Monday, October 29, 2007

I'm no athlete, but in the distance I can launch a pumpkin from my apartment complex... is a park.
Not good enough of a descriptor?
If I stand at the apartment's welcome sign AND take off my glasses, I can STILL see the park.

And I never knew it was there, which just proves there's no better way to greet a new town than in running shoes.

The park is absolutely perfect. Its trails are a little overgrown -- almost to the point that it walks like a corn maze with trees. Reminds me of Anne of Green Gables and my own time when I felt part of fiction.

Last year at this time I had just started at the paper. One of my first "out of the office assignments" was the Henderson Syrup Festival. If if wasn't my first out of office story, it was for sure the first one I enjoyed. The drive was beautiful! Tree-lined roads, Fall leaves, red dirt, horses in green pastures, cattle with plenty of hay... if everyone has an environment meant for their combo of atoms, DNA and chocolate vs. vanilla taste, the road to Henderson was mine.

It almost didn't seem real that I could be driving down such a beautiful road, going to my job.

You can breathe better in beauty.

I breathe better in the park.

P.S.-- Funny story. I went home for lunch today (I got stuck in my apartment last night. The door knob came off in my hand and fell through to the other side. A friend came over to let me out and fix it, but I still needed to tell my apartment complex that telephone calls for help were not being forwarded last night. I'll tell more later. You'll get a chuckle.) Well, as I backed out of my parking spot at work, the radio station was still on NPR from this morning. I guess at lunch they were highlighting orchestra music that made you think of vampires, ghosts and goblins. My music for reversing out of my spot was this big scary multiple-crescendo thing that hit its mark with cymbals. That's not good parking lot music. Every time the crescendo came to the top, I slammed the brakes thinking I was going to hit the car behind me.

Drive/ brake squeal/ drive/squeal

:)

2 comments:

robin said...

:)
you're funny.
i can picture that and it makes me smile.
w/ my teeth showing.

that road sounds lovely. i think i would like it, too.

and i'm glad that you have your secret park just a pumpkin's throw away, anne w/ an e.

greyhawk said...

Hey you,

We miss you a lot around here. I remember that syrup making story. That was when I realized that we had a very talented writer onboard.

Send me some links to your writing down there.

Barbara has been asking me to get your mailing address. She wants to send you cards from time to time. She just loves card writing... Maybe you can send us an address via e-mail.

We both wish we had gotten to know you better. There's a real void in the newsroom without you.

Mike