Today’s weather is mostly sunny with a high near 70.  As usual I took Sun for a walk.  Being Christmas, I took advantage of the low traffic volume and walked up Ragin Lane to Fewell Park.  Not a person was stirring.  Sun and I had the entire park to ourselves.   We circled through Fewell Estates and came home to do a few chores.

I started a ham baking in anticipation of Elle’s arrival tomorrow.  We are spending Christmas alone but Elle flies into Charlotte at about 5 A.M. tomorrow and flies out on New Year’s day at about 6:30 A.M.  Chris and his family will come to visit on Tuesday, December 27.  I will add a turkey to the ham for our lunch that day.

To keep myself out of the doldrums on this beautiful day, I went for a bicycle ride, though peddling is hard on my neck.  I rode down Ebenezer Road to turn off on Grady Drive to see the lights that Nita and I had seen last night.  Except for a lady and two matched white dogs I saw no one which led me to Cherry Road and Rock Hill Homes.  I wanted to see some kids playing with Christmas toys.

My total people count jumped to 21 as I weaved in an out of Rock Hill Homes’ curving streets.  For sure I saw close to 10 children engaged in play.  The three young teens playing basketball in the street would not acknowledge my greeting but they were young and black.  An old guy like me must have seemed strange.  Just after passing them I saw a girl of about ten with a new bicycle.  Her brother, I suppose, was driving his radio controlled car under it on the sidewalk.

I liked best seeing the kid about 14 self-consciously playing with a drone toy.  He turned away to keep it going or to be cool but I felt I knew he was enjoying seeing the contraption rising in the sky even if he was supposed to be too big to enjoy such a toy. Find my way out I came across the sound of Latin music booming from a Chevy Tahoe with all doors opened. In the doorway of the block home a few feet away I saw a young man talking to a women.  I hoped it was his sister or young wife and that they were admiring the sound quality.  I could hear the music a block away as I saw two young girls running away from two small dogs impending their walk toward their mother who was on her phone.

I turned into Shadow Brook subdivision to finish out my ride and saw four people walking in the distance.  Catching up to them, I confirmed my suspicion: Frank and Linda Stewart were out walking with their daughter and her husband.  I walked and talked with them for awhile.  Seeing other people outside cheers me.