Sunday, February 7, 2010

80 year old twins and mental walking

Sometimes, when I'm on my morning walk, these old memory newsreels pop into my head. I often choose the Green River trail for walking, and there are "regulars" you see over time. Recent newcomers I've noticed are two early 20s twin sisters. This morning they were power walking past me, one of them lifting up her wrist to check their time, and I flashed back to the old 80?ish twin sisters I saw in New York many years ago. Two very old looking twin sisters who were homeless, in Grand Central Station. Matching dirty mid-calf coats, holding paper bags in their hands, just two of the train station's homeless contingent, but twin sisters.

A few minutes later, when I saw the LRT go by, I remembered New York's subway, and going out to Coney Island. I have these images of riding the elevated rails through the Bronx?, and seeing all of these burned out tenement buildings, etc. It was during a phase, I think, when some people were doing that kind of thing to collect insurance? I don't know. I vaguely remember watching something about it on "60 minutes" later. What hit me most is that it reminded me of Vietnam, or some of those old images of bombed out buildings in Europe during WWII, and thinking "where am I"?

Some days, I kick it up a few notches, like the 20 year twins, and move faster. Not today. Today was one of those mental walking days, just walking around somewhere in my past...

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