Monday, November 07, 2011

on the street




I may as well have been Lieutenant Sunderstrom ashore in San Diego in On the Beach.


But it was main street in San Patricio.  At 2 in the afternoon.  On a Monday.


Where was the traffic trying to wend its way through double-parked pickups?  Where were the local residents finishing up their daily shopping?  Or the gaggles of Canadians looking for a rumored bottle of HP sauce?


I almost expected zombies to stagger out of the open, but uncustomered shops.  But that would be too easy to confuse with one of the tourist bars.


As colorful as the possibilities were, reality, as is the usual case, was far more prosaic.  No life-ending radiation.  No zombies.  No enchanting witches (well, maybe in the aforesaid tourist bars).


The non-poetic truth: it was clean up day for the San Patricio streets.




The firemen were there with their powerful hoses to assist local volunteers in clearing the hardened flood mud off of the streets.  And even though the sun was stomach-churning hot (hot enough to make me dream of a ski vacation), the volunteers were doing yeoman work in washing the mud off the streets.


And a good idea it is.  Every time I drive through any of the triplet villages, whether in town or on the highway, it looks as if Charles Schulz could find a life model for Pig-Pen.  Just like Pig-Pen, we are surrounded by the dust of ancient civilizations.


But today, the volunteers were attempting to emphasize the noun and soften the adjective.


I think they did a rather good job.

13 comments:

Marc Olson said...

Steve, wasn't George Schultz the former Secretary of State, Treasury and Labor who had a tiger tattooed on his backside?

Steve Cotton said...

Right you are.  And wrong I was.  Now, it appears I was correct all along.  The internet is such an ephemeral medium.

Marc Olson said...

Happy to be of service. It was worth a chuckle.

Penny said...

Hi Steve!  just another note to say how much I enjoy your posts over here in Blighty,  I look forward to my evening chuckle, and at best, belly laugh.
Thanks again and keep them coming.

Steve Cotton said...

We all have our roles to play. Glad you are enjoying the posts.

Steve Cotton said...

And where else could we discuss a secretary of state's butt?

Marc Olson said...

I chuckled mostly as I tried to work Pigpen into a comment about the tattoo, but the remarks were either not funny or too funny to post on a blog that's not adult-content labeled.

Kim G said...

OK, who goes out to scrub mud off the city streets in immaculate white pants and white rainboots?  I think you need to find this guy and interview him for your blog. He clearly has a different take on things than the rest of us.

Saludos,

Kim G
Boston, MA
Where we don't even shovel snow in white pants.

Steve Cotton said...

Ah, the sacrifices we make for the reading public.

Steve Cotton said...

The photograph I did not use is on its way to you by email.

Felipe Zapata said...

"Stomach-churning hot"?  It's quite nice and cool where I am.

Felipe Zapata said...

Excuse the nitpick, but the former secretary of state was Shultz, not Schultz. The politico spelled it funny-like.

Marc Olson said...

Hmmmm. I checked on it before I commented. Just goes to show you...can't trust everything you read on the 'net.