4th of July Adventure

On the 4th of July, after work, I set out on a long walk at about 7:30. I made a video of the first part, which you can watch here if you're just itching to see the retard behind the words.

http://www.youtube.com/user/kaxtorplose#p/a/u/0/-6cZ4PV1vOk

If you decide not to inflict the video upon yourself, here's a short synopsis. Pretty much immediately into my walk I started to find things. This is a usual thing for me when I walk; I find things on the road. I'm easily amused, so when I find the top part of a gas burner shaped like a radiation hazard symbol, I get a huge kick out of it. Even more exciting than that is finding a dirty knit hat stuffed full of candy. And even more exciting than THAT is following a TRAIL of candy for 2 miles! Of course all of this wild candy was the result of the parade that passed that way earlier in the day, but at the time I thought I was following the desperate clues that would lead me to a wicked witch up in the hills, intent on cooking a couple of innocent kids who had cleverly left this trail for me to follow. I was pretty disappointed when I figured out that this wasn't the case.

So, I continue my sojourn after the video ends and wind up on the docks. All the ships had already left, but I saw a crowd gathered on the last dock.



Some kind of Martian 4th of July celebration. I briefly wondered about the native folk here, and why they would celebrate the 4th of July when they were here long before the white man came and installed a capitalist economy. I guess they're ok with it, because there were a bunch of tribe-like folk on a stage, singing primitive chants and beating on primitive drums.



Even the mayor of Mars... I mean, Ketchikan (I keep thinking this is Mars. I guess it's because that's where I'd rather be) took the microphone and started talking. I didn't really listen to this, and when the Mayor said, after a rousing round of applause, "Wait, I'm not done yet..." that's when I walked away. But not before snapping this picture, which was just too funny not to digitally memorialize for all eternity:



Anyway... enough of the political rally. I wanted action... and action I soon found. As I was rounding a corner, I heard shouts in the distance... a gruff inarticulate shout, answered by a cacophony of distinctly less gruff inarticulate shouts. As it turned out, without describing all the descriptive coming up upon the scene stuff, it was a group of young progressive natives trading shouts with one of the elder statesmen. It was youth against the establishment! Action! Or so I thought at the time... actually, upon closer inspection, it was just an old really drunk guy and a bunch of dime store hoods playing at being heavy metal, shouting 'F YEAH, ROCK AND ROLL' while waving the hook em horns hand gesture at each other. As I approached the old man, he took an immediate interest in me.

"F'ing kids," he said to me as we began to walk together. It was at this time that I noticed just how drunk the guy was. He couldn't walk in a straight line to save his life, and a younger woman was trying to guide him through the parking lot which we were navigating. There weren't that many cars, but the old man was doing a pretty good job of nearly bumping into most of them.

"F'ing kids. F'ing kids!" he said, over and over, looking at me as if to elicit some kind of agreement.

"Kids will be kids. We were all kids once," I replied.

The old man took a long look at me, as if sizing me up. I guess he was trying to decide whether or not I was an f'ing kid. After a few seconds I guess he judged me to be alright, because he said, "Hey, it's good to see somebody with long hair. On a guy, you know. Really good. You wanna go smoke some pot?" All of this came out slurred and slobbery.

"Nah, I haven't smoked pot since I was... well for about 20 years."

"Really? You look like you do. With the long hair and all."

I get this a lot, of course. People see me and immediately categorize me as a dope smoker because of the way I dress and my long hair. I'm used to it and it doesn't bother me.

"Nah, I don't smoke pot."

"Really. That's amazing..." the old man stumbled along for another few steps, accompanied by his daughter, who was struggling to keep him upright. Every now and then she would give me a kind of pleading look mixed with resignation, and say "Come on, pop."

"So, you wanna come smoke some pot?" the old man said to me again.

"Come on, pop. Get you home," said the daughter. They took a turn down some stairs, and after watching to make sure they were safely ensconced in the house, I found myself walking alone again. After doing several circuits of the 'New Town' area... that is, the tourist district, I passed by a window which was level with the sidewalk. I saw that a note was taped to the window, so I stopped to get a closer look. I knelt down, read the note, and my heart almost broke all over again:



How many broken hearts are there on the planet right now? How many people with unrequited love? How many people feeling remorse over things they've said or done to someone they love? How many regretful people? How many lonely people?

After that, my walk was pretty much over, so I headed home... but I snapped this picture of a flag to commemorate the day. It was the 4th of July, after all.