Sheepville

Most crosswalk buttons I remember were just that, buttons. Seattle has these huge steel domed "buttons". I thought at first maybe it was because people out here just had really bad aim since they killed all of their wildlife ages ago and can't practice shooting furred critters anymore. It's actually to give the "button" a chance to survive more than a week. I'm not sure if it's because the people out here are idiots or nuts (since this is a breeding ground for serial killers, I think it's more of the latter) but they can't handle a crosswalk button. I'm on my ten minute walk home last night waiting at a major crosswalk at the train station, and this average middle aged white collar white guy with a briefcase tries to operate the crosswalk button. You would think people would only push it once, maybe twice, just in case one of the other 75 people standing around hadn't already pushed it. No; he starts pounding on this button like my wife trying to put salmon in a can, and he continues to do so for the next 20 seconds until the light changes. I start thinking about Michael Douglas in the movie "Falling Down" and figure if he opens that briefcase, I'm jumping over the wall down to the tracks. This guy is destined to chop up his wife and kids one day and carry a gun to work and start shooting people. Probably the day after a trip home where a crosswalk button didn't work and put him over the edge.

The sad thing is this is a common...very common occurance in Seattle. What you would think might be otherwise intelligent people, just bang away on these crosswalk buttons. Usually not 20 seconds until the light changes, but "average" would be about 6 to 8 hard bangs on the things. Not a push, but beaten with the palm of their hand. I dunno, maybe they designed these things that way so people could have an outlet so more of them didn't turn into serial killers.

The hardest thing about Tracy being gone is she was my best friend, and pretty much the only real friend I had in Seattle. I have co-workers, but it would be hard to call any of those friendships since the relationship stops after office hours. A friend is someone you have a relationship with outside of the environment you met them and you enjoy their company. Since my interests aren't shared by any of my co-workers, and I'm not exactly an outgoing type, the outlook for friends in Seattle is pretty bleak.

As a kid the longest friendship I would have had would have been Robbie Patterson. We bowled together and I even switched bowling alleys to bowl with him when it was the last year he was going to bowl. I only saw him one other time after moving away and that was when the ex-wife and I were in Richmond and we went to see him and the girl he lived with. I remember we played Trivial Pursuit and I missed the easiest question in the world, what is a Meteorologist. My best friend from high school, Allen, I only saw infrequently on visits to Richmond. I looked him up and talked to him about a week ago, and at that point it had been at least ten years since I had spoken with him. I have talked to or emailed a few friends from Lynchburg since I've been here but like the other friends eventually I won't talk to them anymore.

Tracy has done a much better job than I have of keeping up with old friends. When I visited out here before moving we even went out to dinner with one of her friends from school. She probably is still keeping up with them via email from San Diego.