Sunday, February 25, 2007

KO and OK

The San Clemente State Beach Park has a small gate in the back from where one has access to the real world.
From there one can cross the bridge spanning Highway 5 to where is a grocery store and a bicycle shop.
But because the grocery store sells bread which is 5 days overdue, better is to continue walking to another grocery store about 20 minutes away.

On a walk to the second grocery store to buy the Los Angeles Times and whole wheat bread some remarkable observations were made and a weird meeting took place.

First observation was the sign for a motel.
Rather decayed. We must hope that the rooms of this motel are not in the same condition as its sign. But what is puzzling about the sign is the word “English”. It is a motel in the United States, in California itself, so why did they ever choose to put the word “English” there?
There is one well-known English hotel, called “Fawlty Towers”, but the sign looks older than this hilarious 1976 TV-series of John Cleese and Connie Booth.

Second observation was a palm tree being broken and having support of the bed of a small pick up truck.
A sad sight, a palm tree broken. The result of an act of vandalism ? Could it be fixed? Or will it die?

Third observation during the walk was a car that very recently had its window smashed by a burglar to steal what was inside.
A sad sight as well.

Not far from the grocery store a young woman, blond, sleek and attractive, a big brown bag in her arm, came out of an apartment building and approached the servant of the loyal and fervent blog readers.
She said: “Let me hold your hand”.
That surprises any man.
But the normal procedure for holding hands with a lady is that one should have developed particular reasons.
Who holds hands just out of the blue?
With a total stranger meeting in the street?
She made an effort to grab the hand but by turning away while keeping looking at her this could be avoided.
A conversation was started with this strange woman.
A confusing story followed.
Kicked out.
Pneumonia.
Alcoholic.
A bag full of problems impossible to solve by holding hands.

There is a link between the three observations and the meeting with the attractive blond woman.
Decay.
Something fundamentally going in the wrong direction in the reality of the society.
A depressing thought.

But then another remarkable thing happened.
After buying the Los Angeles Times and bread the walk back to the San Clemente State Beach Park was completely uneventful.
Nothing happened and nothing exceptional was observed.
This brought everything back in balance.
The pepper and salt.
The black and white.
The Yin and Yang.
The front and the back.
The North and the South.
The KO and the OK.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your daily stories are so great. Fascinating, original and well written. They deserve a wider audience. Like publication in a newspaper