjoys his calling, is very patriotic, optimistic, and believes the world’s ills could be ameliorated if only we were nicer to one another. He is addicted to Pepsi, the regular, 150 calories per can, not caffeine or sugar free. So I bring him a case a week. And some cheap frozen dinners. And fresh fruit. The bottom line, Joe is an abdomen and a smile with a happy ending.
Today’s flags; Old Glory, POW/MIA, Mexico, Japan, breast cancer, and Greece. Perhaps Joe knows more about the international monetary crisis than he is willing to share. In a world divided by war, political acrimony, obscene economic disparity, religious tension, and poverty, maybe we should put a stethoscope to Joe’s temporal lobe and take a listen.
It may be time to treat the crows with immodium.
©insightout2011
‘On’ The Wagon Wheel, the depths of despair, Part II
This is Jack’s sequel, a continuum of remembered events as they may have happened, here again, in his own words.
I felt rather sprightly on the return to the casita. After a wholehearted attempt to display my loyalty and affection to Mrs. 3M, the atmosphere went south, quickly, and the following conversation ensued:
Mrs 3M, “what has gotten into this dog, he’s pawing my breasts, licking my ears, more amorous than a hormonal sixteen year old wearing a snuggie ® ?”
3M, “he may have had a beer at the wheel”.
Mrs. 3M, “ May have. May have ? Look at him, he’s staggering. Oh my word, you’ve brought him home drunk. Again. This has to stop.
The atmosphere was tense. Dos equis beer and domestic cheer, rhyme, like oiled and foiled….. I fear the jig is up, and I’m destined to an eternal diet of Beneful® and water. I enjoy the company of older women and Mrs. 3M is only nine y/o in dog years and at age seven, our age difference is not an older woman/younger man issue. She has always been my favorite but has also made it clear, she does not date outside her species.
The household conversation on the days following is subdued, and scary;
- mention of AA and the ‘twelve steps’ program
- a possible visit to a southern California re-hab facility endowed by Betty Ford (Asta, Toto, Lassie, and half of the 100 dalmatians have been patients)
- sessions with a tough love instructoress, rumored to wear more leather than Trigger.
I’m getting despondent, forced to stay in the yard, where I can only nap and dream of halcyon days with Ruby, an AKC registered English Pointer from Oregon, papers to prove it, and friendly enough to outweigh her prep school pedigree. Ruby Red, no relation to the grapefruit of the same name, is an ADHD knucklehead, constant motion, with the brains of a drugstore throwaway camera….point and shoot. Her urine has more Ritalin metabolites than the fourth grade class at the local charter school, but get this. When we share a Tecate, I get to drink the beer and she gets to eat the empty can. Did I mention that she’s a knucklehead ?
Ruby, with her unidentified (thanks to photoshop) handler
Old 3M is loyal, attentive, but he, too, has major shortcomings;
a) cheapskate
b) hearing impaired
Combined, an almost tragic occurrence, while 3M tried to find the least expensive way to ship me off to the Palm Springs “resort”. Watching the USPS commercials where the postman reminds the viewing audience, “ if it fits, it ships“, he figured that since I wasn’t liquid, fragile, hazardous, or perishable, why not send little Jack to La-La land by priority mail ? Half deaf, he thought the announcer said, “if it s#its, it fits, and all at a fixed rate”. 3M is no bird dog, but that doesn’t rule out his bird brain or the use of swear words.
Delivery confirmation, anyone ?
We’re headed back to the Midwest, in the truck, and 3M is forcing me to listen to sermons-on-tape and gospel music. An unscheduled stop in Canadian, Texas , an “oasis on the prairie”, and against my will, a demeaning photograph taken at the doorway to the WCTU, a deliberate effort to shame me publicly. No, this is not the local radio station, but home to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, a 1930’s organization of mouthy babes that was anything but temperate who would ✂ your doghood on demand. And, no, I am not taking nitrates for chest pain, nor do I have kidney or liver problems.
“honest, officer, it was just one beer”
For the moment, 3M and I are at an impasse. I can’t get into the 12 steppy thing as I can’t get past #1 (admitting that I am powerless and my life is unmanageable), and I find #4 (a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself) reprehensible. Add to that, these are numbers aimed at the two-legged, and with four legs, I’m not agreeing to any jive 24-step program.
Staring pensively, over the Rio Grande’s Mesilla Valley, Las Cruces, NM. Along with an overgrown roadrunner, contemplating a ‘dry’ future.
I don’t care what readers may think or write, I don’t have a problem, and if you’re from the PETA, SPCA, or the WCTU, please keep it to yourself….I’m not taking any calls.
Salud, or in a word from my pal Werner, Austrian friend and host, Prost.
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