“Gloster”

—“Can I ask you something?” I asked the lady sitting in a black top-down Porsche Spyder parked next to my car.
“Sure,” she said, smiling.
We were parked underneath the shade-trees next to the youth-baseball Porta-Johns.
That parking lot is where I get on Lehigh Valley RailTrail.
“I’m intrigued by your license plate. I’m from south Jersey originally, where G-L-O-U-C-E-S-T-E-R is pronounced the way you spelled it.
“Actually it’s Gloucester, Massachusetts,” she said. “But that’s how we pronounce it.”
Conversation begun: “Yada-Yada-Yada-Yada-Yada.”
Smile after smile after smile after smile after smile.
“Goodie! This guy is talking to me.”
“My name is *****,” she said.
“You can call me BobbaLew, or Bob if you wish.”
“Yada-Yada-Yada-Yada.”
Wherein Yr Fthfl Srvnt discovers the incredible JOY of just talking with people.
I notice the license plate; I turn towards the car; a lady is in the car.
Say something to her! Don’t be afraid.
I’m not afraid anymore. I strike up conversations willy-nilly. They never backfire.
“No one will talk to you” recedes into my filmy past.