Early morning Fourth of July and just got done helping my American Legion Post put up flags.  We put up a hundred on eleven flag days each year.  And this morning was super glorious weatherwise and it was like walking around in a Norman Rockwell painting!  Kind of like Annie talking about in Spain walking around in a postcard.  Another part of our Rockwellism is our amateur hydroplane race which starts at 5 AM every Fourth and the guys circumnavigate the Island with a racket that can be heard five miles away easy.  I hear through the grapevine that Carl Olson won and Paul Hoffman flipped over at the north end but is OK.  This is supremely cool totally local stuff.

So Peggy, one of my buddies that works at the hospital told me that Caminohead means Roadhead.  She grew up in Panama so she knows her Spanish.  I tried to explain that it was a little different but actually maybe not so much.  I got into Roadheadism yesterday during my training.

Yea, was doing a six miler on Old Mill Rd.  But really on one stretch of the road and it is 3/4 of a mile.  So, I go back and forth four times and that gives me the six miles.  This stretch has a big open field on one side and forested on the other.  No houses to be seen and no dogs to come out and bark.  There are little blue flowers and songs of Redwing Blackbirds that one cannot enjoy from a moving vehicle.  Anyway, back to Roadhead stuff.  I got into studying the walking surface, the road, well the road and the shoulder.  Got it in my head that the they are built with a camber or in other words it is a slightly convex surface made that way to shed rain.  So, if I always walk on one side facing traffic or in this case occasional traffic I am always walking across a slight slope.  So, it occurred to me to lengthen that outboard walking stick 5 cm to compensate and it made a difference!  A little minor tweak that made a long stretch easier.

Also, picked up a couple of “flat tires”,  as my old boss Robert called them, a 16 penny nail and a drill bit on the road.  Yea, a good deed.  A few weeks ago I spied an earthworm out in the middle of the pavement and I got out there and tried to pick him up but he was too small and slimy and I wound  up flicking the little guy ten feet to the grassy shoulder.  This kind of stuff happens when you get older, risking your life for an unendangered species!

OK, have a great Fourth, wherever you find yourself.  Have a drink for all the old dead white guys that started this whole experiment!  Phil.