City street lights, even stop lights, blink a bright red and green

[austin_dern]

Incidentally, on the notes for a more gracious society, bunny_hugger's mother had the magic look to encourage people to offer their seats to her. On the bus to Silver Bells she had two offers of seats before she finally accepted one, and it was similar on the way back (though she took the first one because there'd been so much standing and walking over the day). At the parade location she got offered one of the seats in a little area reserved for people who had something to do with either the tree or the decorating of the tree, in some of the unused seats. As these were poised right behind the police tape those should be great seats, but a couple people who'd pushed their way into the reserved spot (and moved the chairs so they'd have space) kept edging their way in front of her, and couldn't be reasoned into standing, you know, ten inches over to the right. But the spirit was there.

A good number of downtown businesses, mostly restaurants, were open for Silver Bells. The big crowd outside the peanut roastery awed bunny_hugger's father just as the place, a fossil piece of the days when Planter's had peanut shops in downtowns, had impressed me. The enormous line going out the door kept us from popping in to buy anything, and also saved us from being mugged by packs of hungry squirrels afterward.

On one of the cross streets was a little open shopping district, underneath a fabric inflated-type arch. Nearly everything here was food, with a bag of kettle corn the size of a bolster pillow our big snacking purchase here; we were eating it until just about the parade's opening. bunny_hugger and her mother bought the official Silver Bells Christmas ornaments, though, a lovely piece with a collectible-style case that happens to misspell the Mayor's name.

Trivia: Jonas Salk moved to the University of Michigan's new Department of Epidemiology in 1942, as part of a project for the military to develop an influenza vaccine. Source: Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio, Jeffrey Kluger.

Currently Reading: The Uncertain Revolution: Washington and the Continental Army at Morristown, John T Cunningham.