Grandson Walks Alone...with me....

Walking With Grandson

It was decided yesterday evening , late, that the Grandson (Preston) who is 7 years old and as full of it as they come, would spend the night, and he and his Opa (yeah that’s my name) were to meet his parents at Rogers State University nature trail at 8:00 a.m and walk it, while his parent ran the trail.

Strength Fits The Boy

7:30 came and you could feel the boy sleeping in till 10:30, but the next thing I knew he was up and moving around in small circles….his hair looking as though it had been curled up the side of his head and into the air, his eyes were twisty and full of sleep, and he just looked like a kid that should lie back down and sleep for a day and a half. He first had to have his three sugar-cookie-sampler-platter with a glass of milk.  He had baked sugar cookies the night before, (well he had participated by oh like 50%), cause he was the one who rolled the dough and dropped it into the plate full of sugar and cinnamon, and then rolled (without getting any on the floor) the edges of the plate, getting the dough all brown and sugary, and then placed it on the cookie sheets for baking.  His Grandma got 50 % of the credit because she read the recipe, mixed the dough up, put the pan in and out of the oven, and did the dishes.  

It was decided yesterday evening , late, that the Grandson (Preston) who is 7 years old and as full of it as they come, would spend the night, and he and his Opa (yeah that’s my name) were to meet his parents at Rogers State University nature trail at 8:00 a.m and walk it, while his parent ran the trail.

Tennis Champ

7:30 came and you could feel the boy sleeping in till 10:30, but the next thing I knew he was up and moving around in small circles….his hair looking as though it had been curled up the side of his head and into the air, his eyes were twisty and full of sleep, and he just looked like a kid that should lie back down and sleep for a day and a half. He first had to have his three sugar-cookie-sampler-platter with a glass of milk.  He had baked sugar cookies the night before, (well he had participated by oh like 50%), cause he was the one who rolled the dough and dropped it into the plate full of sugar and cinnamon, and then rolled (without getting any on the floor) the edges of the plate, getting the dough all brown and sugary, and then placed it on the cookie sheets for baking.  His Grandma got 50 % of the credit because she read the recipe, mixed the dough up, put the pan in and out of the oven, and did the dishes.  For good measure the stove received 25% credit because it did the baking.

He managed to get himself dressed, bathroomed, hair combed, teeth brushed and ready within about three minutes time, once the TV was turned off and the sense of urgency has been planted.

It rained all night, at least it seemed to, and the trees had given up leaves like a fall day, and the woods were wet, and it was kind of darkish out, for after a month of 100+ temperatures, this 77 degree day seemed perfect…even though the humidity was somewhere around 140% as opposed to 20% it had been for the hot period.

Oops Wrong Picture

Preston and I met his mom and dad at the entrance, and all of us took off walking in the entrance road.  They are on a schedule, where they will be able to take on the Tulsa Run later this year (My schedule is so I can live this year and the next, and the next, but that’s a story for another day..) so they walked with us in a brisk pace for five minutes, and their plan was to run the rest of the trip for 25 minutes.  So halfway down the first hill, wrapped in the wet and dangling trees, they counted their time, and they were off…and we saw them for the last time on the trail.

We walked (briskly mind you) down through the forest, where you could hear the birds cackling, and the limbs dripping water, and a few rumbles in the sky, along with a little bit of traffic noise off and in to the right of the path, but you couldn’t see any cars or a road, so it seemed far away.  We walked, and walked  and perspiration began in earnest , making my shirt nice and wet, and further down got all wet and yucky as well, clear down to the top of  my socks. 

The path took a turn around a clump of trees and we were at the Nature Center, a kind of classroom within the park, and as we approached it, I did a sudden stop and grabbed Preston’s shoulder…and we stopped and stared at nine deer, all across the path, eating off the ground.  They had all stopped and stared at us, and we all stood there for three or four minutes just looking at each other, trying to figure out whose place this really was.

The Was No Bear On The Path

Slowly and gently, we made a right hand turn, down the road and back on the narrow path, down a little turn, and there was a large metal observatory platform, with about twenty steps to the top, and Preston insisted we make it up, so we walked to the top, looked around for, oh gosh 4 to 5 seconds, then back down to the path we went.  We crossed a bridge over the wetlands (that are extremely dry this year), turned and started up (my shirt soaking wet by now) to the top and back toward the car.   We had walked about 2 miles.

Then the neatest feeling came over me, call it a euphoria, call it a resonance of things long past, call it your heart melting into your wet socks, but out of nowhere, Preston was talking and quizzing me, when his right hand came up, took hold of my left hand, and the two of us walked this way almost to the end of the path.  Now it was my point not to make a deal out of his hand holding mine, and in his mind (only guessing) he was holding my hand, but not even really thinking about why.  This was the most fascinating point of morning, and the coolest to happen yet.

We walked on up, and out of the park, and his parents were waiting in the car, we all said our goodbyes, and off we drove.  I wasn’t finished walking so I went to town, parked the car and walked two more miles.  It was a really good morning.

For good measure the stove received 25% credit because it did the baking.

He managed to get himself dressed, bathroomed, hair combed, teeth brushed and ready within about three minutes time, once the TV was turned off and the sense of urgency has been planted.

It rained all night, at least it seemed to, and the trees had given up leaves like a fall day, and the woods were wet, and it was kind of darkish out, for after a month of 100+ temperatures, this 77 degree day seemed perfect…even though the humidity was somewhere around 140% as opposed to 20% it had been for the hot period.

Believe it or not that is a donkey...with Preston

Preston and I met his mom and dad at the entrance, and all of us took off walking in the entrance road.  They are on a schedule, where they will be able to take on the Tulsa Run later this year (My schedule is so I can live this year and the next, and the next, but that’s a story for another day..) so they walked with us in a brisk pace for five minutes, and their plan was to run the rest of the trip for 25 minutes.  So halfway down the first hill, wrapped in the wet and dangling trees, they counted their time, and they were off…and we saw them for the last time on the trail.

We walked (briskly mind you) down through the forest, where you could hear the birds cackling, and the limbs dripping water, and a few rumbles in the sky, along with a little bit of traffic noise off and in to the right of the path, but you couldn’t see any cars or a road, so it seemed far away.  We walked, and walked  and perspiration began in earnest , making my shirt nice and wet, and further down got all wet and yucky as well, clear down to the top of  my socks. 

The path took a turn around a clump of trees and we were at the Nature Center, a kind of classroom within the park, and as we approached it, I did a sudden stop and grabbed Preston’s shoulder…and we stopped and stared at nine deer, all across the path, eating off the ground.  They had all stopped and stared at us, and we all stood there for three or four minutes just looking at each other, trying to figure out whose place this really was.

Slowly and gently, we made a right hand turn, down the road and back on the narrow path, down a little turn, and there was a large metal observatory platform, with about twenty steps to the top, and Preston insisted we make it up, so we walked to the top, looked around for, oh gosh 4 to 5 seconds, then back down to the path we went.  We crossed a bridge over the wetlands (that are extremely dry this year), turned and started up (my shirt soaking wet by now) to the top and back toward the car. We had walked about 2 miles.

Then the neatest feeling came over me, call it a euphoria, call it a resonance of things long past, call it your heart melting into your wet socks, but out of nowhere, Preston was talking and quizzing me, when his right hand came up, took hold of my left hand, and the two of us walked this way almost to the end of the path.  Now it was my point not to make a deal out of his hand holding mine, and in his mind (only guessing) he was holding my hand, but not even really thinking about why.  This was the most fascinating point of morning, and the coolest to happen yet.

We walked on up, and out of the park, and his parents were waiting in the car, we all said our goodbyes, and off we drove.  I wasn’t finished walking so I went to town, parked the car and walked two more miles.  It was a really good morning.

Beach Excellent

Memory of the Beach

Ixtapa, Mexico.  A lot of fun to get there.  Dave Burrows and I flew down to spend about five days with Rogelio Navarro and his son Rogelio.  There is money in Mexico.  The top percentage of people have it, the rest of the 97% of the population don't have it.  The Navarro's had it.

Mexico City Aeropuerto

Dave and I took one suitcase apiece, got off the airplane in Mexico City, then got over in another little hanger/type area to wait on our other airplane.  I have been told that most people fly to Mexico City and take a bus that uses a couple of hours to get there.  We were going to take a plane.

We think they call us.  When they came over to the waiting area and took Dave and I by the shoulder and pointed out at a little prop plane sitting on the runway, and indicated that was where we were going.  A man stood at the front of the plane, looked Dave over, told him to sit up toward the front.  Then he had about seven other people, told them to sit toward the front.  Then he looked at me.  A long, long look.  He had me take my bag (yes, they didn't carry them) to the front of the plane, in front of the wing, in front of the cockpit and had me stow the bag there.

Then I was escorted to the rear of the plane. He pointed with a great deal of vociferousness, and directed me to the back seat of the plane.  You must understand, this was a small plane.  It could hold 10 or 12 people, and there were eight of them, in the first eight seats (2 wide) or four rows of seats.  Then there were 2 empty rows, and one little seat in the back, that the back head rest was a net that held the luggage in, over the top of the seat.  It was all mine.  It took every inch of that seat plus four inches of the other seat to hold me in place.  The seat belt, wouldn't even begin to fit.  I urgently hollered at the flight attendant (who was simply the man who was seating us by weight and would get off the plane in just a minute) and pointed at the no seat belt situation I was in, and not ready for.  The engines had fired up by this time, and hearing was something you had done in the hanger, not in the plane.   I shuffled and pointed urgently, showed him the seat belt problem, and was sure I had the look on my face of one trapped with the teeth of a grizzly bear at my neck.

Then it was an epiphany.  A light slammed on so bright (in my minds eye) and permeated the noise inside the rocking little plane, as he backed away, toward the door, he turned, looked around him, looked at me, shrugged his shoulders, and saluted goodbye.  All of this took two seconds, the door was fastened, and the plane began to move.  And I realized, it really didn't make a bit of difference.

The flight to Ixtapa was short, we landed, my butt in the floor on landing and stopping, trying to get back in the seat, knowing the aircraft had managed the flight, although the plane was nose up the entire trip, and boom we were on the ground, wet with sweat, the temperature outside a balmy 97 degrees, the palm trees standing still and the ocean rocking back and forth through the trees.

Red Type  Translates = Long Frigging Ways

We gathered our stuff from the bow of the plane, headed inside, the heat sealed airport, looked around and found Rogelio Jr. looking all happy to see us there.  He was a big guy, about 6'2" big broad shoulders, an elegant and young looking face, pressed slacks, white shirt, gold chain about his neck, and he came over and shook Dave's hand, gave me a big hug, and we piled into his Lincoln.  New Lincoln.  Brand new.  He was likely about 25 years old but carried the polish of a man twice that age.

It seemed a quick trip to the condo, and his fathers place was on the beach. Literally, you took one step off the back porch and you were on one of the prettiest beaches I remember.  It was a two story condo, with a kitchen, bathroom, dining room, servants quarters, and a tv room on the first floor, and on the second floor there was four bedrooms and four bathrooms, and each place had a window with a waterfront place to kick back and chill.

The palms were thick, the water was a magical blue color, the sand was white as could be and the ocean moved constantly in towards the place and out again.  La Marina was just a couple of hundred yards over from the condo, and it was beautiful in its own right.  I think it is very important to discuss the heat involved, because there was heat.  Mucho mas heat.  In fact it felt right on the edge of being just plain boiling heat.  It mattered little what shirt you put on, within seconds, not minutes, the shirt was set from sweat, your hair (yes I had hair) was wet, and you swore that the day was made to cause you mucho griefio throughout.

There was business.  Enough said.   Took the better part of a day and a half and let the rest of the time rather melt into one great big puddle of fun and relaxation.  Any way I was letting time get the best of me, writing all this stuff down, and then realized the true fun of it all.  The Food.

There was water breaking high and hard at the marina entrance.  This meant that there was waves reaching in excess of thirty feet at their peak and dipping to the earth at their minimum. There had been no days like these in all the time the Navarro's had been here.  There were no boats going out and none coming in.  The marina had looked like a wedding thrown on Wednesday night when the courthouse was closed.  There were no people around.  It was sunny, beautiful outside, but the earth had decided to spill it's guts and cause waves to come in...and that was when Rogelio Sr. decided:  It looked fine.  He said this in Spanish, which Dave or I, neither one of us understood, and Rogelio Jr. told us to take off our foot gear (shows) leave them on the dock (nobody had ever been on his fathers 39' boat with shoes on) and he fired up the boat, and made a slow path to the gate, where the Pacific ocean slid between to rocky shorelines of the marina.

When the water appeared to level out, Senior hit the gas on the boat, we took a quick path out, feeling the bow of the boat lifting and lifting, none of us could see the banks, the water, nothing but the instrument panel and the bow of the boat was in the view finder of four innocent (well sort of) guys, with the gas applied full forward, and we broke the top of the wave, and could see the bottom of the ocean charging up the incline to meet us, and the bow of the boat came pointing down, down, down.

It became that moment of solitude when one figures out that the rest of their life may be a few seconds away, you can hear the motor running, you can see a large fish at it swims across the wave in front of you, and you feel the entire earth, moving upward to capture you and take you away.....and then...the ocean water filled the void, the motor made a large charging sound, and the n ext thing we knew, we could see nothing but the bow of the boat again.  It was the stomach turning ride of a life time, rather like riding on Zingo the great Bells Amusement Park roller coaster, time and time and time again....

Just as suddenly as it began, it stopped, the boat moved forward, and the ocean seemed to succumb to our boats will.  Right off the point about a mile or so out was Ixtapa-Zihuatenejo islands.

'Finding a lot in a little bit'

A mushroom of care....

Mushroom At The
Side of The Road

The mushroom at the left probably has some special name; i.e., fuscofibrillosus..Bleeding Agaricus...or phalliodes..Deathcap, or gigantea..the Puffball....or the neda..Blewit....or and maybe one you can remember, "big white one lying on the ground upside down".

This is no common mushroom (well it could be, I really have no idea) but the hand that is holding the mushroom belongs on the left side of my body, the camera was on the right, and it gives you some idea of the size of this thing (mushroom, not the hand) from the tip of my pointy finger to the base of my thumb is about 6.5" (inches) my left thumb (which lost all feeling some years ago in a cauliflower cleaning accident, that was quite funny at the time, because my son was graduating from high school and we were going to have people over, and I was told I could peel the cauliflower; took the knife from the center of the vegetable, down through my skin that stretches from thumb to first finger, down to the artery or bigger vein that transverses from thumb to heart, right smooth in to the nerve endings that finally gave out when the blade hit bone....and it was quite funny when I showed the emergency room Dr. the wound, by pulling my thumb away and shooting blood about 11.5 ' across the room.)

So what I am trying to say here, is the top of that rounded headed bloom is somewhere near 8.5 " across and about 5" in depth, and the stem it grew up on was about 4.75" in height.  (all these numbers are estimated, and you could add or subtract a 1/16" of an inch or so all around.)  In the bottom line way of talking, this is (or was) a big friggin mushroom.  I did not pick this mushroom, nay nay, it was lying on it's top, having fallen from its place of growing, leaving itself plumb upside down on the grass.

The had apparently taken place within a moment or two when I found it, because it was still in tact, there was no drying, no signs of death on any of it, it was just laying there, as if in a state of being waiting on someone, no waiting on me, ME, to come and pick it up.

Bad picture, Hand appears
 Larger than mushroom
(then again, maybe....)

Now it is not easy to take a picture like this on your own...for instance:  Picture 1 was:

finger

Picture 2 was:

Fingers all over the place

                                                     Picture 3:

And then of course Picture 1 which was literally Picture 4 became the picture of choice.  It isn't so awfully easy to format a picture (nothing was done to these as you can see) and one does grab a picture now and then that has a little bit of time encapsulated meaning to it:

Saying "Duck Duck Goose" has no meaning at all, and you can tell the lens was being moved respectfully to the left at the time.....

So it only made sense to bring up the photo of the time-out, or over timed, or kept-to-long Easter eggs....whose photo was shot shortly before they were put out of their misery and placed in the trash for consumable waste (makes one feel better saying that) with the weeks following Easter put upon their tender little souls.

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Surround Me

My body stands out here before you; lost in the summit of high expectations.
Covered with the snow and ice that follows the concept of freezing on
Then another, finding the way to make the cold so cold, and the heated warmth,
Colder still.

Looking downward, over the precipice, seeing the rocks and gully
And wondering if one could take the spiders run down the side, bouncing
From rock to rock, grass to ice, feeling to everlasting feeling, and whether
It would bring down to the basic form of figuring out, where it began.

Carry The Big Stick

Care

G. Waide Sibley
Commemoration Gazebo

Sheese.  It seems so normal to walk around, carrying the weight of the world upon your shoulders, feeling the worst that it has to dish out, rolling down your pants, like a day in summer when the wind stops and the heat pours and you feel all yucktified and know that there is little or no salvation in the form of somewhere wet and wild for you to relax.  It is in trying to find that place, that cool repose into the evening, when a little sun can be combated by a little breeze, a quickly chilled glass of red or white and the weight of the world thrown from your shoulders.

There again is life, meant to set out among you the fine and the weary and the happy and the sad and keep life going to my gosh there ain't much life left.  When you do realize that you are no where near middle age anymore...yes it does happen, because if I was middle I would live to be 108 years old and that doesn't happen to even the best of em.

Picture on The Wall (Clip)

It is weird and I mean this to sound as normal as the sun coming up in the morning, but somewhere along the line, when life has dealt you blow after blow after blow, until one doesn't feel that they can crawl much lower on the earth, that the world is defiantly against you, when you think that you might have a few dollars that can buy gas for the car or eggs for the ice-box or buy a half gallon of milk, or some such thing, and know that if you can hold off for just a week (like you can't hold off) then you will get your money and everything will be alright...that you need to wear your clothes that are now older than your youngest child, that you don't go to the dentist because you can put off your toothache a lot further than you thought, and you find, and this is the hard thing to understand, and one thing I want to make very very clear;  You find that you don't care.

You can walk in the morning.  You don't need a car.  You can listen to the radio.  You can see nature doing its thing, including dropping skin from being sunburned or being tick-bit in the awfullest places....and you don't care.

Its not that you wouldn't care, or shouldn't care or possibly need to care, but you don't know what has happened to that little brain synapse that broke or sped up or beat itself to death every time you had a situation that made the brain "a little crazy" or made you feel like you could drop the nuts off the spare tire and walk in traffic, and maybe everything would be alright.  It is weird and I don't know what it is, but you just don't care.  I'm having the devil of the time getting this point made.

You see I care about you, care about the car, car about the kids, care about the grand kid...I care about the clothes I wear (a much as any man without taste), I care that the car is kept up to date on license and oil change, I care about all that stuff and a great deal more...BUT I don't care about the happenings and the wayward bunches and the negative feelings and the kind of crap that sends a person into the weenie bin of life.

A poor attempt.

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Falls A Feeling

You’ve Been Gone

There falls a feeling of being lost,

When one is lost without the pieces

When there are few, no, fewer than few

Who understand, or pretend to understand

Or who can understand, the selfless feelings

That permeates my soul, and my mind, and makes me

Lost; alone, feeling left behind here

In this feeling of those getting larger

And spreading their wings across more deserts

Finding the sun as it calls, the clouds as they swarm

The raw, passionate, beauty of it all

Leaving me to feel and find that which I have felt

Fought for, and so wanted to come true

Wondering the loneliness of it all

Bring me back

Here.

REP

Morning Walk

New Shoes

I felt the need, yes, truly need to find a new pair of tennis shoes last night.  My old Avia tennis shoes, which I had worn since about one year ago this month...had found themselves at the bottom of the pile.  There were three pair of tennis shoes.

My Feet

The Avia's which still looked decent on the top side, but whose underneath side were all the worse from the wear.  Now these weren't just simply "worn" shoes...no, no no....these were walking shoes....that had endured the grief of being on my underprivileged feet, worn on walks that averaged more than six miles per day.....(5 miles some, 12.5 others) and walked and walked and walked...and had conformed themselves to my feet, and had taken the sway of all that weight pounding down on them...and protected my feet from injury.

Lynn Riggs 

Not to make these inanimate objects feel like they were somebody...but, every morning, they would crawl into place and wrap themselves so kindly beneath and around and on top of my feet, that were having to take the pain and agony of moving this bundle along the street....I won't go in to the specifics (440 pounds) on two (13' feet) and two ankles that could barely keep up and the walks, oh god the walks.....

A Pause Spot

There was a point on this walking therapy when I knew I had walked enough...that was usually about two miles from home, when I had the extra path-to-beat to get home....and then, upon sitting down...releasing the shoestrings and the feet fairly pouring out like so much syrup on the floor....and a groan escaping my lips...that I truly felt for these Avia's shoes.

One has to do that much walking to shed that much of ones self....in one years time, it seems that I have managed to walk off about 120 pounds of me, with more taking place with time and effort....The Reeboks that hide in the closet, with those dad-gum Dr. Sholl's foot pads in them, that are now older than my grandson....they too must meet the trash....  The third pair, are green-stained from grass cut so well, that I shall keep them around and wear them on  my forage into the yard.

It is all kind of creepy when you think of it.  Really.  In February last year, (at the huge weight of 440) I got sick one night...felt it coming on about 5:00 o'clock, by 6:00 I was in a chair, covered in blankets, by 11:00 I was on my way to the hospital, where I was diagnosed with pneumonia, and all the crap that happens with it, then my left leg between the knee and ankle got sick, swelled up, turned horribly dark and colored and reddish....and quite frankly, I was once again sitting at the edge of death.  This feeling, can be covered up and withheld from the general public, but based on my past history of quadruple by-pass, stroke, gaining weight etc....it seemed that I had traveled too far down the road, that I had to make my way back, alone, and be human again.

And now there are two pair of shoes.  Sketchers (no pun intended) black and white, and white and black.  13 Wides.  They fit.  And from the first day I walked one block and a half and had to sit on a churches steps to catch my breath....to 12.5 miles...life sure is better.......

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My Lover Asks Me

by Nizar Quabbani

My lover asks me:
"What is the difference between me and the sky?"
The difference, my love,
Is that when you laugh,
I forget about the sky.

Carry The Midnight Sun

After You Left

You’ve Been Gone

There falls a feeling of being lost,

When one is lost without the pieces

When there are few, no, fewer than few

Who understand, or pretend to understand

Or who can understand, the selfless feelings

That permeates my soul, and my mind, and makes me

Lost; alone, feeling left behind here

In this feeling of those getting larger

And spreading their wings across more deserts

Finding the sun as it calls, the clouds as they swarm

The raw, passionate, beauty of it all

Leaving me to feel and find that which I have felt

Fought for, and so wanted to come true

Wondering the loneliness of it all

Bring me back

Here.

*******************************************************************************

He looks at you.  It is as if he wants to look away or find some sleep or keep you unaware of his presence, and then you notice him looking at you.  Quietly, trying to find that certain something that exists inside you that shows the world and all its charms and magical dust the difference in you and him.  His head is leaning forward, you can feel the tension in his neck, his left foot tense against its resting place, all feathers down, but each one on the point of feeling that it must be ready to fly.

Each feather about him is tense and in place and the quiet spots and lines that permeate his body, are the same ones that permeate your soul, your mind, your living being as you watch him in a certain amount of discomfort, as he might fly away, he might fly toward you, he might not fly at all, but the mystery he holds is a true mystery....wondering, thinking, being.

Spring has Sprung, It's in The Air

Life seems funny.

There comes a time to think.  Generally this is when you are not doing something specific, like trying to hold a job, or caring what kind of oil goes in your car, or whether or not that light is green or does it have a blue tint.....when those types of things strike your mind, bang, your done.   There is very little to think of then, as your mind is preoccupied with that forethought that seems so real at the time.

The best time for thinking, if there is a best time, for me, is while I am out and about on my walk.  Today was a lot of thinking....downtown out to the cemetery, twice around, then Sioux down  to Blue Starr, out to Claremore Lake, (stop for water, chug chug, it was six miles by then) then Claremore Lake from front to back and back over halfway to the middle, up through the soccer fields (two larger curves, up hill most of the way) then across the road, down by the city's gym, across under the water tower, around  past the High School, then turn on Florence, go clear up past the Dr.'s office, hospital on the right, kidney place on the left, back across Blue Starr, down to the four way stop, up three blocks over one and bang, your home.  More water More Water More Water.....

Anyway, manage to walk....wearing head phones.....listening to Pandora (a wonderful bit of cell phone/computer technology) the Lyle Lovett collection, which includes a bunch of singers from "back in the day" to the new singers, that sing older style of music.  Some of the music makes all the sense in the world and some of it seems weird as can be, but they are all tunes from people I know.  This is important...because you have the opportunity to think extra hard IF you know the music you are listening to. That and if your headphones cut out enough ambient noise, you run the direct risk of being killed on the road because you can't hear the semi-truck rolling up Blue Star Drive.

Back to thinking....now your set....summer or winter, that is all apparent in the clothes you wear, but none-the-less, you have your music on, the world cut out, and your feet moving at 4 miles an hour (pretty quick walking for fat guys) and on to the more important things....like thinking.

The thoughts fly in and out of a thick head.  They can be something so important as the feeling that if I can capitalize on this thought, I will put money in my pocket and food on my table....no no, that rocks hit me right on the bottom of my foot and....they sure have a pretty headstone...Culliver seems an Irish name...I wonder if it is exactly and Irish name or is it more Celtic in its origin...what was that man's name that I met while in Ireland working at that little marina, that was a cool restaurant....the windows opened up to the lake and you could see the walkway all around it, with geese swimming and people on their bikes, and....that was a neat little restaurant...or bar...no PUB that was it...used to be a railroad engine repair shop, with spin around tracks...right where there was now a fireplace that burned gentle wood, and people sat around the fire and dadgummit, another friggin rock again, oh there is a snake at the edge of the chain link fence there, and his eyes are one way and it seems like it was the other way they sat that brought about poisonous...well there is a street here...gad dang all those cars coming that way...that's ridiculous, oh and there is one on the opposite side  at that crooked sign with his blinker on....well we can allways ....go go go man....ahh you ran across the intersection...heh heh heh......

And this kinda crap keeps going for three hours and twenty minutes of walking...sometimes quick, sometimes slow, sometimes it means something, but it all keeps your favor up so to speak.....

Most days aren't like this...you have the option of walking not so far...keeping the blood moving through the entire body, making your hands feel normal, and some days it just feels the best to keep going.   Oh, and I mowed the lawn when I got home....time to relax....