Neighborhood Review
One of the neighborhood cats hurt his paw and has been limping back and forth across the street. It's the big slow yellow dirty one who likes to lay in my yard and the neighbor's driveway and sometimes on my porch. He's the first cat I remember seeing around here and I'm worried about him, I think he's losing weight. I've thought about putting food out for him but I don't really want him on my porch because he was mean to my cat once, and the possum would probably just eat all the food anyway. Except I don't think the possum is around anymore. I think now just a snake lives where the possum used to live. At first I thought maybe the snake and the possum lived in there together, but now I don't think they do, I think they would rather kill each other than live together.
In the afternoon it's hot out and I ride my bike or drive my truck to get places. Lots of days I see a scrawny old man standing in his yard with his hat on and his shirt off and he lifts up his arm at me as I go by in my truck. I'm always driving with my left elbow out the window and my left hand in a raised fist and my forehead leaning on the fist and I open my hand up in salute when the old man raises his wobbly arm towards me.
But in the evening it is cool and the yards are deep and green and purple with lightning bugs. Last night when I was walking west down the hill I heard a buzzing and it was a man giving his son a haircut on their porch. The man's wife was on the porch too, watching everything, and she smiled at me and I smiled at her but she couldn't see because I was in the shadow of the trees and sidewalks and she was lit up by the porchlight.
Two nights before, in a different part of the neighborhood, someone jumped off a porch I was walking past and said "Hey hi how're you" and I said "I'm awlright, how're you" and he nodded quickly and then someone else crashed out the door of the same house and yelled "Call the police! That fucker just stabbed me! He borrowed my paintbrush and then he just stabbed me gimme your cellphone!" I stopped walking and looked around and the first guy was gone and the second guy was holding a paintbrush but he wasn't bleeding or anything and I didn't see any knife sticking out of him. Then a girl threw open the door and came out of the house waving her cellphone and screaming for the police and I hurried home.
My new goal when I go for walks is to start saying Hey or Hi or Hello to everyone I meet. Probably either Hey or Hello. Hullo. If I can teach myself to be friendly to people I don't know, maybe eventually I can learn to be friendly with people I do know.
In the afternoon it's hot out and I ride my bike or drive my truck to get places. Lots of days I see a scrawny old man standing in his yard with his hat on and his shirt off and he lifts up his arm at me as I go by in my truck. I'm always driving with my left elbow out the window and my left hand in a raised fist and my forehead leaning on the fist and I open my hand up in salute when the old man raises his wobbly arm towards me.
But in the evening it is cool and the yards are deep and green and purple with lightning bugs. Last night when I was walking west down the hill I heard a buzzing and it was a man giving his son a haircut on their porch. The man's wife was on the porch too, watching everything, and she smiled at me and I smiled at her but she couldn't see because I was in the shadow of the trees and sidewalks and she was lit up by the porchlight.
Two nights before, in a different part of the neighborhood, someone jumped off a porch I was walking past and said "Hey hi how're you" and I said "I'm awlright, how're you" and he nodded quickly and then someone else crashed out the door of the same house and yelled "Call the police! That fucker just stabbed me! He borrowed my paintbrush and then he just stabbed me gimme your cellphone!" I stopped walking and looked around and the first guy was gone and the second guy was holding a paintbrush but he wasn't bleeding or anything and I didn't see any knife sticking out of him. Then a girl threw open the door and came out of the house waving her cellphone and screaming for the police and I hurried home.
My new goal when I go for walks is to start saying Hey or Hi or Hello to everyone I meet. Probably either Hey or Hello. Hullo. If I can teach myself to be friendly to people I don't know, maybe eventually I can learn to be friendly with people I do know.