I found a dollar in my wallet yesterday while digging for train fare with some writing on it and stopped cold when I read it. The one-dollar bill seemed to have been made into a memorial for a friend.

RIP, Joseph Chappell

On the top in black ink it reads “RIP Joseph Allen Chappell Nov 4, 1999”
On the bottom in another pen of blue ink it reads “You will always be my friend” and along the left and right (in the same blue ink) “We miss you” and “We love you”

On the back the first date is obscured (The last digit in the birth date could be a messy or worn 9 or simply intended as a 4) but I think it reads “June 13, 1989 – Nov 4, 1999”. If it’s a 4 it doesn’t paint any less grim of a picture. This single dollar bill tribute was put together by at least two people given the handwriting and the pen colors. It looks like one person wrote in blue ink and the other wrote in black ink because the blue and black ink are very different handwriting.

I did some google searches to see if I could find any information on this unfortunate young man who passed away either at 14 or 10, but nothing turned up. The name turned up in a few places but it wasn’t him. I’m not sure on the whole story, but I can piece together the story of this dollar. Two friends took a dollar bill, wrote their tribute on it and spent the bill. 13 years later after changing hands who-knows-how-many-times it ended up with me. Perhaps they sent out multiple dollar-tributes into the market, but I can’t say that for sure.

I’ll probably go ahead and spend this dollar and continue the chain. I have also done what I think is best by putting it here for the entire whole of the internet to be able to see it.

The fortune cookie, a “Chinese” treat of American origin found at Chinese food restaurants and confused restaurants of non-Chinese fare, has changed quite a bit over time. At first, fortune cookies had fortunes in them. Then, they started saying vague philosophical things, like “Boarders are imaginary lines” or “Life is what you make of it.”

Now they have become aware of the very workings of our minds.

I looked at the little scrap of all knowing paper and attempted to make sense of it. I consider myself the creative type, yet the all knowing cookie was saying I am analytical. Then I realized I had just try to logically and practically examine the “fortune” cookie.

Fortune cookies, you never let us down! You know all there is to know!

Intersections are not, in fact, a race. As a pedestrian, every time you, in your car, feel the urge to drive an extra 5 feet, past the line and blocking the sidewalk, I am now forced to walk into the middle of the street.

If you are going to run a red light, run it. Don’t move five to six feet, block my path then sit there until the light goes green. Why did you move early at all? Just to block the sidewalk?

You not only put me in danger by forcing me to either walk into the middle of the road or behind your car and in front of the half-dazed driver who will no doubt follow your five feet without thinking, you often make me miss my walk light. Sometimes that UPS truck speeding down the road doesn’t look like a good one to walk in front of. Sometimes the person behind you is, in fact, just following the person in front of them, and will hit me.

There is that white line on the road for intersections. You are not supposed to pass that. That’s my walking lane. It’s the same thing as crossing a double white line on the highway as far as I see it. You are not getting where you are going faster by nudging your car up a few extra feet. You are just making it annoying for people on the sidewalk.

Is it really this hard to keep a traffic light going? For the last four days, each morning, the traffic lights outside my apartment have been working. Then, each afternoon they break, and begin blinking red while the walk light goes dim.

I understand that things are hard to fix, but I don’t get this one. It seems like there is some sort of computer bug on it. Or maybe someone is doing it on purpose. I can see it now, at the traffic control center:

“Hey, its 11:00 A.M again Bill, wadaya think we should do? Should we shut off the light again?”

“Oh, sure man, go ahead. What’s the problem with one less pedestrian walking the streets anyway? Just be sure to have it on in the morning.”

“Lemme get that switch!”

Then again I hear computers do run these things. Maybe it is more like this over at traffic control central:

“00100110100010110?”

“0101110010001100100101.”

“1101001011!”

“2!”

“2? 2!!!! *bzzzzzzt….*”

I mean it though, this has been four days in a row, at the same time. This would not be a problem were it not Hennipen Avenue and people were not busy as hell and in a rush. No one wants to wait. I have seen cars come withen inches of each other. We kinda need traffic lights. One light is out and that is all it took for people to forget how to drive.