Red Pavement

I nearly missed it this morning as I raced down the hill in the fog cooled air. Nearly sped right by without seeing the evidence of someone else's pain. Not that I'm terribly surprised, mind you. My pedal to work is along a pretty heavily trafficked drug area of town, not that that is much of a problem at 8:20 in the morning. But someone got pounded pretty good last night.

There was a fair amount of freshly spilled blood out on the bike path this morning. A drug deal gone bad? Someone getting thier perverted jollies by beating up homeless people? Or just a drunk fool cruising home after an evening's tipple at the bars and wiping out badly enough to stain the pathway? I don't know and truly, so long as it isn't me or one of my friends or associates, I don't really care. People should know better than to be out on that path late at night, its not safe. I know that if I ever work good and late and have to head home as darkness approaches, I'll cross over the Water St. bridge and go home on the other side, by the court house and cop shop. Stands to reason that there's less chance of badness happening to me.

On another, much less painful note, the river has been extremely high these last couple of days. I should check and see whether the sand has blocked off the drainage out into the bay. Under the bridge to the Boardwalk the water was no more than a foot and a half from spilling over the bike path. I've not seen it this full in a long time. And on first glance it makes bridge jumping from the trestle (ala The Lost Boys which was filmed in good old Santa Cruz) seem like a good idea. But then I remember that the river is nasty and filled with fecal coliform bacteria and much worse garbage. You want scale and patchy skin? Go for a swim in the river mouth.