I saw a lizard the other afternoon.
With every place wet as the dickens, I’ve taken to walking the old railroad tracks south of Humboldt.
If I knew how the tune goes, I’d hum “Walking the Rails.” Instead I pay close attention to ballast and ties. Most ties are flush, but every now and then I notice one at an angle that could lead to a fall.
The lizard, about 3 inches long less its tail, was quick as the dickens and disappeared under a rail about as soon as I saw it. Angus failed to notice it; he was too busy sorting out the multitude of smells left by coyotes and other creatures.
I suspect some readers along about now are thinking, “Bob needs to get a life.”
My meanders in the countryside are prescribed by my pain doc and orthopedist, who traded my worn hip joints for those of titanium. Both recommended walking as the best therapy.
Seeing the lizard prompted further investigation. Even though I learned it was one of 6,000 species I was unable get more specific.
When I was young, I had a pet lizard, a mail-order chameleon that was supposed to change color according to its surroundings. That might have occurred a bit, but if it did, it was so subtle I couldn’t tell the difference. One day the lizard was out and our cat changed its color from living to dead.
YEARS AGO men referred to as bums, before political correctness intervened, rode the rails.
That mode of transportation probably reached its peak during the Depression, when many were out of work and often were going from one place to another on the cheap looking for a job.
Into the late 1940s, when I was old enough to recognize what was going on, the boxcar hoppers would stop by our house every once in awhile. My grandmother, who weighed less than 100 pounds with most of the weight found in her heart, never turned down a fellow when he walked the three blocks from the tracks to our back door for a handout. She’d make a sandwich and if she’d baked a pie, which she did practically every day, a piece would come with the sandwich.
I’ve read that houses were marked — how I don’t know — to identify where the soft hearts lived.
I think about such things as I walk along the rail beds, while soaking up the wonders of nature — the lizard, a tom turkey with a long beard and any number of things I find interesting, in my simple approach to casual life.
