The Man Who Makes Snowballs
Yesterday he was there and I thought him an anomaly. But this morning when I was walking passed the harbor I saw him again. He is a little Asian man minus a name. He was doing aerobics with his arms as though he were creating a human windmill. His old coat and old hat made me, from afar, assume he was homeless. As I got closer to him I saw that he was wearing horned rim glasses and his clothes ceased to be old and tattered and took on the bourgeois/bohemian term "vintage". He greeted me.
"Good morning to you sir."
I replied, a little startled, "Right on brosef." To which he snorted and said without hesitation, "I'll show you brosef."
In his hands were snowballs that he had made. This little man flung a snow ball as hard as he could out into the bay. It went about 30 feet. The startling thing was that my words were the catalyst. I think they were the catalyst. I'm sure eventually he would have launched the ball but it was interesting that my words got his 70's hush puppies moving.
He walked back to the bench with his brown corduroys making the standard brown corduroy song, 'Swiiizhhh Swiiizhhh Swiiizhhh'. He sat down, crossed his legs and opened what appeared to be a Harpers magazine. I laughed and thought to myself, "Now that's how to start a day."
