270. Melrose: Pine Banks Park

After I finished my "In Your Face!" dance for Marie, I turned the corner for Melrose. Pine Banks Park! What a find.

As usual, I headed for the highest point I could find. In this case, at the apex of the hill in the center of the park, I found scraggly pines on a rocky ground. The pines were harboring blue jays, as if they were criminals, which, in the eyes of some bird species, they are. Chickadees and goldfinches joined them in making a low level background noise for my walk.

Standing atop the hill and looking outwards across the treetops, I realized I had virtually been there before. It used to be, in the old days - pre-internet - that you could say "virtually" and mean something like "practically" or "almost" ("It was virtually like I'd been there before."). Now "virtually" almost exclusively means otherworldly sensory experience fabricated by means of technology. The old virtual reality had a sense of adventure and imagination. The new one comes with ear buds.

The view from the hill, though, made me think once again to my virtual realms online. If there's one thing computer game designers have perfected, it's landscapes. The scenery, when focused on exclusively, can be breathtaking. I felt like my LOTRO hunter standing in the Trollshaws, as I took it in.

But Pine Banks Park will always have them beat if just for one thing: fresh air. But, then, maybe someday Elmer Fudd's newspaper headline in The Old Grey Hare will come true, and Smellovision will replace Television. If so, I may be the only man outdoors...