When the Ranger pulled out her digital camera and started snapping photos, well, a certain song came to mind. It is, after all, nearly Thanksgiving.I mean, with the rare sight of all those colorful Lycra-clad bodies on such a gloomy day, maybe our ranger just wanted an image she could admire forever?
But there was another possibility, one much closer to those immortal twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Preserved in some file somewhere will be a photo of a volunteer shivering behind a video tripod, sleet bouncing off her rain jacket as she recorded the finishing time of each rider.
The third Ranger truck arrived with lights flashing and siren wailing. As it turns out, a fourth Ranger truck waited at the base of the hill.
I mean, what better way to spend a cold, wet morning than haranguing a bunch of cyclists who harmed no one as they climbed up a (paved) road to nowhere in the rain? We are not the vandals they normally chase away; those prefer the cover of night and have the sense to stay warm and dry on a day like this.
Every hiker, every cyclist, in the Bay Area looks forward to the day when the top of Mt. Umunhum is reopened to the public.
Perhaps the organization should consider a new name at the same time: Midpeninsula Regional Closed Space District.
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Glad to hear that that the rangers weren't investigating an accident. Associating sirens with friendliness is a leap.
ReplyDeleteFyodor and I were just having our photos taken on the Group W bench at Alice's Restaurant at 84/Skyline a few weeks ago. Today's young people have never heard of Arlo Guthrie and, of course, are only dimly aware of the Vietnam War.
Great stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_7C0QGkiVo
ReplyDeleteAlison, I think people have simply become accustomed to a state of perpetual war. It's just part of living in a free society (err...).