Avi

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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.

walking

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?

stroller for twins

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.

Little FreeLibraryThen 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.

Poetry of Robert Frost and Where the Wild Coffee Grows

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.

8 thoughts on “The Street Taken”

  1. I love this. Going for a walk. But no Free Lit­tle Libraries. I do have some good Frost books though and sev­er­al in my head. Walk­ing is under-rated.

    Reply
    • We also go walk­ing. We also run into lit­tle free libraries. But ours are chock full of romance nov­els and heavy-hand­ed evan­gel­i­cal tomes. A few weeks ago, how­ev­er we found a rat­ty copy of A Place Called Ugly. 

      Reply
  2. I wrote a lit­tle poem about a man I saw read­ing alone in a booth in a restau­rant once. I won­dered many things about his life, like you did on your walk about all these peo­ple you saw. I won­der how we appear to them.

    Reply
  3. I was in Savan­nah yes­ter­day and walked by Flan­nery O’Con­nor’s house. Under the porch was a Free Library. I could­n’t help but check it out. Oh well, noth­ing spe­cial, noth­ing entic­ing, just some romance nov­els, trav­el books and old text books. I should have walked by it and imag­ined signed books by her friends.

    Reply
  4. I’m still strug­gling to read the last book I got in a lit­tle free library-the his­tor­i­cal part is good, but I’m not a huge fan of romances in general.

    Reply
  5. I real­ly enjoyed your walk, lol. Very hon­est and a great sto­ry too. In Europe, I under­stand they have free “sto­ry vend­ing machines”. Writ­ers (any­one who likes to write) con­tribute sto­ries, poems or quotes and the recip­i­ent has no idea what they will get, like a for­tune cook­ie. Peo­ple love read­ing their lit­tle sur­pris­es while wait­ing on lines at cof­fee shops, banks, etc. And it’s a great way to pro­mote the joy of read­ing! P.S. I am from New York and I don’t think those cute lit­tle bird house libraries would stand a chance, but they are adorable! Thanks again, Avi!

    Reply

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