Walker

I get around the streets of Duluth quite a bit, either by walking or my trusty mule (bike). I think it's safe to say I've encountered a good number of the residents of this town whilst pounding the sidewalks and pedaling the streets, and there is one old fella I seem to run into...randomly... everywhere. He's a kindly gent, about 80 if he's a day, with tan skin and whitewhitewhite hair. I've spoken to him briefly on a few occasions, either to tell him the time (odd, because I gave up wearing a watch in 1996) or to just acknowledge his presence in this reality. Mostly we exchange a wave as we pass by one another. I've run into him mostly around the blocks between 7th and 9th Aves and 1st to 4th streets, and as far away as downtown. Mostly he walks, but sometimes I've seen him with a broom in his hand sweeping sidewalks and steps to people's houses. The other day, I saw him across the street from my house sweeping the sidewalk in front of the duplex across the street. He even went so far as to sweep right up to the stairs and up onto the stoop and doorstep before he returned to the small pile of debris at the corner near the storm drain.

He sort of reminds me of the twin sisters that used to live down the street from me when I lived in St. Paul. They'd walk to the store every day, arm in arm always with the matching scarves and coordinating lipstick and sparkling blue eyes. My friend Beth pointed them out to me one day as we were smoking and drinking coffee on the front stoop of our building. They would take that same walk almost every day for three of the four years I lived there. About a year before I moved to Duluth, one of the sisters passed away. It was strange to see one without the other walking down the street. I almost didn't recognise her walking by herself. She would take the same walk she and her sister used to for about another year or so, and then one afternoon she didn't come walking down the sidewalk. About a week later I found out that she too had passed on.