Gray

[Gray sky, Boston; 10/24/09]

Despite the gray skies all day, I felt reasonably upbeat at work, I think mainly from having finally wrestled my training module into enough shape that I could now add the flourishes, the introductory and summary paragraphs, and begin revising things to flow better. In other words, the bushwhacking is mostly behind me and the peak is in sight, even if there turn out to be lots of switchbacks before I reach the top. And there will be switchbacks.

I got out for a quick walk after lunch before the rain began to spit. Mercifully the usual buzzing leaf-blowers were absent from my favorite woodsy private road, but there were two helicopters hovering over town, with an incessant droning. Odd that they didn't go away, I thought. Coming back through downtown, I saw nothing going on, but soon after I got back to the office I found out that a high school girl had been struck and killed by the commuter rail train that passes behind my building and the next-door high school fields and the school itself. Very sad. We see the teenagers walking and loitering around every day in the early afternoon. Apparently there's a hole in the fence behind the school and they often cross the tracks there. The T people fix the hole periodically, but somehow it always gets opened up again.

By the evening commute, the trains were running again, with the no-doubt nervous train engineers blowing their horns repeatedly as they rolled along the stretch of track where the accident happened. Such a haunting sound, train whistles.

Comments

[maria]

That is very sad about the girl being struck by the commuter train. For some time now around herein the South Bay (Palo Alto area) a number of high school kids have chosen to throw themselves in front of the train, opting for suicide in this brutal fashion.

[Lorianne]

We had the same helicopters buzzing overhead when there was that fatal D-line crash over a year ago. We're too far from the tracks to hear any whistles, but the incessant drone of helicopters was a sad enough reminder.

[Leslee]

Maria: Yes, very sad. They don't know what she was doing there at this point, so unclear what happened. It does appear to be a popular crossing point, but you'd think she'd have checked the tracks before crossing.

Lorianne: Yeah, I knew something was up. And seems like they're blowing the whistles more now, but I could just be noticing them more.

[Beth W.]

Yes, there are always switchbacks. I couldn't really enjoy the view from the ridge tops until I finally accepted the inevitability of tough switchbacks along the trail.