…Because everybody else and his little brother has a gun.
Yesterday I got up to the mountain park a bit late — around 11 a.m., after meetings and a trip to My Sister’s Attic to consign a set of old Noritake china. The day was warm, and so barely a soul was to be seen on the trails across the flat valley between Shaw Butte and North Mountain.
That was good: I didn’t have to listen to people yakking their heads off at the top of their lungs — the air filled with birdsong and the wind’s whisper almost drowned out the grumble of traffic on the surrounding roads.
On the other hand, of course, if one fell and broke an ankle, one would be stuck out there in the heat until five or six o’clock before anyone else would come along. And, also of course, if there’s another person out there at mid-day, it’s just you and him.
About halfway between the Seventh Avenue & Peoria trailhead and the dam below Thunderbird Road, I passed a guy walking toward me. Nothing notable, except that there was no one else on the trails around noon on a 90-degree day.
After a bit, I realized that every time I turned around, here was this guy.
He wasn’t a big man — just a strange-looking little fellow with a glabrous, ageless face. Hard to tell his age, because his head and much of his face were covered by a big hat. He passed me twice coming in my direction, and then as I headed back toward the car I saw him walking ahead of me up the trail.
And I noticed that occasionally he glanced back in my direction.
Weird. Probably harmless. But weird.
Occasionally he would slow down enough that the distance between us kept narrowing.
I stopped in the shade of a paloverde and stepped into the shrubbery so that I couldn’t be seen, figuring to wait until this character moved on.
At one point he stopped and looked back. At another, he could have borne left or right at a Y in the trail. Naturally, he was going my way.
At the Y, I picked up a narrow, flat rock and put it into my pocket, which already bulged a little where it held my car keys. Oh…did I mention I had on a pair of short-shorts? Yeah. Stupid.
About three inches of the rock stuck out of the pocket. I wrapped my hand around it so with the fingers laying against the outside of my cut-offs in sort of…oh, the position they might be in if they were resting on a trigger guard. The stone was not visible — only my hand obviously holding something that was hidden in my pocket.
😀
He did slow down enough that I caught up and passed him. I figured if he tried anything I’d brain him with the rock — only by serendipity had I picked up a piece of granite that fit in my pocket like a nice little lady’s Derringer.
We said “hello” again. I went on my way. Nothing happened.
Weird. Harmless, but weird.
But what if he had a piece of paper? paper covers rock.
Yow!! I would’ve been sunk! 😆
How sad that in today’s world one has to worry like this while taking a hike in broad day light. Just had a funny thought…..Perhaps he is wrting on his blog at this very moment, about the peculiar encounter he had on the trail with a gal who was acting agressively with a “concealed weapon” in her pocket. And is thanking his lucky stars that nothing came of it….LOL….Just a thought…
Ha ha!!! That’s probably EXACTLY what he’s doing!!
Seriously…I don’t know your gender, but if you’re a man you don’t have to worry about this kind of thing much. If you’re a woman, it’s SOP and always has been. As women get older it’s less of an issue, but the issue never fully goes away — just a few weeks ago, some crazy raped an 83-year-old woman here. And of course, flouncing around in cut-offs that come up to your cheeks will cause you, shall we say, to assume a degree of risk, no matter what your age. Particularly when you do it in an isolated spot.
Not on topic: Since we’ve been thinking of helping out our dear son w/ a house, I was searching through your blog for posts on the house you bought with your son. I don’t know if I found all of them…but here we have a history of the Recession, with layoffs, housing bubble pop, etc. So stressful in the reading.
Interestingly, one of your friends predicted that stocks would not recover for many years–but they did. Real estate–I’m not sure.
Yup…it was a perfect storm, economically…as Katrina was the perfect storm for New Orleans.
Actually it has been a few years: I’d already lost over $200,000 in pretend stock market money before the Great Layoff in 2009. That was four years ago. If we had gone into a real depression, then certainly it would have been “many” years before the market recovered. Fortunately, the Great Recession was just that: a recession.
Depending on where you live, it still may be a good time to buy. Hereabouts, you can still find plenty of foreclosures and short sales. The problem with the foreclosures, though, is that the banks have lost their sense of desperation and are now trying to recover as much as they can, and so some foreclosures are priced at or even above market. I don’t know if that’s true in other parts of the country.
If I were to do it again, I think I would’ve suggested we look for a condo, loft, or patio home. A house is a lot of expense and hassle for a young single man.
If not concealed carry, perhaps you’d consider some pepper spray. Call me old-fashioned, but an unarmed woman on an isolated hiking trail is no match going up against your average crazy. Probably not even with pepper spray against a determined assailant, but at least it tips the scales a bit.
LOL! I used to carry pepper spray around.
In Arizona, the inside of a car gets so hot during the summer that if you carelessly leave a can of pepper spray in the car — as I did one day — it will discharge or even explode.
I came back from class one day to find the inside of the car fumigated with pepper spray.
No amount of trying to clean the upholstery and scrub down the steering wheel and other plastic parts helped. I had to get rid of the car.
So…that was a pricey bit of “protection.” Fortunately it discharged while the car was sitting in the parking lot and not as I was flying up the freeway, as happened to one woman here.
Heh!! In which case, perhaps the derringer is the better choice. Or a million-volt laser. Or a large, ill-tempered and protective doggie.