Mine Eyes Have Seen No Glory!

I live on a busy street where I can look out my kitchen window and watch traffic going by on a four-lane street. I see accidents quite often and I see people walking down the sidewalk daily to the little shopping center on the next corner. I am not a busy body, but my kitchen table sits facing a window looking out onto the street. When I eat any meal I am facing that window. There is no way to change it. I have seen many strange things going on outside that window. When we moved here back in 1970 there was a vacant lot across from me and some goats and a frisky donkey. Every now and again the donkey would try to start a romance with the great big Billy goat who was never in the mood to giving in to his advances. After all he did have his Nanny there and several of his children running around. The kids were a joy to watch as they climbed atop the small old sheds that were laying in disrepair and would jump around on the top of them and then they bounded off to the ground. Often times they also played head butting. The big Billy would play catch with his owner who came down to the field often bringing a big ball with him to play catch with old Billy. He would throw the ball to the goat that would lower his head, give the ball a good butt with his horns sending it back to the guy who would catch it and the process started all over again. It was so neat to watch. Then one Easter morning when I looked out the window all the babies were gone. I thought maybe the guy had moved, but he later came down to ask if we had seen anyone around. Someone had stolen them all and he suspected it was some Asians who had done the deed, as the babies were a delicacy and a tradition to eat at this particular time of year. That is what he told me and I later had the same story repeated to me by others. This is part of the Asian culture they said, but it devastated all of us! Now everything is gone and a huge apartment complex takes its place. I hardly ever see anything that makes me smile, but a lot that makes me sad. There are many homeless that go walking by and some are developmentally deprived. One woman with a back pack strapped across her back stoops to inspect things she finds on the sidewalk. She scratches the walk, then picks something up and looks it over carefully. Another has a shopping cart loaded with all her belongings. She often stops in front and goes through it all, sorts it all out then puts it all back together and goes on down the street. One day she stopped at the flood control ditch behind my house, took everything out of the cart until she found a large water bottle, poured part of it over her head and began washing her head. She then poured the remaining water over her head for a rinse. She picked up some kind of cloth and dried her hair, put everything back in the cart and off she went. I have not seen her for a long time now and I suspect she was the girl I read about in the paper that was found under a bridge somewhere. Other people have not seen her either and suspect the same thing. I have seen drugs being exchanged across the street near the bridge, a man attack another man until he was pulled off by some other men, a girl jump out of a car and run down the street in fear, police cars pull a guy over, hand cuff him and take him away, a tow truck comes for the car. The most frightening thing was someone missing the street corner on which I live and their car plowing through my fence. This has happened twice! The first time they missed the huge rock in my yard by inches. This morning a young man pushing a child in a stroller stopped to take a drink out of some kind of bottle he had tucked away in a bag sitting on top of the stroller. He put the bottle back, then walked around in front to look at the child, handed it something he took out of his pocket, and he then brushed what seemed to be crumbs from off the child’s tummy. He went back and retrieved the bottle and shared his drink with, I think it was a little boy, before again tucking it away. The man then went again in front of the kid, inspected him all over, looking satisfied he rearranged his bags on top of the stroller and proceeded down the street. People are always just stopping in the middle of the sidewalk and doing something. It is so weird. Yesterday two girls were walking down the street and one was supporting the other as it looked as though the one girl had injured her foot in some way. There was no shoe on it and she was hopping on one foot as the other girl supported her. Down the street they went. About an hour later here they come again and this time she is walking on the foot, but limping and two guys coming from the other direction stop right in front of my window for conversation with them. It looked as though they all knew each other. After a few minutes one of the fellows takes off down the street by himself, never looking back, but the other one stays with the girls and gives the one a kiss on the cheek as they all go on down the street out of sight. There are three fellows that come out daily from the apartments across the street and walk to the shopping center. They are so interesting to watch. They come down the street single file. One behind the other they go. They never smile and one walks without swinging his arms at all. He looks so mechanical. The one in the lead swings his arms a bit, but never looks around to see if the other two are coming. The third one trudges a bit with his head down. Sometimes there are only two and I sadly suspect they are handicapped also. Poor, poor people! I wish I could remember every thing I have seen, but it would fill this page and a few more. These are just some of the things I have seen since moving in. Traffic accidents happen on a regular basis and fire engines and police sirens scream by daily. I am not always sitting at my table, but besides eating there three times a day, I also do a lot of my hobby work from there. What these eyes have seen! This is another day 6/2/09. I just have to add what I saw a few minutes ago while preparing supper. A man and a woman came walking down the flood control ditch pathway, ( a lot of people do) and stopped at the end where a sidewalk begins. He handed her a jacket and she handed it back. They stood talking for a few seconds then stepped over the pipe that separates it from the sidewalk and she started walking on down the street. He turned and watched the traffic going by, leaned out across the curb and wavered a bit. I thought he was going to fall into the traffic, but he caught himself and waved at a yellow convertible driving by. Then he waved at a truck and again at another car and another. He then started jumping up and down and waving his arms. Finally, he decided to walk on down the street in the direction she had gone, but he was obviously under the influence of something for he could not walk straight. He kept veering toward the traffic and back again until he was out of sight. Just about ten minutes later, here they come back again. He was walking behind her or rather trying to walk while she ignored him and kept going. He finally made a great stretch of his hand and tried to reach out to her. He must have said something to her for she turned around and gave him a good swat on his back. he stumbled a bit, but on they went down the street, out of sight. I also forgot to mention how many people I see passing by with grocery carts filled with empty bottles. Grocery carts are not for stealing, but people do, and so up go our grocery prices. This is enough and I have seen enough, but like they say,"The show must go on!"