Parade of Humanity

It was one of the crazy-quilt walks that make you glad to be living and breathing on this earth. It is Police Week here in our Nation's Capital, and E Street was clogged with the men in blue honoring their fallen comrades. I strolled past police of every stripe and family members wearing t-shirts with slogans like "In Search of Heroes." I stepped over wires and past big banks of lights; noticed a box of white candles and another of red roses.

By Seventh Street I'd moved on to the hustle bustle of Chinatown and Penn Quarter. Feeling flush, I pulled two dollars from my purse to buy a copy of Street Sense, a newspaper written and sold by the homeless. My salesman was hawking another publication, too. "I used to be a cowboy," he said, "and I've written this book. You can buy it on Amazon."

Turning the corner I found myself in the middle of a line of wheelchairs; maybe these folks were heading to the Police Memorial, or maybe they were bound for the corner, where they would buy a book by a homeless cowboy poet.

As for me, the work day was draining away. In its place was a parade of humanity— and the precious walking time to take it in.

(View from another D.C. walk.)