Writer's Block, Who Me?

We still really have not had winter and here it is February. Of course I know we will have to pay for it. Isn’t that how it always goes?

A few days ago I took pictures of blooming flowers and budding trees. The sixties are allowing me to run around in short sleeves and pretend it is summer. Well the trees are still bare so getting good pictures are not as easy to come by unless I catch beautiful clouds which can make even bare trees look good or a sunset which usually I am too tired to remember to check for.

Today though I did not want to stay home and listen to ballgames so I decided on a short day trip alone taking pictures and I would pick up lunch out somewhere to take with me. I kept watch on the sky and it looked promising. I had a few errands to run and a few groceries to pick up that I didn’t have to hurry home with.

I feel a little breeze when I get to the picnic area finally so I find a sunny table to warm my back as I eat. The park is pretty crowded but all the picnic tables are empty. I have no sooner started to eat than I see more with my idea and of course they must sit near me even though they have the rest of the park all to themselves to sit and eat. Three women come first and I am facing them so I say hi and get on with my lunch because it is well past twelve and I have not eaten all day. As they take out the bounty two more people are joining them. One is a mentally challenged young woman and the other an old man with a walker.

The young woman makes it to their picnic first with no aid, although I suppose she really needed no help, still I have to wonder why no one offered. She is doubtlessly hungry though and quiets down finally with food and I am very sure to not look in her direction after I see she is safely seated now. Then here comes the old man though and as his walker meets up to their picnic table, the cement and tables keeps him from sitting and the lady where he could have easily been seated tells him to go around instead of moving down.

Well lunch sort of sticks right there and it is hard to not be aware of this feeble man. He finally makes it to the end of their table almost in front of me with his back to me. Someone has set his food out and he starts eating.

Someone says, “Aren’t you going to sit down?”

He mumbles something imperceptible but continues to shovel in the food very hungrily; with one hand of course, balancing with the other being bent over the bench seat of the table. If any of us walk up to a picnic table even on the end as he was, how easy would it be to slide in? Even we would have to maneuver some. This man could hardly manage walking and he is expected to get into that seat alone? He was a good ten minutes or more behind everyone else getting to his food. I know there is a story here I wish I knew and all I can do is guess. Now I want to cry because I know this poor man does not deserve this, no matter the story.

Surely this handicapped girl and man are not the family of these three women stuffing their faces and not even considerate enough to have helped either one other than put the food in front of them. Are they the caretakers? Well everyone who knows me knows that would be my first guess. It certainly looks as if that may be the case. They sure didn’t bring them here from kindness of their heart. So I tell myself, yes, that has to be it. Selfish caretakers who only want to feed their own face and they are getting big bucks probably and will tell how they took these two handicapped people on a lovely picnic. Probably neither of the handicapped can tell on them.

I rise and offer them my warm table in the sun. Maybe then they will help the man to sit. I am parked about a hundred feet away in the opposite direction of them and by the time I get there, put all in the car I am carrying and lock the door back so I can walk awhile; I look back in their direction. They are gone! Completely! Has it even been ten minutes? Not more. It would take at least five or more to get that man to the car so he surely did not get to finish eating. All I can think is there has to one day be justice, there has to be! The rocks would cry out if not.

I can’t think of things like this, it hurts too bad; and what can I do? I can never do anything. I have tried so many times but I have learned. All of America's judicial systems laws are for the evil. How well I know.

I finally get it off my mind looking for good shots with my camera. Here is an old graveyard too and my mind throws around many stories here. Writer’s block someone was speaking of and I had to disagree. So much in the world and so much to wonder about; how would the mind shut down long enough to be blocked?

Ah, look here; a little girl born in May 1899 and died in July 1900. What was going on here in the south at this time? If I knew that, would there be a clue to her and her parent's story?

I have already solved a mystery in the case of the lady buried here who died on her 100th birthday. I even found her picture and much about her life right at the local library after putting flowers on her grave for a dozen years and simply making guesses. I think she wanted me to really know her. She was a very outstanding intelligent woman; a college woman and teacher; well off and living as she pleased, with two sisters in a virtual mansion left to them by their parents. Now who would have guessed that with her having been born in 1867?

So there is a story here with this child too, a sad one we can be sure; but what is that story, don’t you wonder?

I do.

1/31/12 Publish Date