Seeking health and knowledge ...

Back when I was younger, so much younger than today, I used to jog a lot. After a couple of years, my blood pressure was a steady 120/80 and my weight was down close to what it was supposed to be, 190 pounds. I was cool stuff … or thought I was. I was a “hunk” or thought I was until my trophy wife just laughed at me. Everybody else though I was obsessed. The country doctor in Lonoke, Byron E. Holmes, M.D., said I was crazy and that jogging would ruin my knees. That’s the last thought that went through my mind on the operating table recently as they prepared to replace one of those knees.

Anyway. I had a running buddy by then. I’ve mentioned him before. He was a little shorter than I and maybe 30 pounds lighter. He had run track in high school and had never smoked. That should tell you something.

As in, he wore my ass out most mornings.

In all though, he was interesting. He knew lots of things, some of them useful, some of them fascinating. For example, one morning, while I was puffing like a freight train while we were negotiating a particularly vicious hill, he turned, ran backwards, and related, in great detail, the history of the Battle of Majuba Hill, back in the first (I think) Boer War. I was terribly interested, but lacked the breath to speak at the time so he never knew, not that he would have cared.

He had one annoying habit. He insisted on choosing our route each run. He could, and I’ll swear this is true, choose a route that was uphill going and uphill returning. How he did it I’ll never know.

All in all, he was a nice fellow. I think I mentioned that he was a graduate of Harvard Law School and sometimes he would tell me interesting things about the law, as long as he was sure that I wasn’t trying to pry legal advice from him. He would clam up if I dared ask what he called a “say a man question.” For example, “Say a man were to claim his new stereo system as a tax deduction because it relaxed him while he was earning?”

His advice, “Nice try.”

No, he would be more likely to tell me fascination stories about when he worked with a group on a new criminal code for the state. For example, once they were dealing with the question of bestiality. When someone cited an old case about a farmer and his mare, the room went silent. Then, an old legislator who was assigned to monitor the group couldn’t forbear asking the question, “What breed of mare was it?”

I thought that was pretty funny, although I didn’t have enough breath to laugh at the time. There was another question emanating from a lawsuit involving a woman, a supermarket, a cucumber, and what legally constituted a “vegetable,” but I can’t go into details about that one.

He told another story, supposedly true, about an actual legal defense based on an incident with a well-known state representative. He was accused of some shady deal or other (this was back when they actually charged politicians for engaging in shady deals). He assured the jury that (1) the crime for which he was accused was really a stupid thing for a person to do, (2) that it would take a really stupid person to even think of doing it, (3) he had two college degrees and had passed the state bar exam, (4) his constituents had voted for him to be their state representative for years, (5) he could not possibly be a stupid man, and, ergo, ipso facto, or whatever, could not possible have committed the malfeasance in question.

He got away with it and the defense is still in practice, bearing the name of its inventor.

Who says physical fitness can’t be fun?

The man never met
a hill he didn't love.