The Illusion

The dreamlike insight awakened me at 3:00 a.m. In sleep my mind tried to unravel what I saw earlier in the day on the way back to my cave.Earlier in the day,I was strolling back to my cave by way of a narrow sidewalk in Germantown/Mt.Airy,Philadelphia,PA USA. The sidewalks are narrow in that part of town and often one pedestrian walking in one direction would side- step the pedestrian coming from the opposite direction. If two pedestrians are approaching and one has a dog then it's another story.Yesterday, I was approaching an intersection where two frail, old ladies were ,walking a bear-sized brown and black adult Rottweiler. They stopped for the red traffic light.They spotted me and I spotted them and I momentarily thought I would have to give them a very wide berth because of their dog.I knew that one good leap and bite from that dog would make my knee bones history! I also thought that I might have to live up to my given name,F-L-A-S-H . Suddenly,I noticed that the dog had two leashes attached to his neck.Each leash was held by a little old lady on either side.The sense of dread came over me.
As the traffic light turned green, the two old ladies and the dog walked in my direction. They crossed the intersection and as the light was about to turn red again,a small car barreled past the four of us to make the right turn.Inside the car and leaning out the passenger window was a smaller mongrel in the car who growled and barked at the Rottweiler.
Both women pulled their leashes to the left to allow me to walk pass them on their right as they approached me.The mongrel in the passing car on their right startled them and they were trying to console the Rottweiler by telling her that the mongrel sounded like her.I was in the line of attack between them and the barking mongrel in the car. As the women tensed up and crept to their left away from me and my red nose, the Rottweiler kept its' composure and unnerved by the growling mongrel and me, led the two timid women past me in close proximity.I am an imaginary hoboclown but I had a bead of sweat on my brow. After I slept on it, it hit me!
What appeared to be a Rottweiler dog being walked with two leashes by two little old ladies was actually two old ladies being walked by the their dog. Each old lady was attached to a leash to be led by their dog through the troubles of their day! The ladies were not blind and the Rottweiler was not a seeing-eye dog yet their dog was able to see through them and helped them through their anxious moments! Oddly enough, the Rottweiler was able to see through me too!

Fat Cats & The Economy

Hello Everybody! The United States of America is a peculiar place!Who would know better than me,Flash Mc Cool,the great hoboclown detective? While the US Congress is debating the bail out of Wall Street and the American financial system to the tune of 700 billion dollars,more important things are going on!
This morning, upon leaving my cave and arriving on the train platform to Center City, I finally saw the Cat Woman up close. After surveilling her for two years as she fed 12 feral cats in a small field beyond the opposite side of the
rail road tracks,I finally observed her close up.She was nervously, frantically and impatiently pacing the platform that I usually stand on to board the R8 train. Her usual daily morning ritual was to exit her old apartment building, grab a bag of dry cat food out of the trunk of her car and feed the already FAT feral cats gathered at their feeding sites.Today, it was none of that as she was now literally on the opposite sides of the tracks-my side where Nature seamlessly meets the world of mankind.On my side,just beyond the platform was the woods, full of Nature's Imperative: The long bare ivory tail of a mole danced amongst the weeds and leaves of the underbrush.Six feet away, under the protective thicket of a thorn bush was a Fat feral cat nursing and grooming her new litter of tan and white kittens. My red nose was put off by the pungent aroma of ragweed.In the center of this scene a nosy squirrel scampered down his tree to see what was going on, as the mole casually and unconcerned went about his search for food. Her ususal routine broken, the Cat Woman continued to pace back and forth. Thinking that she would miss the feral kitten's lair and the nonchalant mole,I pointed them out to her.I also thought she might take a concern and later include them in her next morning's feed.She was as awestruck as I was and captivated by the feral cat, her kittens and the cycle of life.Surprisingly,the Cat Woman admitted that she would really like to get all the feral cats captured and spayed to get them out of the area and into some nice human homes.I told her I've been observing her from afar for years and I complimented her on her fine work in feeding the cats.She smiled and said that she was sad that she could not tend to them this morning because she had, "Jury Duty"...another man-made thing that seemed to pre-empt Nature's Imperative.Somehow, there seemed to be more important things going on than spending 700 billion dollars to bail out an economy's
financial market !