A Quick Return To The Industrialists' Park

You are not going to believe what I did yesterday! Ha ha, I made a quick return to the industrialists' park, in a way just to show I could, and in a way to see what was going on.

This is an especially dangerous thing to do, too, because there's only one narrow entrance and exit. And if they catch you down there, there's not much you can do, except maybe fight it out ... or submit. But I'm a guy who likes to live by his wits, and that's exactly what I did in this case.

Since it was just the other day I was there, I made the calculated guess that they wouldn't be expecting me back so soon. Remember, it's just like the President visiting Iraq; you have to keep the enemy guessing when you might return. So I thought, what if I just drove in nonchalantly and sat there for a while, then drove out. No big deal.

On the way in, though, I had a quick fright. Just as soon as I rounded the corner, a green John Deere (maybe) ATV vehicle with two guys on it came driving out quickly from some trees. I don't know what kind of reconnaissance intelligence they were working off of, if any, but it didn't seem coincidental. I was really afraid they had finally out-maneuvered me and that I was in big trouble, but thankfully it must've seemed like a false alarm to them and I was able to pass unmolested.

While arriving at the park (at the main entrance) and once I had arrived (in the park proper), I was stunned to see, first, a woman driving out of the park, and, two, another woman parked there. This is unheard of. The only ones, basically, you see there are men. I'll give you a couple guesses why that would be, and, please, don't limit your imagination to things Grandma would approve of. Why the women were there, that's anyone's guess, except the last one had a dog and was apparently there to let the dog have a walk.

When I saw the dog loose, I truly started thinking, "What is this, Abergavenny?" As in the song, "Abergavenny," that has the words, "If you see a red dog running free, well you know he's mine." (These words, by the way, are consistently the source of many of the Google searches that show up at this blog. At any given moment, there's someone in the world Googling those lyrics!) The dog wasn't red, though.

I sat there watching the dog for a while. I had an unimpeded view all to myself of his backside as he walked toward the river. He was flagrantly and unapologetically exposed to my view, his butt. I started thinking of unashamed organisms, and he looked like a machine headed for the water. The way he was unabashedly exposed, that part of his anatomy, gave me pause to think, mostly how strangely appropriate it was...

After the dog drank and the woman got him back in the truck and drove away, I looked around. There were a couple of guys standing off to the other side and back from my car. They kept glancing at me. I was taking notes, but I dropped the notebook to my lap. At that point, probably from their point of view, it probably looked like I was engaged in some extracurricular activity, not writing, so they left me alone. If that's what they supposed, it'd just show how much I fit in the park. If they were actual industrialists from the major industrial powers, it threw them off the scent.

I was thinking about packing it in and getting on my way, lest my lingering cause suspicion and lead to my capture. Just then, another guy showed up, out of the blue, and I thought I'd chance it and give myself time to observe his activities.

It got real interesting when he started walking casually down the path toward where the big hole is. I've never seen the big hole, but I'm assuming it's massive. He had on a yellow shirt. As he started, he was barely moving his arms. As he went farther, he swung them more diligently. I thought maybe it was a mating signal that I'd never seen before. I kept watching. As he got farther, he appeared to be getting smaller from my point of view. And he had no apparent problem with the big hole.

The guy turned left, more toward the river, and finally was out of my sight. This was around 11:28 a.m. Whatever was going on there, I knew he was living dangerously, and he had to know it too. The way I pictured it was that he was keeping an actual rendezvous, and barring that, it'd likely be a knothole on a tree. I was sure the yellow shirt would later look back and know it'd seen better days!

At 11:34 p.m., he reappeared, not noticeably changed. I could only conclude, Now that's a guy who works fast! But just when I started making these observations, and maybe not coincidentally, a city worker pulled up right next to me. I pulled my shirt's collar up around my ears to be more inconspicuous. He started fumbling around with the garbage can. I took it as a signal to the guy in the yellow shirt, who, remarkably, showed no return sign.

The short end of the story is: I saw this as perhaps my last opportunity to get the heck out of there. And if my haste was a false alarm, so be it. Anyway, assuming the guy had nothing to do with the major industrialists -- which, like everything else in this park, is a stretch -- I wouldn't want to violate his privacy. Also, I wouldn't want to embarrass him in his great shame. Or, lastly, if he turned out to be brazen and unbowed by his dirty deeds, I wouldn't want to personally witness that level of recalcitrance.