K-town Kamrades, still kruising

Another hot day in the city, muggier than its been, the hot wind blowing like heat coming off the griddle. I lazed this morning, hanging with Ryderman as he showed me his Spanish workbook which he completed after his first year of Kindergarten Spanish. Next year in Spanish Immersion, when 30% of the curriculum is taught in Spanish, he will learn the language quickly-- and awake the sleeping Spanish in my brain. A very useful second language for sure. When I finally mounted my steed, it was already 9:30 and route in took on a different feeling. All the paper sellers had packed up and gone. I was delighted to see Lester back at his post in K-town. For the past many years I've ridden by Lester, always sitting under a big tree on the corner of K and Harrison. But this year I haven't seen him until just last week. They put up a fence around his vacant lot, so now he perches across the street, on the north side. Must be his spot. He just sits there. A new hand car wash in the block brings some new life to the area. The guys who work there are now giving me the nod, recognizing me as I ride by each way every day. I see the welders in the Alan Fabricating shop further down the road a ways, they always give me the high sign as I ride past. Today they weren't making sparks fly but were sauntering down the sidewalk to the Maxwell Street 24 hour Original Polish stand on Independence. No one was moving very fast. The security guard who always sits in his red Taurus in front of the Elgin Dairy plant was sitting in a chair in the sidewalk today, always with a big wave and occasional toot on the horn. Further down the road yet, past California to the Mission, the big Rasta man has moved from his spot on the north to a new place against the building on the south. Into the shade. Always he greets me with "hey ya doc!" as I ride past. It occurs to me that I must be a familiar sight to dozens of folks on this route. Just folks. Working folks, street people, homeless shelter denizens, all looking out for me as I ride past. My K-town Kamrades. My guardians.