Today’s walk had a destination which I didn’t reveal beforehand because I might get tired and not make it all the way.

I tried to mix alternate routes but I think I had used them all. I knew from frequent experience that the same old is always new.

So I went one block up from Dunsmuir Avenue, the Main Street, paused at the street that goes down with the fountain in the middle, running this time with a little water falling because of the warmer weather.

The Cornerstone Bakery was down at the corner on the left, but closed at this time of day after lunch because it wasn’t the weekend yet when they would serve dinner, always incredibly satisfyingly delicious. I thought about being hungry.

On my right was that multi-story building I was looking at the backside of. It always seemed derelict to me, from an earlier more populous time, now floors of emptiness, windows just waiting for something, anything.

So I walked one more block over, the backside of another building with a ladder down to the ground like a fire escape. There was another lower level below the street, probably had doors, at least one, but no way I could see to get down there, and I wondered how on earth a delivery truck could back up to it.

Life is full of mystery.

So I went down to Dunsmuir Avenue where the Dunsmuir Brewery Works has the whole corner on the right, side door open so you can see the big vats where they brew the beer with the world famous pure Dunsmuir water, the sight of which makes you want the finished product, even if you’re not a drinker.

The guys were working to make more beer, because the last time they were out of Rusty Spike which is everybody’s favorite.

And I crossed the street to go past the kiddie park with a lawn and a slide and swings. And then the big fenced wild area with a nice big house on the side in the back where I think I always see cats running around because it’s the cat sanctuary where the cat lady takes in strays, unless I have it mistaken for another place because here there was a sign in the overgrown yard advertising a lawyer.

So I crossed over the street again to my destination which I could see from a block away, the Dunsmuir Supermarket with a roof like a quonset hut and a side door where you go in from the parking lot.

Which I did, and got a rolling basket to lean on and walk around, and I placed my walking sticks in carefully so they wouldn’t stick out and poke anybody.

Of course I stopped first at the deli meat butcher case with the side case of hot cooked food, mostly meat, and the sign where you sign up for sandwiches custom made on request, which you could see them making behind the counter.

I thought about a bite for lunch, because sometimes I spoil myself, and I looked at the clear-wrapped little trays of cooked meat, like that BBQ pork chop, and teriyaki beef, the sort of thing I could come back to later and keep in mind while I shopped around the rest of the store, depending on how hungry I would allow myself to be.

I went down every aisle in the store and looked at everything.

I replayed in my mind the line I had recently posted in a blog about another market: “We may not have everything you want, but we have everything you need, and then some.”

I may have made that line up myself, which is why I can quote it.

I wasn’t necessarily looking for anything in particular, but I looked at everything, in particular.

I looked at all the drinks and thought about it, checking the prices, the weight if I had to carry them on foot, how thirsty I was, if I could wait ‘til I got home.

I skipped over the olives, because I already knew they didn’t have Graber tree ripened olives which no longer exist.

I looked at jars of marinated artichoke hearts and tried not to drool.

Jars of pickled asparagus got the same reaction.

I thought seriously about canned sardines, but all they had were little skinned and boned. The skin on the little sardine is part of the food, the texture and character and even the stronger flavor, so I wasn’t interested.

I saw the little round cans of Vienna sausage, two brands, and thought seriously about it because you can eat them with your fingers, and I was walking.

Next to them were little cans, the same size, of liverwurst, Underwood, separating the name as liver wurst, and I took one down and put it in my basket, because this is about as close as I’ll get to Braunschweiger which we loved and ate as often as we could, overlapping all those other liver pates like force-fed goose fois gras, or that fresh homemade chicken liver pate they served as a regular part of the table at no extra charge with bread also free to spread it on, at Di Palma’s Italian Village in the back hills near Riverside, how I miss that place! It was the best I ever had anywhere.

And, just for good memories because we used to eat them a lot, those long flat cans of Kippered Herring, kipper snacks! In oil that you eat with a fork or fork out onto bread, because they’re from Denmark originally, and we loved Denmark, not just because of Victor Borge, or Hamlet whom we forget was from there, but because one of Shirley’s very best middle school friends was from there and I may tell you about her later.

So I put a kipper can in my basket.

And I pushed my cart in line with my three items, including the BBQ pork chop, and a guy holding a wrapped deli sandwich was standing to the side and I said, “Go ahead of me,” and we started talking about the priority of food, and he told me how hungry he was and wanted to eat the sandwich before he got home with the rest of the groceries he had already bought and were in his car and he just came back for the sandwich.

So of course I launched into my eating reputation, how I became legendary, eating anybody under the table, and the famous Hollenbeck burrito so big on a platter that it was free if you could eat it in an hour and I finished early and said, “Next?” and they kicked me out for being bad for business like other restaurants I closed down when they advertised “all you can eat,” and the guy in line with his sandwich was very impressed and even the girl at the cash register also loved the story and said so and laughed.

So I paid and she put my three items in a bag upon request and I took them across the street and sat on a low wall in the shade and unwrapped my BBQ pork chop which dripped some sauce on the bag, but I wiped it off and started eating. That way I wouldn’t have to carry it home externally.

I was trying to control my eating proclivities, like a Reformed Gastronomer.

Then a woman came by and said “Hello,” and I said “Hello.”

Her little boy was right behind her and said “Hello,” and I said “Hello.”

They crossed over and went in the store.

After awhile, they came back. This time the little boy was in the lead ahead and he waved at me the way children do when they know they’re being clever, and he said, “Hello again.”

I waved back and said, “Hello again.”

Then his mother said, “Hello again,” and I said “Hello again,” and they went down the street, and the little boy climbed over the utilities upthrust because children always climb over anything in their way, and he hoped that I was watching.

Then I looked across the street at the post office. A pickup truck turned at the corner, did a U turn and parked at the side of the building. A generously proportioned man seemingly past middle age got out and waddled toward the entrance. He got nearly to the door, changed his mind, turned around, waddled back to his truck and drove away.

Then a man parked in front, got out carrying what looked like a padded mailer, the kind I used to mail the books I sold to everywhere in the country and even around the world with extra postage, he walked in and came out with a piece of paper.

Then a big truck drove over the sidewalk to the back of the post office, backed up to the loading dock with a bang that told him he had reached it. The driver got out and disappeared out of sight. My attention was distracted by a passing car, I looked again and the back of the truck was suddenly a black square. Then a pallet floated out from the platform with two big boxes on it, drifted into the back of the truck, then floated back out like magic without the boxes. Then the driver came from wherever he had been, got in the truck and drove away, and the back of the truck was light color again.

It was like a movie with miracles, or aliens staging an invasion, and I finished my BBQ pork chop.

Then a slenderish olderish guy with a scraggly beard who looked like he spends a fair amount of time outdoors in the sun came by and greeted me familiarly because he was one of the gang of workers at the brewery who wanted to make sure all the customers were happy and refilled my lemonade glass and now shook my hand and went into the store, I suspected on company business, because he re-emerged shortly after with two six packs of canned drinks, one in each hand as he passed me, and when I resumed my walk I was just in time to see him go in the back door, so I knew the restaurant had run low on its stock of drinks the way it had run out of Rusty Spike earlier for the beer lovers.

And I thought again, as I so often do, how the people who do the work are a good lot, and I felt democratically happy.

Then I went more down the street toward home, having stopped to fold my two little cans of fringe comfort food into the bag, and then stuffed it behind the arms of my jacket tied around my waist, leaving my hands free to manage my walking poles.

Then I heard a sound like a siren screaming behind me, police or fire or ambulance, and I gave in to curiosity and turned to look.

It was a man carrying his screaming baby.

He said, “I apologize for the noise.”

I said, “It brings back memories. Babies like to scream a lot, and then they stop when they’re sleepy or distracted, like just now when we distracted him.”

The baby laid his quiet head on daddy’s shoulder, probably getting ready for sleep.

I said, “Thanks for the memories.”

He said, “Thanks for the distraction.”

I thought, these Dunsmuir people so many give as good as they get.

Then I walked some more and sat in the shade on a bench strategically placed in front of the Chamber of Commerce. The window was open and I heard voices wrapping up the day.

Then I didn’t hear the voices anymore, and a car drove up and a woman got out with an envelope and walked to the door out of my sight. I heard what sounded like mail through a slot, and she re-emerged without the envelope, got in her car, and drove away.

Then I caught something out of the corner of my eye and looked up from my musing and two tall old people thin as a rail, a man and a woman, walked by holding hands and didn’t need to notice me because they had each other.

So I mused some more my own memories holding hands when I wanted to be nowhere else, and the old couple came back the other way having finished their walk.

I figured I might as well leave too, and I got to my feet reluctantly. I muttered to myself, “This doesn’t seem to be getting any easier,” and I decided yet again, “I need to get out more, really exercise and stop being so lazy,” and I added cynically, “Good luck with that.”

So I went along and along down and down the road toward the Burger Barn, and stopped looking until I looked again when I knew I’d passed it, to make it seem more likely that I was making progress.

And the rock-built church with church windows I still haven’t been inside probably because I think it must only be open on Sunday and this was Thursday.

I want to see what it feels like to be inside a church again, and this one may have what it takes for me to feel it.

Then past the Pot Shop, that re-converted gas station that’s been closed for a while now, after they put the lid on the pot, but cars still drive up.

Then I turned the corner and climbed the hill, trying not to count the steps or grit my teeth which only a dentist would like because of the extra work it would provoke, and I got to our driveway and went down the path and climbed the steps to the porch and got through the door and collapsed into my chair and Chaz was there and started me telling my story of my walk, and then Kristina came through from working in another room and said, “Tell me too, but later,” and now it’s later after we had pizza delivered for dinner and I told the delivery guy, “The Dunsmuir Librarian says your pizza is good, which I also know from prior experience,” and he said, “Best pizza in town!” and laughed, “The only pizza in town,” and I reiterated to myself, “These clever Dunsmuirians are quick with the comeback.”

And we ate pizza and watched a movie and then I started finishing this blog entry and Kristina said, “Now tell me about your walk,” and I said, “Just as soon as I finish writing it,” so she went in the study to turn on the television and listen to the latest Trump, and I’m almost down to the final period.

Now all I have to do is type it all up.