Sitting on a Cloudy Day

It was a public holiday today in the United States, as many of you are aware, and I woke up like I used to do on so many Bank Holiday Mondays back in England to a cloud-filled sky and pouring rain.

On seeing not the faintest glimmer of a break in the clouds, my first thought was, "What am I going to do for my blip today?"

When joining up to blipfoto we are warned that it can become addictive. That is wrong. Blipfoto can end up controlling your life or is it just me? :-)

For the first time, my wife's firm gave all its employees the day off. That is another strange thing about America. The calendar is littered with public holidays, except that the vast majority of the public doesn't get to take them off. For people working in the business and industrial sectors of the economy, it is business as usual.

So I had access to the car and headed to the Riverwalk in Riverside, which provides a good vantage point for views of downtown Jacksonville. I figured with all the cloud, it would be pressing in and obscuring the tall buildings, such as the Bank of America Tower. I guessed right.

While walking to a good position, I noticed a young black couple standing on the Riverwalk deep in conversation. I began to hear several expetives uttered and guessed it was a heavy conversation. I then heard the man say, "But you had sex with him!" The things you hear while out and about.

Next, I came across a black guy sitting on one of the benches by the Haskell Building just staring across at the grey waters of the St Johns River. As I approached, his head turned towards me as if in slow motion. He looked up and, befitting an Englishman, I said, "You all right?" It is a form of greetingin the UK. Back in my native Stoke-on-Trent, the Potteries dialect translated the phrase as, "At o reet?", which was further embellished at Hanley High School into "At o reet or what?" He mumbled yes and then fixed his stare back on the river.

There was a sadness in his eyes. I wish now that I had engaged him further in conversation, just to give him the feeling that he was part of the world, whatever his personal circumstances and they were clearly not good. But I didn't and feel bad about it. I just hate to see sad lonely people.

The man reminded me of the words of the Otis Redding classic, Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay.

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away.
Ooo, I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time.

Anyway, I decided to use a shot of him with the downtown buildings shrouded in cloud as today's blip. It seems to sum up a dreary and dismal day.