The magical run

To make social distancing easier and also tack on mileage on weekend runs, I've been varying my routes instead of just going round the lake. Yesterday I went first out into Cedar Hills Park, then I dropped onto a cul-de-sac near the end of Kenmore, close to where Victor Zinn lived the last couple of years of his life. Then I went up the hill through the newish subdivision and connected down onto Piney Mountain Rd. Right at the corner where Chris Tate and Ashley Jefferson grew up and our school bus would turn around when it went to pick them up, I looked up the hill at the big water storage tank and thought "in 50 years of being around here, I've never been up there."

So up I went. Logically I knew that there must be a trail around it, and that there must be trails dropping down the other side of the hill that would end up in the Northern part of Forest Hills, over where Grey Bailey and Tom-El Yates lived (also Pam Chambers?) in the 70s.

And so there were. Plenty of trails. The first one I tried went straight to someone's back yard, and I saw multiple trucks in the driveway so I didn't cut through. The second trail was longer and was clearly somewhat maintained. As it came into a clearing I saw something magical: a basketball court in the woods. Halfcourt, asphalt surface, half-moon backboard with a couple of benches on the side. Very nicely maintained. Turned out it was part of North Forest Hills Park, which definitely didn't exist when I was growing up but which also has a playground and a covered picnic area (both taped off for coronavirus) and a little bathroom building.

I am going to try to get Graham to go over there and shoot some hoops with me. I feel a little guilty about him growing up an NC boy with no handle or jumper. Then again, those are things one kind of needs to want and go get for one's self.

In any case, I kept going and was running through the streets where the Dillons and Ari Aponte used to live, which therefore have a mystique of beauty and allure in my mind. As I came to a corner I saw a yard with a couple of little beasts in it. Without my glasses, I had to get pretty close to see that it was in fact a pair of goats munching on grass. Goats!

Of course when I told Natalie about it she was very keen to go over there and see them.