Quiet Sunday

For some reason nobody felt like loading my truck on Easter Sunday. So I went to church.

A kind soul at the truck stop pointed toward the nearest town last night. So this morning I cashed in a shower, put on the most presentable clothes I had in the truck (don't ask), and walked about--half a mile? A mile?--to find a place to worship.

Not my denomination, but when you're walking through a completely new town looking for a church door, it doesn't pay to be too picky.

Little church. Nice people. Lovely weather. No complaint.

*****

Walked back out after lunch. Coming out the first time, I saw a building I daydreamed a little about. A squat, two-story stone house with a pagoda roof. The lower floor was tall, the upper floor all windows.

From the look of it, it had once been the railroad equivalent of a control tower. Now it was a ruin, the wood slowly rotting away while the stone shell sat there. I found myself imagining spending boatloads of money to move it somewhere and put in an interior. On a hilltop, maybe, with that wall of windows (three walls, actually—only the back wall was more or less solid) looking over some valley.

An office and a living room, maybe. I read something once that advocated putting day space upstairs and sleeping quarters on the ground floor (for fire escape if nothing else). This building would be perfect for that.

Since I couldn't buy it from the railroad, I just came back with a sketchbook. No great work of art, but it was a nice quiet way to spend a bit of afternoon.

Someone at the church had said he had a relative who'd tried to talk the railroad out of it. They weren't interested. Too bad.

* * *

After I finished playing artist I got a bit closer. Then I understood.

It would be a truly luxurious 1-bedroom cottage. But it was built in 1918. In reinforced concrete, cast in place. If I were to buy it, I'd probably have to hire a Green Lantern to move it.

But what a bachelor pad...

* * *

And thence to a playground. Little kids running all over the slide doing stupid things and laughing like idiots. One older girl on her bike very much on her dignity. I wonder what she'd have been doing without witnesses.

Ah. Youth.