Starry, Starry Night

Courtesy of BBC

One of the benefits of jogging at “0-dark-30” is that I occasionally sight celestial phenomena not visible during daylight hours.  For example, the “blood moon” eclipse from a few months ago.  When not overcast, the night sky is just populated with stars and the generic white moon.  Which, truth be told, is certainly impressive enough that I never get tired of it.  The view changes constantly, and as the seasons move along, there is always the added beauty of the juxtaposition of Venus, the “morning star”, hanging in the sky close to the moon as dawn approaches.

Courtesy of yours truly!

Once or twice a year, though, I will see a meteor: a brief, thin streak of light generated as a chunk of solid matter is incinerated by friction as it penetrates the atmosphere.  Given the vastness of the dome of heaven, that a meteor even falls in my line of sight is a small miracle.  Usually, I catch only a glimpse in my peripheral vision and by the time I turn my head to get a better look, the streak is gone in as little time as a heartbeat, leaving me to wonder if I actually saw anything at all.

This morning was different.  As I was bouncing up the hill towards the Mira Costa College campus in my Merrell Barefoot Train True Glove Shoes, a sudden, green glow in the sky on the left edge of my vision caught my attention.  My head snapped left and I saw a bright, emerald green streak plunge towards the earth.  A heartbeat, then another, then the green streak turned to orange before fragmenting into dots of light and finally disappearing, like a 4th of July rocket.

I wondered what mineral composition would glow vividly green under the intense heat and pressure of colliding with air at thousands of miles per hour.  (Later I found out it was probably nickel or copper).  This meteor was either larger than what I normally encounter or much closer, or both.  In any case, it was not the typical, pedestrian variety I usually catch in the wee morning hours.  Somehow, out of the vastness of space, a hefty rock found our planet and treated me to a brief, brilliant, personal fireworks display.  A gift to start the day.

Penny For My Thought?

In God We Trust,
cuz the money ain't worth nuthin!

I was reminded of one of my favorite books while out jogging yesterday morning.  In the glow of the
street lamp, I caught a glimpse of a shiny, new penny.  In less than a stride, in much shorter time than it takes to write this, I thought: "Should I stop to pick it up?  No, it's not worth it.  It's just a hunk of zinc pretending to be copper.  A penny can't buy anything anymore."  So, I left it there.

When I was a kid, pocket change was non-existent.  Mom had no money to spare and I was clueless about how to earn my own.  So, I learned to have a sharp eye for any coins that might be in my path when I was out and about, a habit I carry to this day.  A penny could buy a piece of candy, any larger coin was a treasure.  I can remember distinctly walking back to class from lunch break one day in elementary school and spotting a nickel.  A whole nickel!  Thoughts of what I could do with this small fortune began to dance in my head as I bent down to get it.  But my friend that was with me had seen it as well and swooped down and scooped it before I could.  With all the aggrieved unreasonableness of a 10 year old I said, "Hey, give it to me!  I saw it first."  To which my friend replied, "But I GOT it first."  (Possession is 9/10's of the law...) How I knew I had seen it first is a mystery.  But to this day I am sure I did.  This 'eye for money' served me well many years later.  My wife and I were out with the youth pastor and a crowd of teenagers from our church on a 16 mile walk-a-thon to raise funds for some worthy cause.  I had made it to the end once already and hitched a ride back to help encourage some of the less ambitious (including Mrs. Robidoux).  As we trudged along the side of the road, my eye caught a glimpse of a faded, crumpled green-and-white piece of paper.  Again, my mind raced through the options of "No, it really can't be money.  Think of all the people who have already been by here.  Paper money can't survive being outside very long.  If I pick up a piece of trash I will look stupid."  Still, I stooped down, picked it up, and unfolded a $100 bill.  After donating a portion to the worthy cause, my wife and I had an excellent dinner out that night.  Which, in my mind, more than made up for the nickel I missed out on back in elementary school.

Oh, the book?  Whatever Happened To Penny Candy by Richard Maybury.  It is required reading for our girls when they hit high school.  The author does a great job of explaining why we have a lot more pennies and dollars floating around our economy than a generation ago and why those dollars won't buy nearly as much.  Two personal examples: I grew up with penny candy vending machines that now require a quarter.  The home that cost my father-in-law under $30,000 some 40 years ago would cost ten times that now.  While a penny saved may still be a penny earned (not exactly what Ben Franklin said), my time is worth a lot more than that penny.

Not Just Another Morning Jog

It is a lonely, quiet time of morning that I run, shortly after the 4 am alarm jerks me awake.  Mostly, I run in solitude, engrossed in thought.  So much so that I can cover miles and not quite remember how I got that far.  Over the past several months, though, I have seen another regular jogger once or sometimes twice a week.  This jogger is a young woman.  At least younger than me.  In the pre-dawn dark, it is hard to tell age, but I can safely assume that a majority of the jogging populace is younger than I and how someone runs says something about their age.  My stride certainly doesn't have the bounce it did 20 years ago.

This young woman comes from the opposite direction, which explains why I see her in the first place.  The likelihood of my overtaking or being overtaken by someone running the same direction is quite remote.  Normally, I see her coming with enough warning to step off the sidewalk and into the bike lane, if I am not there already.  My rule of the road when I jog is to yield to oncoming traffic.  There have been a couple of instances where we nearly plowed into each other, once coming around the corner of the intersection and once because I was off somewhere else mentally and not paying attention.  As we pass, we usually wave and say an abbreviated, slightly winded “G’morning” in the way joggers do.

So, when I saw her coming yesterday morning, I expected the same ritual.  I moved off the sidewalk, but as I approached, she stopped under a street-light and asked a question as I passed by.
"Have you seen the homeless guy?"
I stopped a couple of paces away.  Her hair was tied back in a pony tail and I could see the worry in her face.
"No, I haven't seen anyone."
In the course of a brief conversation, I learned that her route takes her past the intersection where I get on that particular street.  Apparently there is a homeless man who camps out near an office complex along the way.  And that scares her.  Rather, he scares her.  I didn't know what else to say except that I was sorry since I couldn't give her any assurances about the homeless man.  Then we jogged away from each other on our regular routes.

So I finished my run with unexpected thoughts tumbling in my head.    I am just as much a stranger to this young jogger as the homeless man.  Yet, she stopped, spoke to me, and shared her concern.   Somehow, just being polite on the jogging path over the course of a few months builds trust.  She didn't have to stop, she didn't have to say anything.  But she did.  Her fear of one stranger motivated her to speak to another stranger.  As a man, I run alone in the dark with little thought for my safety.  I do not know the fear that she experiences when running alone, so I shot up a prayer for her safety.  Now, I will be wondering how she is until I see her again.  Finally, I was reminded again of the grace that has made my life so different from the “homeless guy” a few blocks away; the grace that lets me enjoy my cozy little home with my delightful family, so different these tattered wanderers who carry their homes in a cart or backpack.  We breathe the same air, we walk the same streets.  Yet one of us is a cause for fear, the other a token of safety.  I have so much to be thankful for.

Snakes In The Dark

Other than headlights of passing cars and one or two other regulars who brave the pre-dawn hours to pound the pavement, I am alone as I jog.  I like it that way.  Running takes little thought and my mind is free to consider my day, my life, the cosmos.  For those who need lots of social interaction, this may sound odd, but I have never had enough time by myself to actually get tired of it.  Of course, with my family, I have never had an opportunity to test the limits of solitude.

On my route a few weeks ago, I came upon a surprising sight: a person standing in the middle of the intersection I was approaching, apparently trying to flag cars down.  My first thought was that there was some sort of an emergency.  As I drew closer, I saw under the glare of the street lights that it was a young man, quite agitated, wanting to cross the street but unable to.

He saw me and started to speak from about 30 feet away.  Something about needing to get home and his phone battery was dead.  Then he took a few steps in my direction, which put him right in the traffic lanes.  Although there is not much traffic at that hour, a car had to swerve slightly to avoid him.  I told the young man to get out of the street.  Reluctantly he came over to the sidewalk where I was standing.   He made a distinct effort to appear harmless, intentionally keeping his hands out and up, giving his name, explaining that all he had was his ID, social security card and dead phone. 

Then the story got more complicated.  He had been riding with friends who had been in a car accident.  Apparently no-one was seriously hurt, but the car was inoperable.  Rather than wait around, he had decided to walk home.   I asked where home was, and I don’t remember what he told me.  But, his aunt lived just up the hill in a large apartment complex.  Then it got really interesting. 

“I was going to walk up there, but I’m afraid of the snakes.” 

He was sure he could see snakes in the shadows, which explained why he was standing in the middle of the street where the lights were brightest.  Even standing next to me, he was agitated and kept looking around and asking, “Aren’t you afraid of the snakes?  Can’t you see them?” 

I used the excuse that I wasn’t wearing my glasses and that it was a little hard to see in the dark.  So, how to assess this situation?  Here was a troubled young man that needed to get to his aunt’s house.  And he couldn’t get past the snakes.  What else could I do?  I asked for a little more information about his aunt to gain some assurance that this part of his story was real.  Then I volunteered to walk him the several blocks to his aunt’s place.

That was one of the most unusual walks I have had in a long time.  It only took 10 minutes or so, but most of the time was spent quietly, walking next to a young man who looked furtively at each dark shadow we passed and had to be encouraged to keep walking more than once.

“Don’t you see them?”

                  “No, I didn’t see anything.”

“Are you sure there are no snakes there?”

                  “Yes.  Come on.  You are going to be fine.”

“That’s amazing that you aren’t afraid of them.”

                  “Thanks.  Let’s keep moving.  We’re almost there.”

Once we arrived at the apartment complex, he visibly relaxed.  After navigating through the buildings, we came to the right one.  His aunt lived in an upstairs unit, so we parted at the foot of the stairs.  I shook his hand and wished him well.  He thanked me and headed up the stairs.  I turned and walked briskly away, throwing a glance over my shoulder to make sure he didn’t come back down, not completely certain of my own safety.  My morning routine still waited to be finished and I was going to have to hustle if I was to make my train.

There are any number of psychiatric* or physiological explanations for his ‘snakes’, no doubt.  Drugs, head trauma, genetic disorder.  Maybe his aunt wasn’t all that happy to have him show up at 5 am.  But, all I could think of was that here was a young man, lost, afraid, in the dark.  Now, he was in a safe and familiar place.  Most of us have been there, or maybe are there now: lost or afraid or in the dark, or all three.  Physically or spiritually or both.  And aren’t we thankful for someone who comes along, the unexpected Samaritan, who takes time to bring us back into the light?

Next time, it may be me, it may be you who needs a guide.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peduncular_hallucinosis

Hoots and Coons

I run in the dark.  Mostly alone until the summer nights bring out wild things not seen during cooler months: owls and raccoons.

I am not fond of raccoons.  My first jogging encounter with a coon was just a few strides from my front door.  The large raccoon was ambling across the intersection when we saw each other.  Used to the response of coyotes which, once spotted, lope off into the brush, I simply kept going in the coon's direction.  Rather than retreat, it fluffed out its fur, bared its teeth, and hissed at me.  I picked up my pace and got past the raccoon red zone, not wanting to find out just how aggressive a dog-sized raccoon would be.  As I glanced over my shoulder, to my relief and surprise I saw it head down the storm drain opening in the curb.  The raccoons I have seen since are smaller (cat-sized), running in clans of three or four and not nearly as aggressive, but often use the storm drains as an escape route.  I wonder just how many live below our street.

Sometime last summer, an enterprising group of raccoons found the cat door to our garage.  The first time or two we saw the cat food bag torn open, we assumed the cats were getting a little impatient in the morning.  Then, my eldest daughter happened to be up late one night when the raccoons paid a visit.  She heard odd noises in the garage and went to investigate.  Seeing the little bandits, she  grabbed her air-soft pistol and chased them out with an unending volley of plastic pellets.  After that, we resorted to storing the cat food in an industrial 3-gallon plastic bucket with a threaded lid.  This worked well as long as the cat-feeding crew put the lid on correctly.  After a few incidents of the bin being tipped and cat food strewn across the garage floor, we finally got all hands trained on proper bucket sealing.  Still, the coons had formed a habit and had to be chased off a time or two more that summer.  We thought we were done with them, but they apparently were just on a seasonal hiatus.  At least twice in the past month, the cats' water dish has been fouled with cat food.  And we know which nocturnal creature loves to wash food before eating it...

While raccoons are bold pests that I could do without, owl sightings are a welcome, rare treat.  Typically, as I stride along, a silent shadow will swoop into my peripheral vision and alight on a street light.  If I shield my eyes just right, I can see the owl perched on top.  Their comfort zone, however, is less than the distance from the lamp to the ground.  Invariably as I pass underneath, the owl will fly off.  It is eery to experience the total silence of an owl in flight.  The wings of the ubiquitous black ravens that are about the same size can be heard some distance off as they beat the air.

In our area, there are barn owls and great horned owls.  Only once have I seen a great horned owl.  I was able to get close enough to see the trademark tufts on its head.  It was larger and darker than the barn owls and just as silent when it majestically soared away.

My most recent encounter was remarkable.  I was jogging down the last hill before home.  As I approached the intersection,  I caught a flicker of movement and saw the silhouette of a small animal near the curb on the far side of the street.  In reminded me of a rabbit.  But, as I drew closer, wings came out and it flew just a few feet up to a split-rail fence where it remained as I drew closer.  I stopped on the opposite side of the street.  Not wanting to spook the bird I circled out across the street until I was past the intersection.  There was something on the ground the owl did not want to abandon.  I moved closer.  Once within about 30 feet, I stopped.  The owl would look at me, then back at the ground, then all around again.  A step or two closer.  Then we stood looking at each other in the monochromatic light of the sodium lamp for a few more timeless seconds, his eyes dark in a white face.    Of course, there is no way to know what is going through a bird's mind at a time like that.  Though owls are linked with wisdom, they do have bird-sized brains.  Still, I can imagine this barn owl's train of thought:
"Oh bother.  I suppose that fellow across the street is just going to stand there gawking as long as I am here.  Doesn't have the good manners to leave me to eat my breakfast in private.  Just have to return to it later, I suppose."
 Then he spread his gray and white wings and lifted off into the dark.

Arachnus Deathicus

These sultry days of late summer bring out spiders.  I know that.  It happens every year.  The local BIG brown spider (sorry, no specie specifics) starts stringing webs from our eaves around dusk to catch their nightly meal.  I have learned to share the property with these fascinating web architects during their short season.  There are just a handful of locations they use, and once established will be there every night for a few weeks, patiently constructing their webs.  Where they are the rest of the year is a mystery that I probably do not want to unravel.

My noble 'live and let live' attitude towards spiders is a facade, however, for the deeper aversion most people feel towards these eight-legged creatures.  I was out on my morning jog recently and IT happened.  I plowed into the gauzy, clingy strands of an unseen web to the tune of that faint crackling noise of snapping web threads.  Instantly, I started flailing to get the fragments off, but uppermost in my mind was the question: WHERE IS THE SPIDER?????  To early morning commuters passing by, I must have appeared to be having a seizure of some kind as I beat at my head, shoulders and arms in a frenzy.  Then, much to my relief, in the yellow glow of the street light, I saw a small shadow drop to the ground and scurry away on its eight whole legs, as glad to be away from my thrashing as I was to see it go.  The rest of my jog was made with an extra degree of alertness and ended without further creepy encounters.  I will be glad to run in the cold of winter when the spiders are gone...

Update: In my haste to get this posted, I neglected to include a link for the inspiration for title of this post, from that delightful animated hero movie, Megamind.  Arachnus Deathicus