Weirdness?

The day after I got back from scenic L-Town, I had a birthday luncheon to attend. This blocked off most of my day from any serious caching, but that’s all right because everyone needs a day of rest. However, that didn’t mean that I wouldn’t get a cache. As the daylight started to disappear, I decided to go out and grab one. One of the new cachers had recently put out a series around Austin murals. One of them was in East Austin, a traditionally Black area of town and one of those areas I have previously noted for its low cache density (caused primarily by its low cash density). That’s been changing because gentrification has taken a solid foothold. I grew up on this side of town, and every time I pass through, I note the differences from when I was young. The cache brought me to a prominent corner that I remember from my childhood for seedy bars, drug use, and prostitution. As I parked across the street from the vegan coffee shop, I snickered at how that was no longer the case. I found the 3-D printed cache easily enough, but that wasn’t the draw of the location.

That was new(-ish). There had been a previous mural here by the same artist that I don’t remember ever seeing. The business that took over the property painted over it, which is an occupational hazard for mural painters in Austin (unless you’re Daniel Johnston), and the outcry from the community was so great that the business invited the artist to replace it. Some of the faces, such as Dr. Charles Urdy and Richard Overton, were local figures. Others, such as Thurgood Marshall, Maya Angelou, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Dick Gregory, were a little more universally known. And, of course, musicians were more than highly represented. I also noted a small section nodding to the Latino community, though I only recognized Selena Quintanilla (there’s my shame; perhaps my sin). I can only assume Salvador Dali was there because art. Regardless, though I know that change is the only true constant, it was a bit unsettling (though not in a bad way) to see what once was replaced by what now is. I soothed my discomfort by going into that coffee shop and, while being “entertained” by a cowboy hat-wearing folk singer, ordering a chai latte (made with oat milk, of course, because vegan). And yet, despite all this personal strangeness, this was only the second weirdest thing to happen that day.

So, I got a text from friend of the blog Carrot Killer with a picture of a found log on one of his caches in Georgia.  The finder knew who he was because they had read about him here!  Are you kidding me?  People actually read this drivel?