Weather: Light snow, low 30s, windy
Music: King Crimson (Discipline, Thrak, The Power to Believe)
Didn't have to go to Chester and grading went super-fast (yes!) so I had some free time before dinner and realized I hadn't walked down Yale Ave in forever (spring '06?). As usual, felt sluggish at first before getting into a rhythm. Got a lift somewhere around the end of the college streets when Middy drove by and honked, presumably headed to practice. Not long after that, it started to snow--small flakes, but more substantial than "flurries"--and it did that off and on for the rest of the trip. It was cool until the wind picked up and it got really cold and then it sucked (ok, it was was still pretty sweet.)
On the way out, you pass a triangle of vacant land that was signed as "Unity Park". It was a little disconcerting, not because a quarter-acre of grass doesn't qualify as a park (gotta do what you can with what you've got) but that someone had bothered to call it a park despite the fact that it was completely barren. Some dead grass and a few trees don't really get it done. I mean, we're only talking about a couple of benches between a tiny oasis and a wasteland, but we were at 0 and not counting.
Apart from that, it's just continual houses and apartments of varying quality pretty much all the way to Little Crum Creek park. Seeing Middy reminded me that of course nearly all non-faculty who work at Swarthmore can't afford to live there. The phenomenon of people living in suburbs and commuting into cities is well-established by now, but of course forced suburb-to-suburb commutes must also be common.
Past the park, it gets a little sketchier...some towing company has a big lot full of impounded cars up a side street and in general the space just stops being filled by familiar residences and is disconcertingly open. The post office is normal, but has remarkably little parking and, watching a car have to sit in the road until another guy got out of the way, I was glad I didn't have to deal with this day after day. I had thought the train station was right by the post office and looked for it, but it's actually a little further up the street...next time.
At the Yale Court Apartments near the post office, there was a cat sitting between a set of closed blinds and the window. It looked like some strange household decoration until I approached and it turned to look at me. I went kind of near it and said hi but it wasn't exactly a private spot for the cat voice...plus, it always feels weird to be too friendly towards other people's pets. That's probably not a productive thought.
I pulled into Little Crum Creek Park on the way back and sat in the gazebo for a bit. Looks like the constructed-wetland project is still going on, and then it got real cold.
Came back by way of the ville. It's pretty hard to "not like people" when they come at you as three kids talking animatedly or a young mother laughing with her baby. Walked in the same general area as a couple of Swatties and studiously avoided eye contact. Took the tunnel (with the mural) that goes between the end of the rent-a-spot parking lot and the back corner of the middle school fields. I think they repainted one of the walls white, but it might have always been that way. One of the murals is definitely still intact.
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