Stumbling Off the Trail

When I was in South Portland a month or so ago, I stopped in at Harbor Freight, that purveyor of all the gizmos any dad with shallow pockets could ever want. I bought a hi falutin headlamp that can blind low flying aircraft, should any decide to buzz me. I have been walking Maggie early mornings of late and under the canopy where it's dark as a pocket, this headlamp really lights up the night.

A week or so ago, I wondered just how well did I know the trails at Mary's Park across Sam Page Road from my dooryard. I had walked those trails thousands of times with a dog, dogs or just by myself. I knew most every root or embedded rock well. Most had tripped me up at some point in the last 50 + years. But could I navigate them without help? I began to turn off the headlamp to see if my memory was good enough to guide me out of the woods on trails I was familiar with.

Mixed results of course. Most stupid things I have ever done had mixed results. But for the most part I did fairly well, often making it 100 yards or so until I stepped off the trail or tripped over something. One morning I tripped over Maggie, who had decided to stop in front of me. Anyway, I was almost impressed with myself.

During these early dark thirty AM excursions, funny things happen to the light just before dawn. It might just be a glitch in the light sensing hardware of my brain. But if memory serves from my days of driving trucks at night instead of the day, those dim periods of transitioning light at Dawn and Sunset have always been tricky. 

One morning when I turned off my headlamp, I was faced with a wall of  light waves vacillating between dark and light. It looked and felt like a Acid Trip flashback. I stopped and reveled in the optical confusion and quickly pulled a couple of tokes off the  joint I had cradled in my hand. Maggie ran by me and through the wall of wavering light creating a series of trails as the light waves opened and scattered for a moment. It was awesome.

I find stumbling around in the dark to be more fun than it sounds. And I should. I have been a stumbler since the day I was born.

Keep it 'tween the ditches ..................................

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I gave up looking for a tune yesterday when I wrote this post. Nothing I found fit or even came close. What a difference 24 hours makes. Here is an easy listening tune from Sheryl Crow, with James Taylor sitting in. I have never heard it before. "Flying Blind". Enjoy