Squeaky Clean

Bike riders casually roll by and patrons relax outside with their afternoon coffee on tables by the sidewalk.

Inside, an energized man climbs up on the window seats, soaps down the huge glass windows and then reaches for his giant size squeegie. With headphones firmly in place he bops, gyrates, dances and sings to music only he can hear.

The glass becomes crystal clear. He works amazingly fast.

A laptop, an iPod & a newspaper

As I sat quietly reading and writing in my favorite coffee shop, I was surprised to look up and see a Channel8 newsman filming a woman working on her laptop. After he filmed her from several angles, he gave her an iPod and told her to pretend to use it. Lastly he gave her a newspaper and covering the small table with it, he asked her to pretend to read the articles.

He explained to those of us who were curious - that within the next year, Channel8 will be completely high definition and all his stock footage will unusable. As he and his model were leaving, he told us he had enough similar projects to last for months.

Fallen Tombstones

I stopped to take photos of their Halloween decorations. A little red headed boy raced outside when he heard my jeep by his curb. He was too shy to look at me, he busied himself by propping up some cardboard tombstones that had fallen down, keeping his back to me.

He raced back to his front door when I was about to leave. He got up his courage, turned around to face me and posed briefly for a quick photo before I shouted, "Good-bye and Happy Halloween!".

Painting the Outdoors Outdoor

William paints outdoors with house paints (donated). The trees rustle behind him and late afternoon light plays on the ground where he's scattered lumber from the scaffolding he built. His canvas is a 10' x 30' free standing wall.

Neighbors have requested he add certain animals and plants (a deer, a bunny, woodpeckers, mushrooms) and he'll add those details with more expensive acrylic paints later.

He's far from San Diego, in the hills - at the end of a short dirt road with cabins for rent on both sides. He's hoping the property owners will pay him something for his time and effort. He's hoping this project will get him back into his art that he abandonded 30 years ago.

William walks with a limp and a twist. He's on disability and very depressed about it. Four years ago doctors did exploratory brain surgery looking for a tumor (that didn't exist) and the scar tissue caused him to have multiple sclerosis.

Every few minutes William would walk away from sketching in rocks by the side of the stream, to see how things looked from afar.

He's worried how he'll be able to paint when the weather in the hills gets cold. He had to stop working for 3 months during the summer due to heat.

William told me about collecting images. He cuts them out from books, magazines, posters - everywhere and has an extensive filing system to keep them. He uses them for ideas and references.

Someone's Lunch

Today I watched a man behind the oyster bar use a small narrow sharp knife to pry open rough lumpy ugly oyster shells. The meat was wet, gooey and puddled in the half shell, being readied for a lunch order.

What I didn't realize is that oysters sitting whole in that pile on ice, are still alive! He explained with a heavy Mexican accent that - "they die when I split the shells apart".

He worked fast, opening one quickly after another. He placed them artistically on a large dinner plate decorated with lettuce and small bowls of sauce.

I asked if they ever wiggle with a little life when the plate is being served. I had no idea raw oysters were that fresh. He said, "Yes, sometimes they wiggle when you sprinkle lemon juice on them!"

Riding the Bomb

An older couple walked in and sat at a table in the small rustic cafe (Aspendell, CA near Bishop) where I was the only occupant for lunch.

We got to talking and I learned he was 84, they had been married 61 years. Since she came from a family of 21 (2 mothers, the first one died) and he from a family of 10, they never felt the need to have children. Both were sharp, quick and fun to talk with.

He told me they lived in Las Vegas for 35 years, where he travelled 108 miles ONE WAY to work everyday!

They've retired in Bishop now, returning after 50 years, where he worked in the mines in the 1940's. He proudly told me he was "a supervisor though" in Las Vegas. He worked at the atom bomb testing site in Nevada and once headed a small crew that needed to be lowered 5,000 ft into the ground, through a 3ft diameter shaft to a live atom bomb that had been dropped into the underground chamber.

The bomb was live, but the wires got damaged in the lowering. His job was to disconnect/reconnect every thing properly. {{{{{{oh....}}}}}}

He said for many years he was unable to tell anyone what he did, or to travel out of the US. He told me the government pays for extensive medical checkups every 6 months to monitor his health from the radiation, but he feels fine and never goes in, or "bothers with that stuff". He added as I was leaving, "You know, they tested a lot more than just atom bombs in those days . . . "

A Coffee Shop Patron

A Compaq and a Dell face each other, lid to lid offering quiet tapping sounds across a wide old oak table. The low late afternoon sun creeps through the front window, finds another table and lights up an Arrowhead water bottle with bright silver sparkles.

A chocolate lab tied up outside pokes his nose hard into a woman's crotch when she moves close to greet him and the whirrr of the blender behind the shop's counter mixes something tasty for someone springing several dollars more than just $1.25 for a "Small, medium blend, please."

A stranger snores quietly in the old soft sofa.

Slovenly Sofa Sneak

Driving by this upholstery shop I saw the reward sign propped up in front. Wouldn't you have stopped too, to find out the story? A man inside working on furniture told me the customer's sofa was briefly left out in front of the shop. When they came back from working behind the building, the sofa was gone.

He pointed to a multicolored blue and brown pile of sofa cushions, looked glum and said, "That's what it looks like, those are its cushions. We haven't told the owner yet".