My Redacted Life: New friends, new challenges ...

Now that I had moved from one beat away from a heart attack to jogging up to three miles a day, I was feeling pretty cocky. Oh yes, it cost the price of some new clothes, but that was a joy. I decided to wait on purchasing new suits in case I should become a “backsliding sinner” and get fat again. Meantime I practiced this little “strutting jog” like I was something special.

A great humbling event awaited me. It began one day when a moving van moved alongside the vacant house just to the south of us. I paid little attention at the time. I had heard a rumor that a couple of attorneys were moving in. I couldn’t imagine what impact that would have on housing values in the area, but it didn’t bode well. I went about my business.

Then the sun rose on a wonderful spring morning and I decided to do the jogging part of my daily routine outdoors. Accordingly, I ambled north on Spring Street and wound my way to the Arkansas River and back. When I turned onto Broadway and came to our house, I couldn’t help noticing a lone figure standing in a massive bathrobe in the yard next door. He held the morning newspaper in his hand and waved at me with the other. I walked over and introduced myself. I started to say something, but he interrupted.

“Do you jog?”

I thought of some snide answer such as, “No, I was running away from home but changed my mind.”

I said, “Yes.” I started to summarize my near-death experience with calories and high blood-pressure, when he interrupted again. Would I like company some day when jogging?

“I said sure. When?”

“I’ll meet you out here tomorrow, the same time you left this morning.” With that he spun around and went back into his house.

I thought no more about it until that evening. Over the supper table, I asked Brenda if she had met our new neighbors. “No, have you?”

“One,” I said. “We’re going jogging together in the morning.”

“Oh,” she said. “Is he a jogger?”

I thought of some snide answer such as, “No, but he saw me doing it and couldn’t wait to try it himself.” I thought better of it. Snide remarks did not exist in her lexicon of appropriate responses. “I guess he does, but he doesn’t look too athletic to me. I hope he can keep up.”

At a few minutes past the appropriate time the next morning, I arrived at the appropriate corner. He stood waiting, hopping from foot to foot as if they were each on fire. “You’re late,” he said.

I thought of a snide answer, but I lost it while examining his appearance. He was a few inches shorter than I, and he maybe weighed half as much. His slender body rested atop two spindly legs that looked more like giant toothpicks than human appendages. He wore a baseball hat from some bank or other. He announced the route, spun around, and hopped off. I say “hopped” because each step sent him high into the air and he was halfway down the block before my brain cells communicated, “jog.” I ran to catch up and immediately begged for mercy. He said nothing but slowed to a pace that I could manage. He looked over at me as if I were a miserable species left over from the Cambrian Explosion. I smiled and shrugged. I could have sworn I heard him grunt.

Thus began a journey that was to include thousands of miles and untold adventures.

Lo, how the mighty are fallen.