Little Blue Heron

Down at the ballpark, in the men’s rooms, there is an advertisement placed strategically at eye level, above some of the urinals that reads, “Your Wife Is HOT!!!” and then “The Problem Is in Your Hands!” It then goes on to name some heating and cooling company that wants to fix the home air conditioner. Well, she is and it is, but the AC is running just fine, thank you very much, which is all very fortunate, because it is hot, hot, hot out today in Saint Louis. How hot is it, you might ask? Well, it’s not quite surface of the sun hot, but it has to be close.

We went for a morning bicycle ride today, not quite the dawn patrol that I would have preferred, but not either our more usual sedate noon launch. At the beginning of the week, when the mercury was lower, the noon launched worked out well, because I could go to work in the morning and then Anne and I could ride together in the afternoon. As the temperature rose through the week, Anne started launching earlier and earlier. She’s on some kick to ride every day in June, don’t you know. Near the end of each Forest Park ride, her go to destination is a pair of wooden board walks over ponds in the northeastern corner of the park. I’ve always liked the first one as a photo-op, but she has discovered that the second one is now home to a diverse crowd of feathered fishers. Today, in addition to the pictured little blue heron, we also saw a night heron and a snowy egret, who thought for some reason that this little stretch of water was its private domain and that all these other feathered interlopers should just scram. Well, he is entitled to his opinion.

This week, Spacely Sprockets launched its annual On the Move campaign, which is designed to keep us old engineers moving, at least until the time comes to push us out the door. It is also designed to get some my younger colleagues going, who need that extra push, so that they can at least make it to my point, before it becomes their turn to leave. In 1980, when I first walked in the plant doors, there was a rather rotund guard who I would have to sit with every morning, until someone came to take me in. He did have one bit of rather sage advice that I have kept filed until now, under do what I say and not what I do. His advice was to always take the stairs and eschew the elevator. He said that if you walk up and down the stairs every day, some day you will walk out of here, but if you let the elevator carry you up and down, then some day you are going to be carried out of here. It’s looking pretty good for the former.