Coach?

Friday night, 7/11/08

I was walking around in my house, but it didn't resemble any place where I've actually lived. Somehow I had an uneasy feeling, as if I was being watched. I peered through the blinds on a window in the front room, and was shocked by what I saw: a full marching band and football team (all in uniforms) were standing on my street, looking at me, and waiting for orders. I decided I'd better get dressed and go out to see them.

By the time I opened the door it was getting dark outside, and the street was deserted. I guessed that they'd all headed off to the stadium. I hopped in my car and headed downtown, but soon got lost in a maze of over- and underpasses, ending up on a dead-end street in a bad neighborhood. I got out of my car and walked up a hill in someone's yard in order to get my bearings, and got dirt all over my pointy black boots.

*****

I hate complicated highway systems. I suspect that I might have thought of overpasses and underpasses because I recently read about a new 30-year plan for yet another revitalization of the area around the Mall in Washington, D.C. (The plan included dramatic change of the crappy highway system that cuts off the Kennedy Center from most local traffic.) I'm all for many of the changes, including the push to relocate the FBI and tear down their monstrously ugly headquarters, but in the end, I could only imagine what such expenditures could do for other parts of the District that really need the money.

I wore those black boots on my wedding day in 2001. I still take them out of the closet on rare occasions.