Ten Days Til Christmas With Me Concerned About Robotrons & Fort Worth's Bad Sad Sidewalks

I escaped to the other side of the bars of my patio prison cell, this morning, to take a picture of the very very dark pre-dawn morning of the Ides of December, already the 15th day of the last month of 2011.

Only 10 days until Christmas.

That is not many shopping days left for the sheep-like robotrons who feel compelled to play along with the annual Christmas present buying economic boost.

I've always thought Scrooge had it right and Charles Dickens thoroughly maligned him. And Tiny Tim was a bit of a whiner.

Speaking of whiners. Some guy in a wheelchair has the gall to think that Fort Worth is being grossly unfair in how it treats the disabled via its patchwork of messed up sidewalks.

Apparently Fort Worth's next door neighbor, Arlington, is in the midst of a 6 year long lawsuit that claims Arlington is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, due to Arlington's inadequate sidewalk access.

I have walked in both Arlington and Fort Worth. If Arlington is getting sued for bad sidewalks, well, methinks Fort Worth's are much much worse.

If I had to rely on a wheelchair for mobility I could not make it to my neighborhood Krogers via sidewalks. That has long seemed extremely wrong to me, what with my location being in a rather densely populated area.

With a lot of people walking.

So many people walking that dirt paths have been worn in the ground that leads to Krogers.

How is it that the city that is the Envy of the Nation and causes towns, big and small, to be Green With Envy, can have such a sad patchwork of bad sidewalks?

The last time I was in the relatively small town of Tacoma, population less than a third of Fort Worth's, I walked many a mile. I do not recollect walking anywhere in Tacoma that did not have a wide sidewalk on both sides of the street, with a wide median separating the sidewalk from the street in the residential zones.

I don't think anyone in Tacoma has ever suggested that Tacoma is the Envy of the Nation or makes any other town Green With Envy.

Of the Fort Worth sidewalks that do exist, most are ridiculously narrow. There is no way two wheelchairs could meet each other without one having to move off the sidewalk. Most Fort Worth sidewalks are not wide enough for two wide Fort Worth natives to walk side by side.

Enough of the sad subject of Fort Worth's badly lacking sidewalk situation and on to my favorite subject.

The weather.

I am not running my furnace this morning. The temperature in the outer world got well into the 70s yesterday. It is currently 55 degrees in the outer world at my location about a half hour before the sun arrives to begin its daily heating duties.

Even though I said, yesterday, that my new swimming protocol was 5 days in a row of averaging 60 degrees or above, over a 24 hour time period, I am going to give the pool another try this morning. Even if it does not work out that I can stay in the pool, I find the bracing attempt to be invigorating.

I like being invigorated.