The nap

It was early in the Summer of 1988 and I was going to be graduating from high school very soon. In fact the only thing I had left to do at school were a few graduation practices and then the actual graduation ceremony. The graduation practices were only half a day, but I had a job after school. I didn't have a car yet so I told my parents that after graduation practice I would just hang around the town and walk to work. Since I worked at the same place as my dad then I could catch a ride home with him. The graduation practice that day was really dull, stand up, sit down, walk here, walk there. I am glad that twelve years of education had prepared me for this. Anyway I wastired so instead of walking into the town I walked over to a bridge that went over the railroad tracks. I went down the bank below the bridge, but kind of off to the side and found a nice grassy place to lay down. I set my watch to wake me up in an hour and a half so I could get to work. Then I laid back and stared at the inside of my eyelids. I didn't expect to sleep much, but I woke up and looked at my watch. I leapt up because I had slept over an hour and a half and I had to start walking to make it to work on time because work was about a mile and a half walk away. I grabbed my gym bag that held my red cap and gown in it and began my walk down the railroad tracks. The tracks went right by my work. I was probably just a quarter of a mile down the tracks when I heard sirens behind me. I turned and saw an ambulance going over the bridge that I had just been under, but then instead of going straight they went to the right where I couldn't see them. I thought there had to have been an accident at the factory that was over there. To my surprise two men carrying bags and wearing uniforms came racing down the bank where I had just been, how odd. I thought that they looked like paramedics and I also thought that they seemed to be looking for something. Then I turned to look the other way and realized that ahead of me in a small parking lot a crowd of about twenty onlookers had formed and they were looking down at the bridge. Yet I was in between their vision and the bridge and some of them seemed to be looking at me. Then a figure came out of the group and headed towards me. I recognized the hat right away that marked this guy as a Maryland State Trooper. I kept walking towards him now realizing that he was definitely coming to talk to me. My heart was beating fast and I was beginning to get an idea of what was happening, but I walked on to meet the officer. When we met I asked him if anything was wrong. He asked if I had been by the bridge and I said yes I had been there, but now I had to go to work. He asked what I was doing at the bridge and I told him about graduation practice, my job and my nap. He removed his hat and wiped his head and smiled a little. He proceeded to tell me about how a person in one of the nearby houses had seen my unmoving form and called the ambulance because they thought that I had been hit by a train. He had been notified because he happened to be in the area. I informed him that I had not been hit by a train and he asked that I not take naps near the railroad tracks anymore. Then we parted and I went to work. The crowd in the parking lot dispersed when they realized there was nothing more to see. The moral of the story is you should poke a body with a stick before calling the ambulance. Well, maybe that's not the moral perhaps it's choose your napping places carefully. Or maybe it's just a mildly interesting real story with no moral at all.

I will be back Monday with more metal stuff. Enjoy the weekend.