A Visit to Bruce & Brandon Lee's Gravesite

Bruce Lee's body lies buried in my neighborhood. His grave site, beside his son Brandon's, is in Lake View Cemetery next to Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill.

For the first few years after I swore off women I would make a special trip up to the cemetery on the Fourth of July to pay my respect. I didn't last year for some reason. The Bruce Lee explosion happened when I was a kid in grade school. He was a big hero of mine. I don't know how many times I went to see Enter the Dragon when it was released shortly after his death in 1973.

I went out this morning to do my four-mile run. I've been saving the longer, 7.8-mile Lake Union Loop run for Sunday now that the football season is over. But this morning I had to break off the run early. I was just out of gas; that, and too much strong coffee. I cut over to 15th Avenue East via the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery (another great place in my neighborhood) enjoying Erykah Badu's "Fall in Love (Your Funeral)":

I trotted up the bike path on 15th and decided to enter Lake View Cemetery. No one was about. Following Badu, by happenstance of the alphabetical sort of song titles, was King Crimson's "Fallen Angel":

It took a little bit of time to find the grave sites, but I eventually did. It's difficult because there are several spots as you move up the hill to the west that look similar to where Bruce and Brandon are buried. Always on Bruce's grave are pennies and flowers. I paid my respect to father and son, which is always a farewell to my childhood, and then took off back down the hill. After returning to my apartment building, during the warm-down stretch on the front steps, Sly and the Family Stone's "Family Affair" played:

Out of the Past

Shortly after writing the post below I left for work. Several blocks before I arrive at the local I pass the home of a community organizer who was involved in the effort twelve years ago to establish a real civilian review board for the city's police department. She was a member of People's Coalition for Justice (PCJ).

She was outside on the sidewalk this morning looking worried. Her nephew had just left to walk to the elementary school down the hill; he had insisted she not walk with him or follow him to school this morning because the other boys walk alone. So she was craning her neck trying to keep track of him as he disappeared down the street.

I said hello and told her that I had been thinking this morning about all the organizing that had been done around the police shooting of Aaron Roberts. When I said this I pointed up the hill in the direction of 23rd and Jackson where the Starbucks is; the Starbucks where I run into her now and then; the Starbucks we boycotted back in 2001. She looked at me, as if to say, "Who is this guy?" and then nodded her head.

She walked with me to busy Yesler down which her nephew was moving out of sight. She said, "I don't want him to see me. There he is. In the red jacket."

And there he was. A tiny figure in red moving down the hill barely discernible to my weakening eyesight.

After wishing her a good day, I put my earbuds back in and crossed Yesler; Erykah Badu's "Agitation" shuffled on my iPod. I owe my appreciation of Erykah Badu to the insane girlfriend from last night's dream.