North of Pike Road, west of Main, south of Ken Pratt Blvd., east of Pratt Parkway (eastern part of Southmoor Park subdivision)

This is my first time going to what, for purposes of this blog, is south Longmont.  Why did I call it ‘Little Italy’ in my title?  Because wife Jennifer looked at the map of where I was going right before I left, and noticed that it’s shaped like a boot, reminiscent of Italy.  (As I think we all learned in school, Italy looks like a boot, and Sicily is the ‘football’ being kicked)!

It wasn’t that cold today, about 25 to 35 degrees, but it was overcast, and a brisk breeze from the north, so the wind chill made it feel colder.  I was glad I was wearing my red sweatshirt with the hood, and I kept the hood up  the whole time.

Before I go on, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my mother-in-law, Wanda.  Hope you have/had a great day!  Jennifer wrote a bit in her blog about her memories of here…

Jenni’s blog

 

 

Ken Pratt Boulevard and Main St. both have businesses along them, so that cut back on some distance I had to cover.  There is also an old abandoned farm there, with a concrete bridge leading to it.  In the picture, you can see that someone piled a big dirt berm there on the bridge, so that most vehicles trying to drive over it would get high-centered.  A cheap but effective way to keep cars out!

I put in two pictures of advertising signs in adjacent yards,one for real estate, and one for roofing.  I noticed they both have phone numbers ending with 0000.   Is this a relatively new thing, having phone numbers ending like that?  And what are the chances of them showing up side by side?  I thought that these might be desirable phone numbers, since they’re easy to remember.  But then Jennifer and daughter Tiffany both pointed out that, at least back in the ‘old days’ of dial telephones, they would be undesirable because of how long it would take to dial them!!  But that’s not much of an issue any more.

 

The tree, for some odd reason, made me think of a favorite old poem of mine, Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley.  If you want to read it, the link is below… it’s not very long at all.

 

Ozymandias

 

 

I really like the tree trunk that has magically been transformed into a wishing well.  Jennifer commented that it was just a tad creepy, since it looks like the wishing well might have tentacles!?!

The last minor street I walked was Budd Court.  The name Budd reminds me of two things.

First, the book “Billy Budd, Foretopman” , by Herman Melville, which my older brother Keith brought home from his English class sometime in the late 1960’s.   I mean to read it sometime, but haven’t yet.  But when I  looked it  up on Wikipedia today, I was surprised to see the title as simply  “Billy Budd”.  Very strange, I thought.  Why did I remember it as the other title?  Looking down further in the article answered my question:

from Wikipedia:   Based on the confusing manuscripts, the published versions had many variations. For example, early versions gave the book’s title as Billy Budd, Foretopman, while it now seems clear Melville intended Billy Budd, Sailor: (An Inside Narrative)’; some versions wrongly included a chapter that Melville had excised as a preface (the correct text has no preface). In addition, some early versions did not follow his change of the name of the ship to Bellipotent (from the Latin bellum war and potens powerful), from Indomitable, as Melville called it in an earlier draft. It is unclear of his full intentions in changing the name of the ship since he used the name Bellipotent only six times.

Secondly, it reminds of Zola Budd, the bare-footed runner from South Africa, who received some degree infamy in the 1984 Olympics.  There was controversy both because of her competing during apartheid in South Africa, and also because she had a collision in the 3000 meter race with the favorite to win the gold, Mary Decker (Slaney).

Mary Decker is presumably the best-ever women’s middle distance runner from the U.S.  She still holds the U.S. records in the 1500, mile, 2000, and 3000 meter events, almost 30 years later.  She ran for the University of Colorado in Boulder for two years around 1980.

Mary Decker (Slaney)

 

 

I met my first ‘Longmont Goose’ today.  You can read about the 2002 ‘Geese Galore’ public art project, and see a few pictures of them, here…

Geese Galore blog

 

 

Speaking of public art in Longmont, the cities’ web site give a nice overview of what is out there.  I hope to see almost all of these during the course of my walking in 2013, but I’m sure I’ll miss a few.

Longmont public art

 

 

Total for today:  16,020 steps, 3:26 time