Flowers on the Corner

She sits on a corner with buckets of flowers. It looks as though she is a vendor, selling the flowers to passers-by.

If you come through the intersection, either from the north or from the freeway offramp, you pass her on the right side, on the far corner.

If you think about it, it’s not a good place to stop. Just as you’re leaving an intersection with a signal. The light is green behind you, traffic is coming through fast. There’s virtually no foot traffic. It’s on a hill. It’s just not a practical place to set up shop.

Picture this: a relative, probably a child or grandchild, was killed in a traffic accident at this corner. The family’s custom is to leave flowers and decorations at a spot where a loved one dies in traffic.

Then picture the city not wanting those decorations on this corner, and they quickly take them away whenever the family leaves them.

The family then finds out that it is not against ordinance to set up as a vendor on the sidewalk. So the lady sits there all day with her flowers that nobody is buying, and she is able to pay her respects to the dead with the flowers without having them removed.