Reverberations in the Time of Isolation

BNormal, Illinois
March 21, 2020

I was walking to Walgreen's to get a pneumonia shot when I stopped at Reverberations just to look at the 33-1/3 albums they have lining the windows - stuff like B.B. King Sings Christmas Carols and the 13th Floor Elevators Greatest Hits - and a guy stopped to chat within a safe distance (heck, I think it was about 3 or 4 feet). He says, "Man, it's like walkin into the seventies when you go in there!" I says, "Yes, I know!" jabber jabber. It turns out the guy is the same age as me, and his uncle is Yusef Lateef, and I have one of his uncle's albums! Or I think I do - maybe he played with Idris Muhammed, whose Power of Soul album I know I have.

But we chatted for a nice while - him on his way to buy balloons for his 7-year-old granddaughter and me to get my geezer shot. Another kool adventure on the street!


https://youtu.be/Fr1bzAljIn8?list=PL_WDpf_Xeu3I-R_B-tlXTt70aCEpFyRyY

Add the story of the fat girl with the short shorts whom I told to put on some pants. Also add the fact that Sveta enjoys my stories, but she said that’s enough close-proximity chatting and I should not chat with any more crazy people and stay six feet away from them!

 To paraphrase FDR on cigarettes: My Doctor Told Me to Stay as Far Away from Cigarettes as Possible.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Around Town in the Star City

Image
Summer 1993, Lincoln, Nebraska On my way to the library I passed a cute little Harley-Davidson sitting in someone's driveway. It was like a big Harley-Davidson but in miniature: very unusual. On the way back I saw a guy in bib overalls whom I took to be the owner of the bike, so I stopped and complimented him on the bike. He got a kick out of my interest and proceeded to tell me how he had rebuilt the bike from a jumble of parts ("It came in a box," he said) over the past few years. He did a great job because the thing looked brand-new. I lost him on a few arcane details, but basically the bike - a Harley-Davidson Sprint - was built in Italy in or around 1967, at a time when Harley was trying to compete with the huge influx of small Japanese bikes and their ilk. The guy used the term "entry-level" to describe the general type of bike, but while other companies produced "step-through" scooters and whining 2-strokers, Harley simply produced a s...
Read more

Keep those Chickees Satisfied!

Friday, 9-27-1985                                                                                                                  Streator, Illinois Dear Tim, I figured you could use this check you recently received in U.S. Mail. Don’t spend it too foolishly! How are things in the fast lanes of Champaign and Urbana? Any chickees on the starboard bow? Last Thursday about 2:30 a.m. I couldn’t sleep, as per usual, s...
Read more

Riding the Covid-19

Image
BNormal, Illinois April 28, 2020   I just got back from Kroger’s after I first walked downtown to drop off recycling, and then turned around to go north past the dollar store to Kroger’s. I had a little adventure when I stopped at a point more than hallway back to wait for the bus because I was tired: A little but muscular black guy in a tank top and a pork pie hat, to whom I have given a little money in the past, was talking nonstop to a nice plain young black woman, and she really didn’t pay much attention to him because he was just an old guy, blabbering and jabbering. He is in good shape, though. He was talking and talking and dancing around a little. I’m sure he does very little work but is just so charming and funny that he gets along and gets by and enjoys life. I had a red bandanna  on my face because I put it on to go into Walgreen’s to see if they had any fresh flowers, but they didn’t. However, I had stopped to take a picture of some really nice tulips a...
Read more