Hello, Kids and All Readers,
Seven days a week, I take a three-mile walk to enhance and extend my healthspan and lifespan.
The five different routes I mapped out years ago take me over much of my historical neighborhood of North Park in San Diego, California, USA.
North Park is where I grew up and still live, so I have seen many changes, good and not as good, over the decades. While out walking these days, I enjoy the early-morning freshness, birds singing or hunting for breakfast worms, charming vintage houses where I used to trick-or-treat, and the chance to say hello to my neighbors out walking their dogs.
From day to day, I never know what will inspire me as I stroll. But so far, my walks have supplied story character names, plot points, objects, and my mystery series designation, “Botanic Hill.”
Recently, I became interested in my neighborhood’s century-old sidewalk markers and started photographing them. The dates you see in the photos are from the 1900s, not the 2000s! For example, “12–15” means December 1915. I have been walking over many of these markers since I was a child, and they were already decades old by the time I was born!
Some markers have held up better than others. I like that the city saves them when the sidewalks are repaired, carefully excising, then tucking them into the new concrete, but near where they once lay. And as a bonus, some original street-name markers still appear on the corners, too.
I wonder what stories the markers could tell about the masons who made them. About the hundreds of thousands of people who have walked over those pavements. Did the masons ever imagined that their sidewalk legacies would live on over one hundred years later? Some of us see the markers as public art now. And art inspires. Recently, one marker helped me name a character–“Cawley“–in my upcoming Book 6, Upas Street: Shocking Specter.
So, get a clue, Readers. You never know where inspiration awaits! I hope you are on the lookout, wherever your paths lead you.
