The Street Taken

Most days between the hours of one PM and three, I hoist myself up from my desk and do some exer­cise. It might be swim­ming or it might be walk­ing. The swim­ming, I think, speaks for itself, but the walk­ing is some­thing else.

When in Den­ver, I usu­al­ly walk a mile, from my house, to Hol­ly Street, a mile. I walk along Twelfth Street. It’s a fair­ly non­de­script neigh­bor­hood, dull to tell the truth, the way much of Denver’s archi­tec­ture is dull —one lev­el sub­ur­ban hous­es brought into the city center.

There are not many peo­ple (or cars) out on Twelfth Street at that time. I do see a fair num­ber of dogs tak­ing their peo­ple out for a walk. Down along the park most days there is a yel­low taxi parked. The dri­ver sits there, asleep or on his phone. Is he wait­ing for a call? Play­ing games? Hid­ing? Or, is he, as I often see him, just sleeping?

Today when I pass the bas­ket­ball court there are two guys, both beard­ed, one very fat, one very skin­ny. They are shoot­ing bas­kets, but always miss­ing, always talk­ing. What are they talk­ing about? March mad­ness? Diets?

There was also a young man push­ing a stroller meant for twins, but there were no chil­dren in it. He did have a large white dog on a leash, and via cell phone, talk­ing to some­one. Was he try­ing to locate his chil­dren? Telling a care­tak­er he was coming?

There was anoth­er young man, rings in his nose, ear plugs in ears, and he was nod­ding vig­or­ous­ly. Was he agree­ing with some­one, or was it music with a heavy beat?

A girl with flam­ing red hair, was being pulled hard by a dog as she tried to nav­i­gate the deep slush. The dog’s paws are wet. Are hers?

I saw a large lady with a very tiny dog. Since we had a heavy (eight inch­es) snow two days ago, the street gut­ters were like rivers. Would the dog wade through, jump over, or resist entire­ly? What about the woman? And I do won­der: Where does all that swift­ly (and often deep) flow­ing water go?

Den­ver is the kind of city—my neigh­bor­hood any­way, where—in passing—people say “hel­lo” or “good after­noon.” A pleas­ant cus­tom. A con­nec­tion, how­ev­er slight.

Then there is the big induce­ment for my walk, and some­times I do need an induce­ment. At almost the half-mile point of my stroll is one of those lit­tle free libraries. They look like bird hous­es, but in their nests books have been laid away. And—free!

This par­tic­u­lar “free library” is curi­ous. They often have what I think are good books, by good authors. I won­der who curates this library. Are they smart read­ers because they have good books, or are they dis­in­ter­est­ed read­ers because they give away what I think are good books?

Today, on my walk, I found two such books. The Poet­ry of Robert Frost: All Eleven of his Books—Complete. I enjoy read­ing Frost. Good find.

The oth­er book is titled, Where the Wild Cof­fee Grows: The Untold Sto­ry of Cof­fee from the Cloud Forests of Ethiopia to your Cup. Since good cof­fee is my fire-starter, I couldn’t resist. The his­to­ry of cof­fee. More odd facts, more curi­ous details for my head.

I will read some of both books tonight.

 As I was walk­ing back home—down Eighth Street—carrying my books, I must have had the cov­er of the Frost poet­ry col­lec­tion show­ing. Because as I passed a man, he glanced at me and called out, “Ah, Robert Frost!” That’s all he said.

But it was the per­fect reader’s exchange for the road taken.