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Riding the Burke Gilman again this morning. I’m always looking for interesting things. Obviously to blog about later, because let’s face it, I’m a total geek and have to look for things to blog about.

There was something I found intriguing on this particular morning, however. I was coming up on one of the last few bends leading to school, riding parallel to the highway, when up ahead I saw a man in roller blades. He was bent over at the waist and on my side of the path. If he was an intelligent man, he would have been on the left side of the path so I wouldn’t have to go around him. I mean, he was going the opposite direction as me–it simply makes sense. However, this was not the case, and due to the fact that he was bent completely over, it was apparent that he wasn’t paying attention to who was coming. I watched him, careful not to crowd him due to how he was coasting toward the middle line. I watched him carefully and eventually saw why he was keeled over, face to the ground. The 30-something man held a small hand-broom and was brushing away individual pebbles off the trail, one-by-one.

One cannot help wondering… Is that his job? Is he paid to brush pebbles off the path with a hand-broom the size of a small dinner plate? Or does this man simply spend his free-time whisking way stray rocks, even though they will surely make their way back onto the pavement within two minutes’ time? Who is this man? And is he some kind of super hero?

Roller-blade Guy: Saving pathways everywhere. One pebble at a time…