LeAnn had an errand in downtown Dallas and I volunteered to keep the car double-parked so she could get in and out quickly without the hassles of parking and walking. As it happened, she got delayed by a cranky elevator in an old West End building, and sitting in the car for 20 minutes, I saw an interesting parade of people.
First were people walking down the sidewalk with backpacks and satchels. It was 9 a.m. and some were walking swiftly, cutting around the slower foot traffic, perhaps because they were running late. Others seemed to be in amble mode, perhaps working on a flexible schedule or going to a meeting that was yet to begin.
I’ve worked downtown and I enjoyed the energy of it all, especially when I was younger and had the bulk of my career in front of me. I was never a “big boss” or anything like that, but out on the street everyone was secretly a manager or executive with a project upstairs that was going to change the world and fill their pockets with gold.
Next came people walking dogs. It still baffles me why anyone would keep a pet in a downtown apartment, and not just little toy dogs but big shepherds, standard poodles and the like. But they do and that’s their business and none of mine, although I thought it was my business the last time I worked downtown.
I’ve done two tours of duty working downtown: one in the 1980s at Akard and Pacific, and the other in the 2000s just across the street from the first. There was nobody living downtown during my first job except for retirees at the Manor House high rise. By the time I returned to downtown, there were thousands of residents, including in the building where I had first worked. And that’s when I started seeing people with dogs. That’s also when the sidewalks became difficult to navigate and green spaces such as Thanksgiving Square began to be not so green because of the dogs that needed to be walked.
And in between the late-to-workers and the dog walkers were the homeless in a part of downtown where I don’t recall seeing many homeless. These weren’t people with carts and bags of everything they owned on their way to a street corner or a shelter. They were emptyhanded and just walking, already looking weary at nine in the morning. One man wore baggy, torn dress pants that once were black and pressed and now were faded gray, and a once-white t-shirt on its way to being brown with grime.
I’ve hoped and prayed for years we’d find a way to help those who truly want a way back into the regular rhythm of life, and a better way to help those who don’t seem to want help but need to be convinced if not pushed or forced toward a better way to live. Sadly, we seem stuck as a society, and I saw evidence of that in the weary faces and soiled clothing of those who walked past me. But let’s be honest: Hopes and prayers alone don’t get much done.
Lastly — and keeping with the parade theme — I saw the “grand marshals.” They sat in the back seats of white, driverless Waymo cars. Except unlike parade grand marshals that smile and wave as they pass by, these people were looking down at whatever device or work was in their lap, or they were staring blankly and sleepily out the window.
I still don’t know what I think about self-driving cars except I’m not ready to toss the keys to, well, nobody and settle in for the ride. I’ve always been a fidgety passenger, and I’d probably be even more so with nobody at the steering wheel. I don’t like having no control at all when there is so much that could go wrong in traffic, such as when LeAnn finished her business and we headed home.
We were rolling along and I decided to change one of the information panels on the video dashboard in front of me from miles per gallon to tire pressure. Good thing I did because I was startled to see one tire was in the 20s. I wrote here in April about our frustration having five flats in four months on two newish cars, and now we were rolling with the sixth. I kept an eye on the monitor till we got to a gas station to add some air before I dropped LeAnn off at home and drove to the repair shop.
I paused at home long enough to inspect the tire and find the invader: a shiny silver Phillips head screw. At least this time I had something to show for my trouble. Last time it was just a puncture with no foreign object to blame it on or to have me wondering about where it had happened. But that’s an impossible and useless exercise, because everywhere we drive there’s something being repaired or built. We live in downtown Garland and we’re surrounded by street paving projects, houses being renovated, a new church building going up and warehouses on the rise.
It’s best I don’t know exactly where the tire damage keeps happening, because I don’t need the temptation to go there and shake my fist at someone. That’d just make me another example of what most parades have: a clown.