Tax law and training bras ...

My wife called him “your little running buddy” and we did go out jogging almost every morning the weather allowed. Now that he had talked me into training for a marathon, we became serious about it. It was in the fall of 1979 that we began our quest, so we would meet mornings way before sunrise and head off north from South Broadway. Sometimes we would drift over and make a circle into North Little Rock and sometimes we would turn west and head out Markham Street and back.

In addition to tacking on distance, I found that he had quietly increased the pace. He was just a tad shorter than I, and probably weighted less than 160 pounds. It was pure torture and I would complain if he got too aggressive. Saturdays and Sundays, we began to extend our routes, mostly pushing our distances to the ten-mile range. "Be a man," he would say when I whined, as if manhood were a choice.

Why I was doing this, I had no idea. I guess the most obvious plea would be insanity.

In inclement weather, we would meet at the reliable old Downtown YMCA. There, we carried out our daily mission on an indoor track that measured at 16 laps per mile. Mornings usually weren’t crowded, so it allowed for collegial conversation as we circled for what seemed like days. We talked of history, literature, politics, art, and sometimes tax law. Oh yes, tax law. That’s what he taught at the law school and he enjoyed pontificating about it. It eased the boredom of the incessant circulation, so I listened. I always felt they should have given me credit for taking his class had I entered law school. On practical matters involving litigation, he remained reticent, fearing, I think, that he might unknowingly give legal advice.

I’ll leave us there, spinning around that little track like specks on a phonograph record. These days we walk, my wife and I, around a similar track at a local gym. We manage a mile or two a day, which at our age might be considered respectable.

We don’t talk about history or literature now as we circle the track. I can’t keep up with her, so we each walk alone with our separate thoughts. I recently read somewhere that enjoying quiet time alone with those thoughts each day improves your memory. I hope so for our sakes, though I feel for the youth of today, whose greatest fear seems to be having a quiet, lonely moment, sans cell phone, forced upon them.

Oh well, it’s time to don my gym attire and head for a walk. Today I think I’ll try and see if I can remember anything about tax law while I stroll.

Nah. Who am I kidding? I'll probably see if I can remember anything about Betty Anne Bohanon, the only girl in Junior High who, they said, never bothered with a training bra. For the life of me, I can't recall why I ever found that to be interesting.

Now that I concentrate,
it's coming back to me.