Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Summertime in SoBro 2013 Edition, Vol. II

Just got back from the morning's grocery run and the bike odometer is claiming I've pedaled fifty-one miles in the two weeks since I installed the little gizmo. None of that has been biking of the spandex-and-fingerless-glove,-I'm-going-exercising variety, but rather the jeans-and-groceries-in-the-basket sort of errand running around Broad Ripple for which I acquired the bike in the first place.

If you scratch-'n'-sniff, it smells like hobo piss.
The above photo is looking northeast from the bike rack in the Kroger parking lot. You're looking over Kilroy's, past Tru, to Brothers Bar & Grille. On most nights, the air would be thick with a haze of Axe body spray and the ground would be vibrating to the bass. In the morning... well, the other morning there was a pair of panties in the middle of the street at Guilford & 60th.

One of the disadvantages of my restored olfactory sense is that I've noticed this little corner of the Kroger's lot has a faint ammonia pong. I'm sure a small part of it is from alley cats staking out the good hunting turf around the dumpster, and part of it may be from Bridge Kids, which are Broad Ripple's juvenile subspecies of Hobo americanus. However, most of it is probably from the fact that Kroger rents its lot out to Broad Ripple revelers for parking in the evenings, and this little wall by the bike rack is a nice and secluded spot to recycle a half-dozen MGD's before driving home.

11 comments:

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Ah, Tru. My old lodge building. Sigh.

Will said...

Tam,
any change in taste, regarding the wonderful variety of food you encounter there in SoBroRip?


wv: CULTURED lUvms. Must be talking about your neighborhood.

Pakkinpoppa said...

You don't buy beer. You rent it.

I'm in the market for a bike, but I'll need one of the "kid seats" for the back. And with an almost 4 year old, I've got too much of a grocery need to take both him to the store, and bring back enough for us to not have to make about six trips.

Though if I did it that way, I'd be in much better shape.



Secret Code: terozawa 512

Sounds like the new, Zimbabwe produced sports car.

Bruce H. said...

The Tru building seems rather stately for the neighborhood. Is the whole building a nightclub? Know anything about its history? The Guilford face looks like a bank entrance.

Old NFO said...

Exercise is good, either intentionally or unintentionally! :-)

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

It was built in 1907-08 by Broad Ripple Lodge No. 643, F&AM. Sold in 1990 when the lodge moved slightly east of Broad Ripple Park. The building was known as "Mustard Hall" after the brother who, along with his wife, donated property to the lodge which was sold to raise the $25,000 spent to build AND furnish the building. More here.

I was raised in 1999 and was Master of the lodge in the early aughts. And if I won the lottery, I'd buy the building back.

Bruce H. said...

Thank you kindly, Fuzzy.

HerrBGone said...

Punch Buggy (Stepped On)!

Aesop said...

I'm stealing Hobo americanus.

That totally rocks.

Anonymous said...

Regarding the panties left in the street ...is that a common occurrence or was it guerrilla advertising for the bar?

mikee said...

Profitable guidebooks for tourists have been published detailing the locations of public pissoirs abroad, for example, in Paris.

http://www.slowtrav.com/france/paris/rl_restrooms.htm

Tourists flock to your fair city for at least one event annually. I see a writer and a profitable enterprise meeting up here.

Thank you for adding this nook to my personal list of US locations one can go when the going gets urgent. I used to be an expert in my own city.

Back when my first child was transitioning from Pampers to Pull-Ups, I learned the location of every single public toilet across vast swathes of Baltimore, MD. And when the nearest real potty was more than 60 seconds away, my toddler son was encouraged, nay insistently demanded, to Pull Down the Pull Ups and let fly in any convenient gutter, public be damned.

He quickly learned to announce the need early rather than go out in the sunshine, and when in a store, to use the opportunity to visit a real toilet before exiting if he could not make it home.