Levy Trail/Levy Trail

I walked three miles on the Levy Trail this morning, starting at about 9, in 45:37, with approximate splits of 15:10, 15:07, and 15:20. My legs look as if they were published by Rand McNally, with the help of Section 13. Late this afternoon I walked two miles on the Levy Trail in 31:21.

OVERHEARD
"A lot of people didn't make it this morning."
—gnarled old man cutting across the Levy Trail, as steam rose from his styrofoam cup of mini-mart coffee. He said he was happy to have made it out of bed

"Them kids gotta a good idea. They gonna get rich if they can keep selling pinecones for twenty-five cents a piece."
—man commenting on the half-dozen grade-school kids who live in the house immediately south of the Taylor's, as he walked his dog on Orange Street. They had tied ribbons to the tops of ten or so pine cones, and were selling them from a small table next to the street, lemonade-stand style

DID YOU KNOW?
Every hot pepper known to man, except for black pepper, is native to the New World. These peppers are from the genus capsicum, and include, but are not limited to, chiles, jalapenos, hapaneros, serranos, and poblanos. Most were introduced to Portugal and Spain by Columbus in the spring of 1493, and were within twenty years consumed from England to China. Unlike black pepper, they flourished in gardens across Europe, the Middle East, India, and Asia. India was to that point the world's sole source of black pepper, which was then so expensive that most rarely tasted it in their lifetimes. In time, competition from the peppers introduced by Columbus cut the cost of black pepper, and of all spices across Old World trade routes.* European explorers later returned from the New World to introduce—among other fruits, vegetables, and nuts—tomatoes, potatoes, peanuts, sweet bell peppers, avocados, and corn. It makes you wonder what the fuck they ate.

*rewritten and condensed from Chiles' Global Warming, Deana Sidney, Saudi Aramco World, March/April 2014