I took the pedestrian time portal over to the downtown Palo Alto Apple Store yesterday. It's a nice walk past the library and park fields on a long path of trees that runs alongside the Caltrain railroad track. At the end of the path, I cross San Francisquito Creek a time portal that has occasionally taken me back to visit with a local Ohlone tribe, back before 1769 when the Spaniards arrived.
Yesterday, however, I continued past the temptation to drop back a few centuries and gather fall berries with a few of my early California sisters, and headed out along Alma Street on the path to more recent times.
No matter what time of day I've walked past, since Steve Jobs death, there's been a crowd of people gathered at the window of the downtown apple store, writing postits, dropping off flowers, taking photos, or simply reading the notes that others have left. I found at least six different languages yesterday, two of whose origin I couldn't even make a guess.
We all need heroes and heroines so that we can go forth with a touch more heroism ourselves.
