Grandma Might Have Been Right

It was always with plentiful grains of doubt with which I listened to some of the things that rolled off my grandma's tongue.  Those things about how you'll get a cold in your neck if a breeze through an open window in the car should blow against it.  How garbage juice and muck stuck to the bottom of a garbage can turned into maggots.  How she could tell it was going to rain by the aches and pains in her body.

It's that last one that she might have been right about.  My "bad knee" has been aching like a rotten tooth since yesterday when our weather took a decided turn for the worse with on and off rain that's supposed to be continuing through the next four days.  Although I have a handicap license plate on my scooter, there are days like today when even the walk from a designated parking space to the entrance of a store is a new exercise in pain.  That's when I tend to park like this right beside the building itself.  Although I see lots of riders doing the same thing, particularly the crotch rocket guys, I still tend to think of it as a jackass move and don't do it too often.

I suppose I didn't really need to go out this morning, but with a brief stop in the rain and my hankering for a bowl of chili for lunch I checked the local radar forecast and headed to the supermarket that I thought stocked my favorite brand.  I entered the store around aisle 1 and was directed to aisle 12 at the other end of the seeming mile long front end to find the canned chili. (Yes, I can make a great pot from scratch, but I didn't have the time to do that to satisfy my immediate taste for some of the stuff.)  I settled on their house brand to save twenty cents on the can, quickly completed my purchase and headed out to beat the return of the raindrops while I still could.

Paul, this photo's for you.  One of my former students got me this magnetic bumper sticker that I've had on the crate on the back of the scooter for a few years now.  Although I'm sure there's not always a Christian behind me when I'm out riding, I'm sure everybody gets the point to leave a little room.

If you really looked at the junk in the crate in the picture above, you'll have seen my red cane sticking out on either side of it.  I've taken to carrying it with me when I go out, most of the time.  On a day like today, though, I parked right behind the rows of shopping carts near the entrance so I was only a few steps away from grabbing one to use as a walker on wheels.

As I rode out of the lot with my chili, in the distance I could hear the plaintive wail of the horns atop the Luzerne and Susquehanna train engine that often works through the valley making numbers of short stops to drop off freight and pick up empty cars.  From experience I had a good guess as to where the engine might have been and rode off in that direction.  When I got to the parking lot adjacent to the tracks, it was waiting before crossing the right of way and I was just in time to get the camera out of its case on my belt.

 

 If this attempt at uploading the video works, here's the train crossing Butler St. in Wilkes-Barre, PA.

The sky was getting ever darker since I'd left the house so after watching the short train make it through the at grade crossing I thought it best to head back home.

I got the chili into the microwave, grabbed a magazine and the box of crackers, and then headed to the deck just as soon as the chili was sufficiently warmed.  I'd eaten only a few bites before I felt the first plops of rain arriving in time to warn me that many more were coming; back into the house I went.

I didn't allow the tiny disappointment of not being able to finish my lunch outdoors get to me, but instead I counted my blessings.  In spite of the ache in my knee and the bad weather I was able to get in a nice ride and to see a train.  All in all, not a bad high spot at all to a gray, otherwise ordinary day!