there's an ice cream shop that's done up all in fifties, like a buddy holly place; in fact it commemorates buddy holly as he is still big in this town, his home town; it has a juke box in the corner which was running the whole time we were there. i'm not sure if someone had put a few bucks in it, and let the kids press numbers randomly, or it was on an endless loop of johnny cash, beach boys, buddy holly, elvis. the kids had shakes and the soccer coach handed out medals; they'd won second place.

out on the corner they had another huge accident over the weekend, but we were busy and didn't really go look; we could see the fire engine though from a block away and at one point these tow trucks brought wrecked cars right past our house. the tree guys were at our house most of the weekend removing the top part of this enormous elm, maybe seven feet wide, that was hanging over our house and the neighbor's. they knocked out the internet in the process so we were out internet most of the weekend, but I figured it was a fair deal, an internet holiday for a couple of days, in honor of a tree that was maybe seventy years old or so. it drove the eleven-year-old nuts. he really needed the internet.

i on the other hand had papers to grade all weekend, papers about endangered languages and unknown or even made up languages, abroriginal or indigenous languages, etc. i also read about linguistic forensics and whether spanglish should be considered its own language. i hardly went anywhere. even when there was an accident on the corner, i was reading papers. the chainsaws went on all weekend, and i read papers.

at one point it even rained, which is really unusual for here, and i noticed that there were clouds in the sky. i do go for walks at night, long ones around the park. if it's raining or it's wet i notice that, and i notice the stars, which are slightly more than i'd see if i did the same thing in carbondale. sometimes you see people parked near the park, in their trucks, doing their phones, or whatever. they're attracted by the dead ends, the endless field, the lack of traffic.

my own crossing of nineteenth has been orderly, without incident. cars are respectful and let me go my way. saw a dead squirrel on flint this morning, and then, some bike rider who had to do about twenty revolutions to move one foot, was kind of weaving in the road, but traffic let him by too, and it was no incident for me. this town is letting me pass, as if i belonged here, as if it was the most natural place in the world, but, for my part, i need to keep my weight down, stay alive, live to see another walk sign.