The Window Feeder

Seven Years

Yesterday on a walk, between Normandale Park and Rose City Park, I encountered some gas company employees putting in a new pipeline down one of the streets.

One guy was digging in a trench, and five of his colleagues were standing around.  As I walked past the guy digging, I asked, "How come you're the only one doing the work?"

He straightened up and laughed, then looked back at the other five.  He pointed to each one, saying "Thirty years, twenty years, twenty years... fifteen years, fifteen years..." and then pointed to himself and said, "...seven years."

We laughed and I went on my way.

Album Cover, Cleo

Album Cover, Cleo, originally uploaded by Paul Hehn.

Larry and His Big Green Truck

This wonderfully sunny afternoon held a little neighborhood excitement, in the form of a long, green truck that was simply too big to fit through any of these old urban avenues.

It was around 3:30, so there was still a fair amount of foot-traffic.  Kids getting out of school.  Moms and dads escorting younger kids home from school.

I happened to look out the front door in time to see this truck come down our street and approach the traffic circle (a traffic circle is an intentionally placed, street-narrowing obstruction).

I said to Iris, already home from school and in the kitchen, "Hey, come take a look.  This promises to be entertaining."

More than I'd bargained for, as it turns out.  Rather than go around the traffic circle, the driver went left, down Thompson street and toward Grant High School.  In the process he went over the curb and across the neighbor's yard, taking out the NO PARKING sign and the STOP sign.  That parking sign is either knocked down or stolen at least twice a year, it seems, and was only replaced a couple of months ago, after I had called to urge the city to finally take action.

Parents and kids who saw this were wide-eyed and gasping.  The driver and his big green truck proceeded on, not even pausing to survey the damage.  As he turned right in front of the high school, his truck sideswiped the power pole, giving us all a moment of fear -- but he didn't knock it down.  He merely shaved a chunk off.

And he kept going.

I lamented not having a phone or even a pen (!) on me, because it sure looked like this driver was not going to stop for any reason.  So I ran after him.

A block and a half and another turn later, I caught up with him as he paused briefly.  But he didn't actually stop until I'd pounded on the side of his cab.

Although I was out of breath -- it's been a long time since I chased a big green truck down the street, man! -- I lectured the old guy up one side and down the other.  I think you could say I gave him Holy Hell, in fact.

I asked him if he knew what he'd done, and he shrugged, the old bugger.  "I know, I'll pay for it, but what was I supposed to do?  I had to keep going, there's no other way out of here."

I told him it was customary to at least stop and check to see exactly what kind of damage he'd caused.  I asked "are you new to the truck driving business?"  He said he'd been doing it since 1949.  "I'm 78 years old," he told me.

I told him to write down his name and truck company, and his license number and his truck number.  He handed me a post-it note a minute later (he was writing to the tune of my cussing him out), but all he'd written down was his name.  I handed it back to him with more instructions, but he was a little slow on the uptake.

I wrote down what I needed.  He said "I didn't want to inconvenience any one about this."

I said "You think that's what this is, an inconvenience?"

"Well, I've taken up your time here, haven't I?"

I told him it was not an inconvenience for me, it was a matter of public safety and well worth my time to stop him and let him know there were kids all over the place and that "you just can't go through the neighborhood knocking shit over left and right, with kids all over the place."

"Well, now, I've got four grown sons of my own," he said.

"Well, that's dandy, Larry, let's call up your grown sons and tell them what kind of driver you are."  I got his name from his driver's license, you see -- a Washington license (my family chuckles at this, I'll bet, being as how I've always half-jokingly said to them "the only thing worse than an Oregon driver is an Oregon driver with Washington plates.").

He sighed.  He had the look of a guy who has been chewed out his whole life.

He was mostly concerned with how to get out of the neighborhood.  He blamed "dispatch" for telling him that 37th would get him to Columbia Boulevard.  I chided him, "you mean you've been driving for sixty years and don't bother to look at a map?"

He defiantly said "I got a map, they gave me a map."  It was a printout from Google.  "What was I supposed to do?" he asked me.

I told him as soon as he saw that traffic circle at the end of the block he should have known he couldn't come down this street.  He shrugged.

He drove off and I went home and reported the incident (a few others had already called, it turns out).  On the back of the post-it note with his information was what was obviously a shopping list.  That was the best part, as you can see below.

Just your everyday, average grocery list:

The Anatomy Lesson