AN EXCURSION INTO THE DAWN- SYLMAR, CA- THANKSGIVING DAY- 5:40 am to 6:49 am

 Excursions into the dawn are very different from excursions into the night. They have a different feel to them entirely. Stretching my legs for an hour before the sun came up proved to be a nice way to begin my Thanksgiving though. (Especially because the day would end slightly less energetically with me slipping into a turkey coma on the floor of my Mother-in-Law's living room.)

 It was a beautiful morning- slightly misty with clouds hanging around the hills above town. Cock-a-doodle-doo! Here's something interesting about waking up in Sylmar. It sounds like you're waking up on  a farm due to all the roosters crowing back and forth from backyard poultry operations. Cock-a-doodle-doo! 

 I walked up Larkspur, across Borden and then Down Roxford.

 At the corner of Roxford and Glenoaks I found this lone ninety-nine percenter protesting the obscene profits of the El Rancho liquor market.

I found these two signs in the same yard. The main objective of the signs, to advertise eggs and roosters, is definitely served well by these signs, but I found the inattention to detail kind of amusing. One of the G's in EGGS is upside down. Every letter in "MiNATURE ROOSTERS" is capitalized except for that one "i," and of course miniature is not spelled correctly. Ah well... I'm not being snooty about it...just thought it was funny. The signs did their job. In fact, I suspect it's all just a clever guerilla marketing ploy to draw attention to the signs. Brilliant! I did wonder as I was walking away what anyone would want with a miniature rooster though. I would imagine the bigger the better, right? What's the upside of a downsized rooster?

 At the intersection of Roxford and San Fernando I found two spans of train tracks, which crossed Roxford and ran parallel to San Fernando.

 I listened for the rumble of an approaching train, but didn't hear anything. I did here thirty, maybe forty, horses a half-mile away. The rider on the thrird horse was a fat man wearing a ten-gallon hat and a red plaid shirt. The eighth horse needed new horse shoes. The last horse was riderless. I'm good...real good. No train though.

 Across the inersection was Aunt Marlene's and Uncle Tony's store- The Kwik Market.

 Best Subs in town! Sounds like an upcoming product endorsement...

 I crossed over and made sure everything was okay. I checked the door to make sure it was locked and looked in through the windows for prowlers. Everything looked okay so I moved along.

 I crossed the street and walked down San Fernando for a ways. As I was walking past Cal Western Roofing Supply I saw this card depicting what I assume is the Virgin Mary hanging by the gate. I wondered for a moment what had motivated them to hang it there. Is it intended to protect/bless their business venture?

 Anybody with a knowledge of Spanish wanna fill me in on what this means.

 A pile of horse manure next to San Fernando. (I sniffed the manure and was able to deduce that the owner is a man of Mexican or South American heritage who lives in the Sylmar area. I'm good...real good.)

 In the picture above you can see a jogger retreating into the distance. As I was walking up Roxford I met him jogging in the opposite direction. When he was a few feet from me he reached into his pocket and produced a paperback gospel of John. He called out "Happy Thanksgiving! Here, this is for you!" I took it and then, as he was running away, I called out, "I'm already a Christian. Maybe you shoud give it to someone who needs it more." He stopped, pointed at me, and commanded "You give it to someone else."

 You got it, jogger man! I also play for Team Jesus!

 Just a few feet further down the road. I found this small baggy of pot next to the curb. I imagine someone had it in their pocket and when they reached into their pants to fish out their car keys it must have come tumbling out. The smell of it brought back memories from my police days. It's strange that Marijuana smells like adventure and justice to me.

 I dumped the pot out into the bushes and tossed the baggy back into the street.

 I briefly entertained taking the copy of John to whoever was living inside the tent at Roxford and Glenoaks, but then concluded it would be rude to wake whoever it was up, and that would start everything off on the wrong foot. After flipping through the booklet to make sure it wasn't put out by an LDS outfit or by the Jehovah's Witnesses, I ended up going inside El Rancho and giving it to the man working behind the counter.

 "Happy Thanksgiving! I have something for you. You should read it.."

"Thanks, man."

He looked like he would have preferred the pot.

As I walked down Fellows Avenue on my way back toward Larkspur. I saw the aforementioned Tony and Marlene turn up Larkspur coming from the opposite direction. They were headed out for an early morning bike ride. There's Marlene in the green jacket at the top of the street. Tony is on the sidewalk to the right checking out some graffiti which appeared on Umpa's (Sarah's Grandfather) driveway during the night. Happy Thanksgiving!