Mulling things on my morning ramble
with Storm, the family’s mixed Lab.
Well, I made 12 straight days of doing a Ramble with Storm, without missing one until yesterday.
It ended on the back side of the town pond yesterday morning when I received a cell phone call from an unknown number. It was a producer for Jonathan Brandmeier on WGN-AM wanting to talk.
I would leave my cell at home, except every now and then I want to take a quick photo of a red fox, geese or ducks.
So I hustled home, completely out of the tone, out of tune, and out of breath, with my normal rambling through the morning with the meathead. And I didn’t have time to do a Ramble with Storm on a deadline day and my head wasn’t right, to be blunt.
I could just give up, which I am not going to do. Instead, I will start the next round and see how long I can do a daily Ramble with Storm.
It’s a habit I enjoy.
Fall this morning. First significant piles of maple leaves under several trees as the meathead and I set off. Apparently the .2 inches of rain last night was enough with the fresh chill to trigger some response in the maples.
Yesterday I got all discombobulated with having to run downtown for a meeting on the Chicago Marathon. While I was there, I poked my head in the Sun-Times office and cleaned out of my box of mail from the past couple months.
Albert Dickens, the office sports connection at the Sun-Times, piles my mail in this big cardboard carryall. He was about ready to send me one of my regular avalanche warnings.
One neat thing was in the pile: Finding Everett Ruess by David Roberts. Taking the Metra home, I began reading it.
You will hear more about this. Ruess is one of my fascinations in life.
He’s an 20-year-old writer/artist/dreamer who disappeared in the Southwest in the 1930s and was never found.
He has become a cult hero.
In the prologue, Roberts had this gem on page 6, which sums up part of the fascination with Ruess: “And then Everett Ruess vanished from the face of the earth.”
On a cheerier note, my fish-obsessed friend came down yesterday. He didn’t catch the fish he was chasing, but landed two big amur, 20-pounders
Again, fish I didn’t realize were in the town pond.
Cool enough again that wisps of fog lifted off both old clay pits of the town pond.
Life is about learning, going with the changes.
