In the Gutter......

I walk around the block where the business is located in Santa Fe Springs nearly every afternoon. The one mile (or 1.5 miles via an extended route) is covered in just over fifteen minutes. I usually walk with my eyes turned down to the sidewalk or the street pavement along the gutter. This habit resulted in my walking into one of those "Help Wanted" posts that look more like a gallows than anything else. Specifically, I bumped my downturned forehead on the horizontal arm that hovered over the lawn at about 5'6" elevation.

CLUNK.....I found myself sitting on the lawn. Had I been hit with a baseball bat?...A 2 x 4? There was a distinct metallic clang at the instant just before I looked about from my sitting position. "How did I get there?" ....I looked up and saw the 3x3 arm of the "Help Wanted" sign post. "OK...was I bleeding?...."Where in hell did my glasses go?"....."How embarrassing...Did anyone see me?"...."What was that grit on my tongue?...Oh-Oh, I chipped my tooth."

All of the above happened in the course of ten seconds or less. I got to my feet, gathered my dignity and glasses and resumed my walk, all the while feeling for blood and for a big knot to appear on my forehead. They never did...not even a bruise appeared within the days following.

So, not having learned the lesson, I still walk with my eyes on the immediate ground in front of me.
I do avoid the areas along the path where those "Help Wanted" sign posts are planted. I like to see where I am treading and the lowered head position is conducive to pondering and meditating along the way.

Often, I will cross paths with several employees who are out for a jog or a brisk walk. For some reason these guys wear sweatshirts, hoodies, or winter jackets while jogging on the hottest of days.
I imagine they are sweating off the pounds. We always exchange the "V" for victory finger salute.

One of these men and I exchanged a quip when I saw a strangely colored wooden ball on his desk. He had picked it up while running...and he had many more oddities nestled in a tray with the ball; strange handtools, a railroad spike, screwdrivers, bits of metal, unusual screws and nails. I recognized a fellow observer of the gutter....and a collector of the detritus cast off into the streets in mysterious ways.

I have often thought that it may be possible to earn pocket change by dragging some type of mobile magnet along behind me with the express purpose of gathering the steel and iron bits I see littering the gutters. I would not only make a bit of cash, but I would be doing the good Americans who work in the area a huge favor by removing the vicious-looking nails, screws, and shards of metal from the paths of their vulnerable tires. I almost always kick the worst of the things over against the curb or pick them up and throw them into the bushes along the way. I can't kick them all out of the way...I would never get around the block, and then I might also be suspected of doing the St. Vitus dance.

I think it time to tell you what I have found, though the list is not all-inclusive:

Mobil Phones (broken), a fully charged land-line remote phone ("too far from the base"), a shattered iPod, a walkie-talkie type phone, circuit boards, bundles of corrugated cartons, functioning cigarette lighters, super-hero torsos and limbs (plastic only), shattered pill boxes, notebooks, combs (left on the ground), an empty wallet, playing cards, religious metals, a silver chain, a gold chain, tokens, license plates, hub caps, radiator caps, sandals, shoes, socks, shorts, a belt, a flattened cat that had attained the status of dried jerky, brochures for improving sexual prowess (in Spanish and English...and I did not feel the need to call), some empty tube of numbing ointment that prolonged one's ability to perform in bed, empty condom packets and the discarded contents of such (all concentrated on a short section of a particular street near the Fed-Ex depot), springs, car parts, washers of all size, fast food containers (predominantly McDonald's), dead birds, dead squirrels, dead rats, dead possums, hair nets, ear plugs, pens, pencils, nuts, bolts, sheetmetal screws, wood screws, machine screws, eyebolts,
a toilet seat, copper pipe fittings, a bottle cap collection (?), dolls, a child's car seat, metal stampings,
cheap costume jewelry, a bra, wire forms, hinges, a shotglass and so on and so on.

In all the time I have walked those streets I believe I have never found cumulatively more than a dollar in small change.

I read many years ago that archeologists found a buried Roman town in a mountain valley in Southern France. There was no memory of it and no trace of its existence on ancient maps and documents. No one knew its name at the time of discovery.

Somehow, I see a connection between the street litter and this town.

SRH