The River

I'm baaaack! for the first time since November 20. Anybody miss me?

A nephew of mine, who is rapidly becoming a hero to me, had stopped blogging for a time. He started again, with the discipline required to write something every day. He's an assistant professor of English at a university in Virginia. I'm not; I'm just someone who reads a lot. And minored in English as an undergrad. And wrote for the college undergraduate newspaper. And entered, and did OK in, some fiction writing competition. Something William and I both understand: if you would write, the only way to do it is to write. Just write. Daily. No need to worry about profundity or length or originality. Write enough, and those things will emerge. But to start: write. Just write.

So I repent. My wife will hate the ashes I spread on my sackcloth.

Today I invite you along on my walk by the Mississippi River. Immanuel Kant, the great philosopher, took a walk every day, starting every day promptly at 3:00. It was said that the people of Koenigsberg could set their clocks by this, he was so regular. I'm no Kant as a philosopher - if you had to categorize me as a philosopher, it would be something of a cross between Augustine and Kierkegaard - but you can set your clocks by my daily walk.Promptly at 2:30 PM I leave my place of work, at the corner of 2nd and Brady, in downtown Davenport. I return at 3:00. In between, I walk the Davenport riverfront, in LeClaire Park, roughly from the Rhythm City Casion, or whatever it is they're calling that eyesore these days, to the LeClaire Park bandshell and back.

Sometimes I can't. The River does flood now and then, and when it does, LeClaire Park is soggy, and parts disappear altogether. One day, as I was walking the riverfront after such a flood has receded, I saw a fish, good-sized and quite dead, that had been deserted by the withdrawing water. He - or she, I didn't check - must have had a last thought of "What the. . .?" Anyway, one day the fish is on the concrete drive by the casino. The next day the fish was still there. So were a bunch of birds that didn't look in the least bit hungry. The fish had a hole in its side. Thus the unhungry unangry birds. The following day the hole was bigger, and bigger the next day. . .This fish was within a few feet of the casino, but for a few days it seemed not to occur to anyone on the boat that this might be unsightly and bad for customer attraction. The fifth day the fish was gone.

There are memorials around the park. More on the next part of the tour.