You can find some real gems out on the street

I used to save notes I found on the street, on the sidewalk, tucked away in something.

I was going to write something, maybe a short story or something, about them one day, but I didn’t.

I did write about a few of them.

For instance, the love note I saved after finding it in the street a few years ago.

At least I think it’s a love note.

“Hi Boo! Wot u been? 2 me nuthin. Just chillin –n- thinking bout u so bored. Miss u yo bad (redacted) is green. Did u tell Cheldra sumthin bout Keyshawn –n- dnt let Nekeyla read our notes cuz all she do is tell everybody wat we be talkin bout 4 it take u so long 2 write me bac c if u can cum 2 mi hous dis weekend well mi gum hav no mo flavor so bye talk later kisses BYE BOO”

So read the note I found on the ground a few years ago while I was out walking my dogs.

What I like about found notes is they seem to be a real indicator of the human condition.

I mean it’s not like reading a diary or anything. I don’t know who wrote it and if they chucked the note to begin with what can it hurt?

There was the one I found on the street in Phoenix complete with a drawing of a scowling sun and a spike-collared pit bull on a chain. Someone had written “The cop and the gangbanger,” a bit of writing devoid of punctuation that detailed a gangbanger making friends with a policeman and how the gangbanger didn’t know how to feel when the policeman shot and killed the gangbanger’s friend.

I didn’t know what the scowling sun or the muscular pit bull had to do with the writing, but art is like that sometimes.

There was the grocery list I found in Clovis written by someone who may have not been in school the day they taught the lesson on apostrophes.

On the list were things like: “Tomatoe’s, tortilla’s, hamburger bun’s,” etc.

One gem I found while perusing the pages of an old book at the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Roswell.

A guy had written a note to his significant other explaining his, um, “activity” he was engaged in when his significant other apparently walked in on him.

One interesting line in the note was, “I’m not getting enough loving from you.”

Made me wonder whatever happened to those two.

Did they work things out?

Did they split up?

Was it a note the guy, I assume it was a guy, wrote and never passed on to his significant other?

I found a chunk of a note in downtown Albuquerque years ago that intrigued me.

It opened with “Dear Ernie, I’m sorry Fredo walked in on us last night I wasn’t expecting him home then.”

I remember when I found that fragment and read it, I laughed out loud thinking what a troublesome encounter that must’ve been.

There wasn’t really anything else to tell about that note. It looked like it was the remnant of a bigger note that had been torn up.

I’ll always pick up a note off the ground just to see what people are up to.

That is, unless, it’s covered with some weird schmutz.

Grant McGee writes for The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him:

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