Summer Afternoon

It's the middle of June. Summertime. My blog inspiration is low, but I have lots of files on my PC that contain various pages I've written, so I thought, why not use them? What follows is an excerpt from one of my rambling writings.

At 7:10 PM, I decide to take my evening walk.  The air is about 85 degrees, and after the high 90s to low 100s we’ve had all summer the air feels good.  On Lynchburg Avenue I pass two men talking across a chain link fence; the man on the sidewalk side of the fence has with him a Siberian Husky.  I stop to talk to the men about the dog.  The 6-month-old Husky is friendly and jumps on me to try to lick my face.  I continue on my way past the middle school; the middle-schoolers are playing football behind the school this evening.  Their impromptu athletic field is well below the roads around it, and as I pass by I look down on the field.  Parents line the edge of the field, sitting in folding chairs watching their kids get exercise.  I pass by parents sitting in parked cars and pickups watching events on the field below.
I go east for a couple of blocks then turn south.  An elderly man sits in a rocking chair on a porch.  “It’s a great day for sitting on the porch”, I say to him.  “A lot better than a month ago”, he replies, smiling.  I continue south on Cameron Avenue.  As I cross Jackson Avenue, I see a man in a van having an argument with a woman standing beside the driver’s door.  I don’t know what the argument is about; they argue in Spanish.  Despite studying Spanish for two years in high school, I remember only enough now to say “No hablo Español”.

I turn onto Virginia Avenue and walk a short block to Violet Bank (originally a residence, now a museum).  It was built in 1775 but it burned down in 1810. The original owner had died and his wife had it rebuilt in 1815. Its architecture is in the Federal style of the period.  Violet Bank is locally famous for the massive and gnarly cucumber tree standing in front.  I’ve never been inside the museum and I’m not going inside today.

I turn onto Arlington Avenue.  It’s a short and pretty block.  The street is divided into two lanes by a center median of grass and trees.  A half minute later I arrive at Boulevard.  If I turn south I will begin a long downhill walk to the Appomatox River and a bridge across it that connects to Petersburg just a couple blocks from Old Towne.

Instead I turn north.  About two blocks later I walk by the World War 2 Memorial Park.  It’s kept in beautiful condition.  A block further on, and the Boulevard bends and blends into an assemblage of auto shops, used car lots, tattoo parlors, hair stylists, gas stations, drugstores – a gritty smorgasbord of American roadside mediocrity.  A young black woman jogs toward me with iPod earbuds plugged into her head.  I figure she’s listening to music as she jogs, but as she passes I hear her utter a phrase in some foreign language, so I surmise she’s learning a new language as she jogs.  Exercise for the body and the brain? Most likely, she’s a soldier stationed at nearby Fort Lee, preparing herself to go overseas.

I head for a drugstore entrance.  I see a gal who waits tables at the local Applebee’s Bar and Grill.  She’s talking to someone in a car, and though she sees me she gives no hint of recognizing me.  Nor do I hint at recognizing her.  Some kind of unwritten social convention seems to be at work, making each of us invisible.  As I approach her I can tell she’s talking about a recent trip to Myrtle Beach.  As I pass her and enter the store, I hear her say she was “bitten by a jellyfish”.  I knew jellyfish can sting, but are they biting now? They have teeth now? Ouch.

I spend two minutes inside the store, basking in the air conditioning.  Then—back outside.  It’s getting dusky.  Soon I’m back on Lynchburg Avenue and headed toward Lafayette.  Ahead of me I see my neighbor Carey walking her two dogs.  She’s at the corner of Lafayette and Lynchburg.  I wave and call her name.  I hear her say something, but can’t tell what.  I’ve lived two houses from her for seven years, and I’ve spoken with her in her front yard or over her backyard fence many times, and yet she’s never asked my name or given any indication she knows it.  Of course, she’s only 37; I barely exist to people born after 1970. They consider me a part of the fossil record. “Say, shouldn’t you be in a museum?”

Give me time. I’ll be there soon enough. 

It’s been a long, hot summer. Long. Hot. Summer. Did I mention hot?

Before modern air conditioning was invented (by Willis Haviland Carrier in 1902), European nations considered Washington, D.C., to be a hardship post for their ambassadors.  Summer in Washington was hot and humid.  One hundred twenty miles to the south lies my small central Virginia town.  Summers here are usually hotter than summers in Washington.  In fact, summer temperatures here are often hotter than central Florida temperatures.  Florida is helped by air off the ocean while Virginia bakes under air that has crossed thousands of miles of hot interior.

It reminds me of a bit of sarcasm from the movie Aliens (the second Alien movie):

Frost: “Hot as hell in here.”
Hudson: “Yeah man, but it's a dry heat!”

I continue my journey home. Afternoon continues its journey to night. Summer continues its journey to autumn. We all have places to be.