today's walk

Just the other day I realized there is a post office within a walking distance from our house, so today I decided to take Jonah there in a handy baby backpack carrier we found for free at a garage sale last weekend. I brought an umbrella since the sky looked menacingly dark. The walk to the post office, as I had expected, was no walk through a rose garden. Our house is near a train yard and an industrial area surrounds the tracks which one has to cross to get to the post office. So, we set out along the train tracks and silo-like buildings.

Walking past the barbed wire fences and warehouses, one encounters countless danger and caution signs. We are so accustomed to going about our days ignoring the barrage of signs everywhere. What are these signs meant to communicate to us and how do their collective messages, when the words accumulate at the end of the day, affect us, whether we pay attention consciously or not?

Most of the signs I saw on our walk were signs that warned of danger, prohibited entry, or promissed punishment if laws were broken. Other than business names, I only saw two positively phrased messages. One said, "Thank you for not smoking here" and another, above a door to a video arcade, read: "Children OK." How is one supposed to have a peaceful day when one is bombarded with harsh prohibitive language at every step? And I mean every step.

The backpack I wore is extremely comfortable for both me and Jonah. The only drawback is that it's impossible to put or adjust Jonah's hat while wearing the thing. Today was a cold day and when his hat fell off, I needed to put it back on immediately. I took the backpack off, not an easy task, stood it up on the sidewalk with Jonah sitting inside, put the hat on Jonah's little head, swung the backpack around, and clumsily slid it onto my back again. I took three steps and the hat was on the ground again. Two men were standing nearby on an otherwise empty street and I entertained the idea of asking them to help. What's wrong with asking strangers for a little help once in a while? I decided to go for it.

The men were in their late twenties or early thirties. One had long died black hair, trench coat, and tall leather boots. A sort of a dungeons and dragons type. The other was a hipster, I could tell by the type of glasses he wore, but he was extremely dirty for being your typical hipster. He must work for a living, I amused myself.

"Would you mind doing me a favor and putting this hat on my son?" I asked.

"No, not at all." They were nice. The hipster's hands smelled like cigarettes and when I handed him the hat, his callouses brushed up against my fingers. He asked Jonah his name and repeated it a few times while putting the hat on Jonah's noggin. I thanked the men and, lo and behold, three steps away the hat fell down again. Oh boy, I thought. What am I going to do? I picked the hat up off the ground and alerted the urban knight and the intellectual laborer that the hat had fallen off. Again, the hipster helped, this time tying the hat strings in a bow. That did the trick for the next hour. Yes!

Next came an area I hadn't yet explored - an underpass through a tunnel alongside a busy road and underneath the train tracks. Ugh. How I hate pedestrian underpasses and tunnels. You never know who may be lurking in a dark corner or, as Tim remarked, who may have shit on the walls. There was no way of getting around the underpass, so I decided to speed up into a trot. I was a horse and Jonah the rider on my back. I must say Tim knows his underpasses. The walls had a few smears on them. And sure enough, there was a homeless man, sleeping on the ground next to his cart. Sleeping homeless men don't generally harass anyone, but there was still another corner to turn before getting up out of the tunnel. That's the part I dreaded. What do you know. Right around the corner, it was as if I had entered someone's living room. Three disheveled men were sitting there on buckets smoking. I sized them up fast and belched out a quick out-of-breath hello. Two didn't seem so happy to see me, but the third, an older man with a large handle bar mustache, greeted me with a warm, robust voice: "How are you doing today?"

I made small talk as I trotted by, "It looks like there is a big rainstorm coming our way."

"I hope not," the men replied and my favorite guy waved, yelling, "Have a nice day, girl!" behind me as Jonah and I reached daylight again. I just made a friend who'd defend me in the mean city streets, I thought, feeling safer already.

The post office clerk was grumpy and his customer service style akin to that of the gruff Czechs. He was chewing on his snack and sitting on a crate when I showed up. Granted, it was about two minutes to closing. No greeting, no how-may-I-help you? I wanted a book of stamps. He impatiently slammed his index finger on the design he thought I should get. A picture of some white lady. Figures he thought I'd like that. But instead I bought stamps with the black boxer, Sugar Ray Robinson, on them, thinking how perfect those will be when I pay my bills. That'll show those utility people. Stick it to them, Sugar Ray!

I wanted to try a different way back home. Tim had mentioned there was an old foot bridge leading across the railroad nearby. I meandered through a lush green neighborhood, eventually making my way into the industrial strip and towards the tracks. The dudes in overalls must have thought Jonah and I were a strange site in the concrete landscape. I found the footbridge, rusty and abandoned-looking. I had hoped to be able to make it across since it looked like a storm was about to send buckets of rain crashing down onto us and the next road leading across the train yard was a ways away. To my surprise the bridge wasn't closed off. Some of the wood appeared rotten, but in several places, the boards had been replaced with brand new wood. The bridge must be well taken care of, though it doesn't appear so, I thought and continued climbing the stairs. The higher we climbed, the more my heart pounded. The bridge was so high at the top, that I didn't dare look down. What if they had forgotten to replace one of the old rotten boards? I made sure to step only on the new, gold-colored boards, but at one point, the brand new plank I had stepped on bent so far down under my foot that I thought it would pop like an overstretched rubber band. No! Not now! I felt the adrenaline propelling me to the other side. Thank goodness we made it across, safe and dry. No cracked boards, no boogie men, not even a drop of rain.