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.
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| Lo, how the mighty are fallen. |
