Our path, heralded with the suitably P.A.-boosted Evangelical Christian zeal, balloons and banners, took us down the banks of a canal, through a park and finished back at a local junior high school parking lot. A sunny, breezy mid-spring morning in the Rockies made it a pleasant, if a bit extended stroll.
There were a few serious racers in this: think running shorts, stretching, frequently-checking-stop-watch types. Then were the less-serious, but still dedicated runners of a certain age . . . those who sought to recapture a glimpse of faded athletic glory, clad in Spandex, bathed in sweat and visages grim, winding through the slower herd toward what they hoped would be a new personal middle-aged best time.
My cardiologist, having newly discovered I had developed "AFib," allowed me to participate, but only if I took it easy and was "mindful of what your heart is telling you." It said nothing. Still, no shortness of breath, dizziness, etc., so I proceeded at a leisurely pace, chatting with my grandson Josh.
We talked about beginnings, as young men often do with excitement and anticipation, and we older men do, too, in offering so-called wisdom harvested from memory and experience . . . and desire of the gray-haired and silver-bearded to taste youth again, however vicariously.
Somewhere, along that six kilometers stroll, dreams and memories met. Maybe they eyed each other warily, perhaps tentatively high-fived. I don't know; but it was a pleasant interlude.
Josh in in college, trying to find his path and working toward personal independence. I remember that, working lousy jobs cleaning toilets, washing dishes, unloading and loading truck on the docks, digging a ditch or two, or adding another coat of paint to the exterior of a decrepit rural motel to make it through college classes.
You do those things, I told him, because you know it's a means to an end -- that the most basic and base of tasks become worth doing if they get you another step on your journey.
It was a good, long walk. Keeping grandpa company meant being passed by faster walkers, even a young woman pushing another in a wheelchair and a 5- or 6-year-old girl navigating with a stroller bearing her two baby dolls.
But that's OK. We talked about life, faith, morality both connected to directly, and indirectly, to belief; girls, and the treasure of having them as friends without caving to the social pressure to making everything sexual; the sadness of kids growing up without parents who give a damn . . . and how blessed he is to have a mom and dad who do.
We finished the "race," not breathing hard, but deep. Not dead last, but a long way from anywhere near first. And, again, that was OK.
There was a satisfaction to it all, generations connecting. Something learned, perhaps, by young and, er, older alike.
And along with hundreds of thousands of like-minded folks worldwide, we raised a lot of money to dig wells and build water systems in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East where the kids (pictured on the orange T-shirts we wore) typically have to walk an average of six kilometers to fetch water every day.
I thought of that, and winced a bit, when I got home, put ice in a glass and filled it with cold water from the kitchen tap.
(Oh, that AFib thing? I go in Tuesday to, hopefully, get that fixed. First, a down-the-throat tube to scan the heart, then a short, sharp shock to reset the ornery organ. So, if you think of me on May 7, about 1 p.m. Mountain, that would be nice; a prayer, too, if you are do inclined.)
