BLACK SHEEP

"Words Were Spoken" SEPTEMBER 11 2010
It was the year 1998, and I was about to take off for the train into the loop. My usual routine around summer months then was to awake at 6 am and walk a half a block to the beach -past the public tennis courts and bicycle paths and walking trail as I walked by miles and miles of mammoth sunflowers which a woman in the neighborhood cared for and grew herself.
There used to be a street sign there a block from the beach that said: "Watch out for dangerous waves"

I loved it there, watching the sun rise, up, high. Many people who lived near by: walking their dogs, and saying a friendly good morning. Dogs were only allowed on the beach until 9 am or was it 8 am,..? and then the life guards rowed their boats in for the day of swimmers. There was one woman who was in there in her 90's that swam there every summer day. She was glowing and old and beautiful as she lead the way in her own life every day. I alway thought she should be a face that lead the way to our many photographic advertisments and even film iconography in the issues of beauty for women in a modern thoughtful world..

The water was tested for pollution every day of every year in many places in the more than 30 mile stretch of public beach front. One part of the beach front even contained a play house, though I never did get to see a performance there.
Each morning I'd walk the beach for five minutes while stretching. I'd fill my pockets full of tiny pebbles of sand washed sea glass before long. Green and blue mostly. Then I'd find the same giant slab of rock out into the water just enough,. which I climbed upon to sit for another five minutes in the sun as I gazed out into what the seems an ocean, though it was a, vast, expansive, great lake full of fresh water, no wales or poka-dotted tails .. "never seeing anything more than blue sky" and "the multitude of fantastical colour" reflected in facets of water which cut light and bend it into prisms of a world unknown completely.

Back at my English Basement Flat with beautiful courtyards, with a garden, and clay tile roof tops, and a crew of building attendance, which I knew like brothers -I ate breakfast and polished myself up for a long grandeur of a day. Off to the train stop, pick up coffee, and; say hi to a woman standing on the street selling flowers that people like to buy to brighten their day at their desks, some times cubicals, and also people really liked flowers to simply give to friends to spriten a friends day and throughout their week.

I'd also say hi to Yessmin, who was working behind the coffee counter to put her son through school. There was a man there some mornings -I'd buy him a sandwich as he was really going through hard times on most days and didn't really want to talk about what plagued him and really didn‘t ever speak to anyone..

If I took my car instead of the train and parked in the loop, there was a man at the other coffee shop up the road who was a doctor of medicine and served me coffee from behind the counter. Some days he’d surprise me with a special something to eat that he knew I liked. Like a Half Moon Cookie. He was from India and could not work as a doctor in the United States, and well, at least he had a reasonably priced place to live and work that paid for his life. I was trying to help him get into a program with one of the hospitals so that he could use his knowledge again in what was a foreign land to him, where the language of English and a decree from an American Universtiy was very important.
and well, let me add: that perhaps he should have been paid a doctors fee for the healthy feeling he brought to my heart and my thoughts for just simply being thoughtful and continuing to treat people in a very spirited human way. We need more of that everywhere.

Hundreds of people on the platform @7:15 am.

“There are 9 million or more people in the city and surrounding areas of Chicago. It is a large number of people but not a very large place at all really. Yet the hearts of people are as broad shouldered as is spoken of in fine literature.”

On this day, like every day, we loaded the train together and most times it was so full that people actually touched each other -pressed together rather tightly, and well. -often shoulder to shoulder.

-and when the train stopped abruptly there were enough of us to hold each other up from falling. "no need for a trip to 6 flags" the fun was all right here..
and then -

I looked to my left where there was a man trying to say something to me. Surrounded and always talking to people on the train, I looked at him curiously and with kind question. He was a man that was not too tall and very proud,. his clothes were very plain and he had a very nice face. His thick eyebrows turned down and I listened. He spoke Spanish. I didn't understand a word of it except to count to seven that I learned in grade school with many other words forgotten, but I continued to listen. The minute I began to listen, he broke out
-talking and talking and as a minute passed, "job" espanial, children, food…? I didn't know what to do, as it seemed that he was pleading with me. And just then, a tall, and very polished, kind, soft spoken, man, turned his back from us, all the way around to say something.. he looked at the nice man from Mexico’s face and said -"Here" -writing down an address and phone number. The tall mans pen pointed -and kept pointing towards the paper with intent .. "they will give you a job!" "work"! The tall man said very firmly. Everyone in our train cab smiled with great relief. Including me....

BLACK SHEEP