Scooter Man 07/12/23
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I was picking up some cilantro (some hate it, others don't, I'm told),
cherries, and sliced deli turkey from my local C&R last week. Their
prices aren't all that good, but they're a stone's throw from my
house, and shopping there instead of WallyMart makes me feel like I'm
sticking it to the man, somehow. Plus, I can park right on the curb
outside, and run in; it's not painted fire-zone red, so it's
legitimate, legal, up-and-up.
As I returned to the baking July warmth outside the sliding front
doors, and approached my curbside vehicle, my eye was drawn to a man
who was getting ready to get on his scooter. He was an older,
weather-beaten man, gaunt, tan and leathery. Maybe he wasn't old,
really. Perhaps he was my age? Anyway, he'd seen more life, for
certain.
He had placed a small bag of groceries on the back of the scooter, and
was proceeding to put on a cherry-red helmet. I looked and noticed his
scooter matched; it was beautiful, in fact, and bright and everything
that shiny cherry-red is to the human mind. It had chrome mirrors that
stuck out like antennae. I would have spent more time looking at it,
but as he finished with his helmet, the man turned to mount up, and I
noticed that he only had one leg.
The shorts he had on made it easy to see. Where the second leg should
have been, he had a fantastic thin carbon-fiber or composite leg,
jointed at the knee, and ending in a shod artificial foot. He moved it
like a real leg as he hopped on.
I got to thinking, as I got in my car and drove away, how great it was
that his man was out and about, doing his shopping on his cherry red
scooter. I thought how great it was that he was bothering to wear a
helmet (you don't have to here, if you're over 25 and have health
insurance), and even greater that it matched his ride. One leg down,
he was still getting out and living life. Just made me feel good about
the world.
