Interesting sights around town

Yesterday, I walked south along the Nakagawa River (by the way -gawa means river in Japanese, so what I wrote actually means 'the Naka river river). I brought water, a hard-boiled egg, cheese and some crackers to have a one-man picnic at the end of the riverside path.

As I walked along, I notice something new. In the middle of the river, there was a huge pile of stones. It was four or five meters long, at least three wide, and about two tall. It was obviously manmade. I've seen small piles of stones along the river and assumed that they were made by kids playing in the river. This mountain of stones was so big that it must have taken many hours of work to construct. I scratched my head a bit and continued along the path.

As I got nearer the end of the path, it was more and more overgrown by plants, especially vines. It was actually difficult to walk. I waded through the greenery and finally reached the end of the path which is just passed a bridge that crosses overhead. The support for the bridge splits the river into two separate branches, but only when the water level is high. Yesterday, the water was flowing only in the stream farthest away from me.

If you continue on about three meters passed the end of the paved path, there are two places to sit and observed the river. One is concrete and the other is wood. I choose the concrete one and sat down. As I ate my lunch, I looked back toward the bridge and realized that a man and his dog were behind the support where I had not previously been able to see them.

As I watched, the man waded out into the river and started throwing stones, large and small, out of the riverbed and onto a pile behind the bridge support. He worked quite hard for a while and then climbed out of the river, sat down, and ate his lunch. I assumed that he must have been the one who made the pile that I had seen before.

I was fascinated by the river, the birds, flowers, and insects, so I sat there a long time. The man got up and left, walking away from me along the path. I saw him stop and start pull vines off the path. Then he produced a pair of scissors and started cutting back the other plants that were hanging over the path.

As I passed him on my way home, he was still clearing the path. I made a slight bow, which he returned, but he did not respond to my thank you so I just kept walking.

You sometimes see the most surprising things while out walking.

I should add that many people do volunteer work around the town. There is a group that plants flowers along the sidewalks and takes care of them. Neighborhood associations periodically clean up the streets and sidewalks.