A funny thing happened on the way to the forum. No, really,
I was on the way to the Forum shopping center to meet Donna and Cyndie for
lunch! I had a little bit of time to kill
between dropping Doug off at the base and meeting my two friends for Donna’s
birthday – yep I’m singing to you again!
Anyway, I drove through downtown
taking pictures out the driver side window, but only while stopped at red
lights, or pulled over in a parking lot.
If I ever make it as a photographer, you know get paid for a picture
some day, I could call myself the “Drive By Shutterfly”! I was winding through the one way streets of
downtown, took a right, and ended up the beautiful and historic King William
district, home of the homes we all like to look at and wonder how anybody could
afford just the electric bill!
I took
some pictures of the neighborhood as the sun beamed down in full force blanketing
the canopy of trees as its rays squeezed in between the limbs to paint the
streets with sunshine. I drove up and
down often forgetting to take pictures as the architecture and landscaping
distracted my quest. I turned on a
street called Arsenal and ended up at a T in the road. To my left sat a beautiful pedestrian bridge
crossing the San Antonio River Walk in a not so commercial area. The large trees provided enough cover from
the sun’s heat and I thought I just might be able to get out of the truck long
enough to run to the bridge and snap a few great pictures. I parked in the shade
so the truck wouldn’t heat up too much and started down the dead end street
leading to the bridge. Suddenly to my
left I heard a rather loud rustling in the ground cover. I focused my eyes on
what looked like a rat, then before bolting, I realized it was a squirrel.
I lifted the camera to my eye and started
taking pictures of the little guy as it climbed up the iron fence and found a
good spot to devour its lunch. After a
few pictures, I noticed something from the corner of my eye and lower the
camera enough to see another squirrel perched on the fencing way down at the
end. The first subject of my pictures
moved along down the fencing for a more comfortable spot to eat, obviously
unaware of the unwanted neighbor and that unwanted neighbor stared down that first
squirrel like a cat waiting to pounce. 
Squirrel number two crept along the fence line as feline as they get,
through the trellis even! Me, the
Driveby Shuttefly, ever the spectator, happily capture life in the jungle.
Then all
of the sudden, subject number two stops in its tracks, balancing its feet like
Gaby on the beam before the gold medal, then he lifts up tail and he sits.
I take my camera off the zoom and capture the
perfect picture of the happy squirrel eating, and the happier squirrel about to
pounce.
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Then in the spirit of the
Olympics, I gave Gaby the flying squirrel, a run for the gold, as subject number
two pounced and startled me so badly I jumped straight up, lost my footing, and
forgot to take the picture! The sounds those two squirrels made and how far
they leapt while in attack and defense mode were hilarious. I laughed so hard the lady that owned the
house came out to see what possibly could be so funny. As the two squirrels raced off in front of
us, one with a mouth full of nuts and the other with teeth growling like a
lion, she nodded, smiled and waved at me.
I never got the perfect squirrel shot with the camera, but I got a perfect gold medal moment
of life, cancer thought free, and a huge laugh all while on the way to the
forum.
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| From the pedestrian bridge off Arsenal |
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