PopWars

I’m hoping we’ll pick up an additional tenth of a mile just walking around the house tonight because I really want to see that 13 mile tally on our Moves app.

We got a late start because we had a funeral to go to for our sister in law’s father. It was a patriotically themed event as well it should have been. The man served in all three branches of the military! Flag pins were attached to the red, white and blue programs. A trumpet player played taps while we took our seats and then guns went off outside the Baptist Church in Greece. The hymn was “America the Beautiful,” all four verses. Free Masons, wearing white beanies in the front row, presented white roses to the remains. State Senator Joseph Robach gave the remembrance. And a piano player, a seasoned lounge player, played Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah and a great version of Frank’s “My Way.”

We changed clothes and headed out through the park and along the lake all the way to the river. We thought we might be able to work our way along the river to Silk O’Loughlin’s, which had just opened for the season, but we couldn’t get around the gates of a shipyard. I took this photo in front of Shumway’s Marina and we turned around. With the temperature right around freezing we walked on a variety of surfaces. Some crusty, icy snow, some black ice, some mud, some soft sand along the lake and a few good sized puddles on the sidewalk.

The Emirates Group sponsors both teams. Qatar Sports Investments owns Paris Saint-Germain and they spent a fortune on players like Neymar. Real Madrid is owned by their club supporters, hundreds of people called socios and they too spent a fortune on players like Ronaldo. The word Real, Spanish for Royal, was bestowed on the club by King Alfonso XIII and our friend Matthew advised us that if we’re going to cheer for a Madrid team it ought to be Atlético because Real still has cultural ties to the fascists. But we can’t help ourselves, we’ve been rooting for Real in the Champions League and we were ecstatic watching them defeat PSG, both at home and in Madrid. We wouldn’t root for Real against Barcelona, of course. They are on another plane.

Ronaldo is an over-the-top star. Like Trump, you can’t take your eyes off him as he sucks all the air out of the room. Madrid has Sergio Ramos, the captain of the ship. They have Marcello, a back who is an ever threat to score. They have Bale, on the bench with his man-bun. They have the smart, agile Croatian, Luka Modrić, in midfield. And they have Zinedine Zidane in the ever so sharp coach’s suit. They are a real team and a joy to watch.

We are sort of in limbo with with this white stuff. The big snowfall we had last week is just sitting there. The sidewalks are clear. People aren’t wearing hats or gloves anymore. We have all moved on but the snow lingers. There was so much of it the sidewalk and street plows shoved it into the other’s paths. And it was so heavy and wet when it came down it is now clumped into hard-core sculptural formations on the edges of the sidewalk.

Our route today took us in an eight mile loop with stops. Starbucks, where we had a sandwich and a medium Flat White, the post office where we mailed off (for scanning) 700 35mm slides that my sister culled from my father’s slides, and Dunkin Donuts where we used the bathroom.

We saw “Shape of Water” this evening and I loved it. An old fashioned straight up love story done with loving respect for the medium. I was a skeptic and wanted Greta to get all the awards for “Ladybird” but I was wrong. This was beautiful.

We were hanging out with our friends, Jeff and Mary Kaye, last night and we were telling them about all the cool little neighborhoods we had been exploring while walking. We mentioned the dead ends that lead down to the bay on the west side and Jeff told us he lived in a house on Schnackel Drive back in the seventies. He had to get out when the water level rose. He said there was a small store down there that sold nothing more than Wonder Bread and beer. The street sounded so familiar but we couldn’t place it until we found it on our phone. The map showed Riviera’s Liquor store down there, on a a dead end along the bay. I couldn’t believe it. I called the number but it had been disconnected. We were determined to find the place today.

Point Pleasant Road, the third traffic circle on your way to the lake, leads to Pleasant Avenue which takes a dive down to the bay where it turns into Schnackel Drive which hugs the shore of Irondequoit Bay. You can wind your way around the inlet to the right or walk to your left around the gated Point Pleasant Estates and the opening to Bay Front Lane, a street with about fifteen homes that can only be accessed by foot. We’re guessing the store Jeff remembers was the first place on Bay Front Lane but we couldn’t find the liquor store.

Breakfast sandwiches are now a mainstay. How did that happen? Should we blame brunch? We had one this morning, along with a large coffee, at the Founder’s Cafe in the Academy Building on Fitzhugh Street. We were just upstairs from Edward’s Restaurant where we used to take Peggi’s parents when they came to visit. And we were right next door to the oldest public building in Rochester, “Two Saints Church.”

We started the day at the Co-op by parking our car in their lot and walking downtown. They’re building something on top of the old Lehigh Valley train station right next door to Dinosaur Bar-BQ. Those tracks went under the library and across the river under what is now the Broad Street Bridge. We peeked in and I took this photo. There is so much history here. It is time to celebrate it.

We better make sure our car still starts. We haven’t driven it in a week. We walk everywhere now. Not that we go anywhere. We mostly walk in circles, circles that keep getting bigger. We are averaging ten miles a day and one of us is carrying the pack. Today we came home with 24 pounds of groceries.

We spotted a yard full of snowdrops as we walked down to the lake. They are such a delicate flower. They seem shocked to be up out of the ground so early. The hardy Winter Aconite, on the other hand, bursts out of the dirt and often right up through the snow. The ones we have on the hillside out back are just now unfurling and orienting themselves to the sun. I’ve tracked the date we first notice them for the past ten years and this is almost the earliest.

I was sickened to read about the amount of plastic scientists found in tiny fish at the bottom of the ocean. And when you walk as much as we have been your eye catches the plastic debris along the edges of the sidewalks. These freakin’ dental picks are everywhere. And someone in the vicinity of Titus and Culver drinks an incredible amount of Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey, incredible in that they are apparently behind the wheel while chugging these plastic fifths. And then there are all the tiny little drug bags. I collect them.

Edgerton is a big name in Rochester. I don’t know the reason but I know there is a big grave stone in the cemetery near our house with the name on it. And there is an Edgerton Street in the city near the Upper Falls. The neighborhood is called Edgerton. There is an Edgerton Park near Jefferson High School on Dewey. And there used to be an Edgerton Road that ran through Durand Eastman Park. It is still shown on the map and there is even a street sign labeling it near the end of Pinegrove at the western border of the park.

The road used to connect Pinegrove, which now dead ends, to Kings Highway near the clubhouse. I’m not sure whose idea it was to put the sewage treatment plant in the park (I know it is downhill from the city and I have heard there is huge pipe, probably the diameter of those halfpipes the Olympic snowboarders compete on, that runs from downtown to the plant) but that operation grew into the VanLare Wastewater Treatment Facility which now seems to accept truckloads of shit for hire. And so what was public park land has a smattering of “No Trespassing” signs and the road itself which was closed to traffic has been mostly been swallowed up by the land.

There are still cement guard posts and occasion pieces of metal guard rail and you can pretty much tell where the road used to lie because of the geography. Parts of the old road are used by the treatment plant, pieces are used by park maintenance workers and parts of it are the golf cart path on the back nine. We were determined to follow Edgerton Road yesterday and we did it! The park is huge and other areas have been reconfigured over the years. Ever wonder why Horseshoe Road runs off of Lakeshore and stops instead of coming back out? Ever wonder why three roads run up from Lakeshore Boulevard and all come together in a circle with a barrier in front of Wisner Road, a road that would take you out of the park. Somebody has to think about these things.