Not for the Squeamish Amongst You

Most weekdays, my route home from work takes me along Eastern Parkway. There's a lot to love about this. The grandeur of the Parkway, and the sweep through the neighborhoods between Bushwick Ave. & Grand Army Plaza. The pigeons wheeling skywards from a Brownsville rooftop at day's end, catching the heart & making you think, every time you see them, of Alfred Kazin, describing pigeons released right there in Brownsville ninety years before:

On the roof just across the street, the older boys now home from work would spring their pigeons from the traps. You could see the feathers glistening faintly in the last light, beating thinly against their sides ... Then, widening and widening their flight each time they came over our roof again, they went round a sycamore and the spire of the church without stopping. 
                                                                                                                    A Walker in the City

There is, however, a business along the way that inspires less than lofty thoughts. I'd often thought of taking a picture, but its message was just too grim. And yet. What if one day I'd pass by and find it gone? I knew I would miss its horrid warning. It was time to take out the camera. Here on the Extension just before St. Johns, across from the Holy House of Prayer (once the Rolland Theater), is the direst sign of all. Right below Holistic Health etc. etc., with illustration thrown in on the side:  Don't Let Your Colon Dig Your Grave.

I have to admit that this picture is of very poor quality. It shows some of the maladies treated, but others are too blurry to see. Honestly, this whole post makes me queasy. Thank God it's done.