I’m nothing but amazed that I’ve sat myself down at a keyboard to begin the composition of this essay. It’s 11:31 AM on a weekday morn, a mere 27 minutes after I completed the walk around my neighborhood that I shortly will comment upon. I mean, I usually take forever to get enough thoughts together to write a story. What’s more, I usually take forever to come up with story ideas in the first place. So, I better keep pecking away before constipation sets in.
“What, another walking story?” I hear a few of you crying in dismay. “Spare us, Neil! You’ve done dozens of them already. Can’t you think of anything else to write about?”
Believe me, I feel your pain, but what can I do? As I just indicated, I don’t exactly generate story ideas like Donald Trump generates lies. Anyway, I like to walk. Always have, because walking is the best way to see what’s going on around us. And the hodgepodge of ruminations and observations that I come up with after wandering around one locale or another is among this publication’s primary fuels.
But I can’t say that I especially love to walk in my suburban Philadelphia neighborhood. My neighborhood is none too fascinating, as is true for suburbs in general. Although I regularly pound its pavements, I do so mostly for health reasons, exercise presumably being beneficial to one’s bodily systems. Once in a while, however, I have an additional motive, and today I put such into play. “Yellows, Neil, yellows,” I said to myself at the start of the walk. “You’ve had it in the back of your mind to look for shades of yellow during a neighborhood walk, probably because yellow was your favorite color when you were a kid, and to turn the experience into an article. Today you shall do so!”
“Yes, sir!” I responded silently. “I hear you loud and clear. Yellows it will be!”
To begin, I want to tell you that there ain’t a lot of yellows in my neighborhood. In fact, there’s a paucity of many colors. The greens of nature are what rule here, as they do in much of the world, at least when trees are in leaf. But your faithful and determined correspondent wasn’t deterred. My eyes in constant motion, I spotted enough examples of yellows to illustrate this piece decently. And I did so in a mere 34 minutes. I could have extended the walk beyond that time, but was pretty sure that I’d exhausted the yellow possibilities. And it’s a good thing that I came home when I did. You see, as I entered my house after completing my rounds I thought that the blazing Sun and moist air hadn’t gotten to me very much. Wrong! My sweat glands, in a delayed reaction, suddenly erupted, causing my tee shirt, mostly dry only seconds before, to cling to me amorously. Man, I was shvitzing like a frigging pig! I’m happy to report that the A/C system, and the cool water that I washed off with, quickly set me right.
Okay, it’s time to mention the highlights of today’s trek. The first involves sunflowers. A year ago, on a neighborhood walk, I was delighted to find that a family two blocks away from my residence was a lover of sunflowers. They’d planted a load of the gangly, happy plants on a long narrow strip of their property. And a week or two ago I noticed that sunflowers were strutting their stuff anew there. Needless to say, I strode down that block this morning to snap the yellow beings’ portraits. Of the various yellow objects in my neighborhood, they are my favorites by far. Indeed, I am a total sucker for sunflowers, thanks to Vincent van Gogh, their greatest immortalizer.
As for the second highlight: On various walks over the last couple of months I’d seen a yellow truck shining proudly and vividly. It always was in the same spot, five blocks from my house. It was there again today. This truck adds needed pizazz to a sleepy block, and makes me wonder why more people don’t buy vehicles of eye-popping color. Like I’m one to talk, though. My wife and I own two cars that are conservative as shit, one of them dark grey and the other dark blue. Next time we’ll go for cars aflame in . . . what? Neon yellow, that’s what!
Well, the blogosphere’s overseers are whispering to me that this article has gone as far in a yellow direction as it needs to go. And I know better than to cross them. But, as usual, I’ll let the piece marinate for a few days, and do plenty of tweaking, before depressing the Publish button. Take care, everybody. And please don’t be shy about adding your comments!
Yeah, Another Blogger 
I don’t do a lot of commenting here because your site has so many interesting notes. But I thought I’d add some historical context to “yellow.” Back in the late 1970s as generic or store brand products were easing their way into supermarkets, yellow became the de facto identifier for a lot of generics. In fact, Loblaws up in Canada, upstate NY and NW Pennsylvania introduced “yellow & black” as the unique identifier for their “No Name” brand (odd usage, eh?) of products. They used a sans-serif (Helvetica) bold black type against a bright yellow background, for everything from cheese to toothpaste.
There’s a lot of great info on the evolution of supermarkets and the Loblaws yellow generic products at the “99 Percent Invisible” podcast, episode 411
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Yellow rules! Hi. Thanks a lot for stopping by. I appreciate that.
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Great photos! If I could attach a photo to this comment I’d post a shot of the tree flowering in our front garden. It’s still young and yet festooned in yellow blossom. You can hear the drone of the bees a mile away! 🙂
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Hi. Right, WordPress would be even more colorful if people were able to add photos in comments areas. I’m surprised that the WP engineers haven’t made that possible.
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I remember reading and enjoying. Strange that it isn’t noted. .🤔I do Love the colorful journey of yellows Neil.
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A bright and cheerful color!
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Hi Neil! Yes it is. And it’s many shades are comforting just like the perfectly warm rays (not hot) from the sun!☀️ Happy September weekend to you!
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What a great way to add interest and motivation to the often tiresome duty of the daily health jaunt. AND focusing on a color provides the added bonus of a ready-made blog topic. (This is something I’ve been struggling with too)
As a child I wasn’t fond of yellow. Maybe it implied school, as in bus. Whatever. I’ve grown warmer toward yellow lately, though. So much so that I’d like to paint my kitchen yellow.
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Hi there. Here’s my opinion about a yellow kitchen: Go for it!
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Yellow is great! I am in fact thinking of changing the motif of my balcony parasol and pillows to yellow 🙂 Sunflowers and Vincent van Gogh, I remember how I stared at his ‘Sunflowers’ painting at the Nat’l Gallery of London. Walking story is a good theme for a post, don’t apologise for it 🙂
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Hey there. Speaking of Van Gogh: I was at the Philadelphia Museum Of Art recently. They own one of his sunflower paintings. Needless to say, I made it a point to look at that work.
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Oh wow! I wanna see! I must have missed your post on that. Would you tell me the title of our post please? 🙂
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Oh, I didn’t write about that for my blog. This was a few weeks ago when The Philadelphia Museum Of Art reopened after being closed for months due to the pandemic. My wife and I went.
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I didn’t know there are two of those paintings. Wow! I had to Google to compare. Thanks for this info. Paintings fascinate me, especially those from hundreds of years ago. There was one time I had to visit the Nat’l Gallery in London 3 consecutive days! The painting in your recent blog, the one in the selfie pic, is also nice. Shades of autumn, lovely! 🙂
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Color hunts can be fun! I just had to do such a thing, but at a florist–I helped my mom pick out flowers for her wedding. Finding the right autumn colors strictly in flowers can be a challenge, but we managed to select some rich oranges and magentas to use. The sunflowers at the florist’s were gorgeous, and your post reminded me of them. Honestly, couldn’t we all use a little more cheery yellow in our lives?
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Hi. Congrats to your mother on her wedding. As for yellow, I guess that it’s the happiest color. It’s hard to put your finger on it, but there’s just something that’s happy about it.
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I have belonged to. Walking/hiking club for 35 years. I love walking, especially in the woods. It soothes my soul and releases anxiety. Love the idea of a search for a specific color. I may try it.
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A walking club sounds like a good idea. I imagine that you’ve made a lot of friendships through it.
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