Since the end of the summer, I’ve been taking a walk three to four times a week. It’s my ‘I’m 40 now, I’d better exercise’ regime and it’s also a little bit of mental down time for me.
I like walking because it’s something I can do without feeling worse after I do it. [Sit ups, jogging, jumping jacks – forget it!] I get to be outside [a treadmill just isn’t the same], and it’s 45 minutes to an hour of time that I don’t have to do anything else. It’s an allowance of mental vacation.
I’ve been walking in the same park for a while now. I vary my route, but I still manage to run into a lot of the same people – a lot of the same characters, if you will, and they make the walk more interesting.
There’s Henry, my mother’s neighbor, who often walks in the same park. He’s a determined walker but he always gives me a southern accented ‘Goud mornin’’ as I stroll by. There’s the guy I call Lopey...he’s a jogger with an unusually long gait. He’s not running per se – it’s like a slow motion run, probably really good for the hamstrings. Then there’s Happy Guy – an older gentleman in flannel and a fishing vest who greets everyone he meets with a jovial ‘Goooood mawning!’ There’s the Politickers – two middle aged men who meet going in opposite directions and debate congenially before going their separate ways and there’s The Lady With Two Dogs who is constantly admonishing her miniature collies not to bite people. [I don’t think the dogs would even consider it, they seem very friendly, but you have to wonder if maybe she’s speaking from experience or just a touch of paranoia.]
These are the people in my neighborhood, if you will. The characters I meet on my ‘walk to work.
What characters do you meet every day?
What characters do you meet every day?
4 comments:
Oh, those pictures are beautiful! We have an older man who slopes by our house every morning as I steer my kids to the bus stop.
He's so nice and waves, but he never speaks.
Nice pics! I've only walked where you walk once, but I've got to say it's THE prettiest park around. Lucky you!
On my walks I often see Little Orphan Annie All Growed Up. She has naturally bright red curly hair, a face full of freckles, and a mutt that looks like Sandy.
In my building I see the Crazy Croation (don't know if he is Croation but he's from some Baltic state and since there's already somebody I call the Russian Guy he needed a different name). The Crazy Croation can be seen roaming the halls and riding the elevator and generally startling people, in his bathrobe.
LOL! In his bathrobe...well, now doesn't that just give your place a lot more charm?? ;)
It's pretty funny when the bathrobe-clad man jumps into the elevator, scaring the hell out of the big, burly UPS guy.
I rarely use the elevator....
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