Dorothy the Crack Head revisited

I haven't been at this blogging thing long enough to start doing reruns. It's like Hootie and the Blow fish doing a Greatest Hits album. But I always thought this was one of the top 3 or 4 things Ive ever written, and it goes with the post above it, sort of. If you have already read it, my apologies for subjecting you to it all over again. If you haven't , then shame on you for not reading through my archives.

The Autumn Leaves have got me Thinking
I should shave my dogs. Seriously. Here’s the thing, I live on the ground floor, backside of my building. There’s a big honkin walnut tree that drops its leaves to be blown in front of my door. When we come back inside from a walk the dogs drag in a half bushel of leaves and proceed to leave a trail of them all over the place. I find leaves in my bed, leaves on the floor, leaves on the sofa, leaves all over the joint. I’m thinking of trading my vacuum cleaner in for a leaf blower or a rake.

I know , I know, everyone and their brother writes some flowery prose about autumn making them feel more alive as they watch everything dying around them. Or some will write how all of the death and decay that comes with fall makes them feel lonely, melancholy and depressed. All very moving, and done to death.

As I took the mutts out for our morning walk we encountered the One Shoed Crack Head I mentioned in one of my previous posts. She did have both shoes on today. As she high stepped past us on the sidewalk I said good morning to her. She took one look at the vicious man eating 4 and 6 pound beasts. Her eyes which already had that enormous pupil-ed glazed expression, suddenly got even wider. In response to my greeting she said " I’m scared of dogs". She picked up the pace and headed toward Main street.

The thing that was different from this encounter was that it was the first time we had ever exchanged words. She had a strong Okie or Arkie accent. She pronounced scared as skeered, and dogs was daawwgs. That 3 or 4 second exchange got me to thinking. My first thought was "you’re a long way from home Dorothy. It also made me realize while this city is a far cry from New York or L A, it is still a place that can chew you up and spit you out if you aren’t careful.

During the rest of the walk I pondered what her story was. How did she get to such a sad and misspent way of life? I thought there were a lot of things she should be skeered of other than daawwgs.I wish that it made me feel something profound. I wish it would set off some creative writing jag that would make me the next Steinbeck. But it does not bring about anything so monumental and earth shattering. It just makes me bitch about the damn leaves that I keep crunching up between the sheets and leaves me feeling a little guilty that I was so quick to laugh at Dorothy the crack head.