Buck stopped and stood on the corner of East Margin Street and Adams Avenue while slowly turning himself around and concentrating upon everything within his field of vision. He counted fourteen beautifully shaped crepe myrtles, each one so covered in pink or red blossoms that almost none of the green foliage underneath was visible. Looking down, the streetlight now revealed the sidewalk below Jake's feet covered with the coral red blossoms from Tustenuggee's splendid crepe myrtle trees and this vision produced a flicker of wonder which captured Buck's vivid imagination and the exquisite beauty of his floral landscape seemed to transport him to a time when East Margin Street had no pavement and modern marvels like automobiles, electric streetlights and flush toilets didn't exist.

Buck recalled the lines of that poem he wrote decades earlier, "Standing on an old streetcorner laid out in 1823" 

Buck thought that it was as if the crystalline rocks and silica within the concrete of Tustenuggee's sidewalks had somehow recorded the light and sound of two centuries of activity and the bottoms of Buck's feet were developing a way to receive it and play it all back. He imagined the European scientists who first brought crepe myrtles and camellias to the Gulf South and made them a lovely mainstay of the Southern landscape. Not only did those scientists bring beautiful flowering plants but they brought the astronomical and mathematical expertise necessary to describe the exact position of this two century old street corner where Buck now stood and to initiate a concept of time that has ruled the lives of each generation up to the present moment and continues to see Tustenuggee's citizens striving to beat the clock each morning.

After standing at the intersection of East Boundary Street and Adams Avenue for a few moments, Buck turned toward the river and continued his trek down Adams Avenue. 

"I wonder if Adams is named after John Quincy Adams or his Daddy, John?", Buck asked himself. 

"All the Old Town streets had been named in 1823 and John Quincy wasn't elected until 1824 so it must be named after his old daddy," Buck concluded. "Oh my God, President John Adams was part of the most incredible coincidence of all time! Both he and Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and Adams' last words were 'Jefferson still survives,' not knowing that Jefferson had died a few hours earlier. Jefferson wrote the document and Adams successfully debated for three hours for its adoption. Now that's the last thing I wanted to recall tonight after what happened to me at Jake's house!"

Jake quickened his pace as he walked toward the Wekiwahatchee as if to burn off some of his excess energy as he contemplated how the universe might be playing with his emotions.