At 6:45 this morning I closed the door of my apartment and walked quietly down the corridor and descended the back stairs into the parking garage and out into the neighborhood of cottages and homes. Everywhere it was silent. There was no one out on the street. Newspapers had been thrown in front of many houses and still laid on lawns and sidewalks. In front of a friend's house I picked up the paper and tossed it to the front door and continued on my morning walk. When I crossed the property line between Franke at Seaside and Seaside Farms I met one woman walking and talking on a cellphone. She was dressed in nurse's whites and headed in the direction of the main road. Would she catch a bus? Is there even a bus on that road in the morning? Would she wait to be picked up by a car and driver and taken to work? Shortly after a car passed by with one person in it. Going to work? Seaside Farms is a residential community of private homes, small to medium lots and generally well kept lawns. Some automatic sprinklers were operating and I left the sidewalk temporarily for the road to escape the water. Like Franke at Seaside there was no activity to break the morning silence. Except for the major differences in prosperity the area resembled a community in East Germany that I drove through in 1989. No one on the streets. No sound from the homes. No evidence that anyone even lived there. Suddenly a small dog was at my heels and startled me. I stopped and faced him down as he circles my legs. A teenage boy came running after him with a leash in his hand and as he got close to me said, "Sorry." I continued on my silent walk until I encountered a lady walking two small dogs, one on a leash and one walking point unleashed. Both were friendly and well mannered. We exchanged "good morning" greetings - the lady and I, (not the dogs and me.) I completed my circle of the Seaside Farms community and re-entered Franke at Seaside, a retirement and continuing care community. I circled back by my friend's house where I hoped to scrounge a cup of coffee but the newspaper was still on the front steps and I concluded no one was up and about. I got a cup of coffee at the Franke Bistro and am back in my apartment from where I can see a couple of people walking over to get some breakfast and begin a new day. "Another day in which to excel," was how one friend put in last week. A phrase I had not heard since the Vietnam war era.
