Feets Don't Fail Me Now

I'm going to start sleeping with my sneakers on, in case I get caught short. About a month ago, I fractured my right ankle, walking around the block after dinner (because walking is good for your health) and I have a brace the doctor has scared me into wearing at all times except when I'm sleeping. That I got hurt while I was doing something good for myself suggests there is a God and S/He has a sense of whimsy as wide as North Dakota is interesting. Perhaps more.

Anyway, a couple of weeks afterwards, I had a blockage in a leg artery removed in a more acute setting than my insurance carrier preferred and that means a lot of correspondence back and forth and, I'm sure, less than cordial telephonic exchanges and possible unkind references about one another's mothers (not a good idea in my case as Mom will beat your behind clear off your body) before it's all settled in some form or other.

I have enough other stuff, professional and private going on right now that I don't need a lot of head-noise and could use some good news. Yesterday morning I decided to make my own. While you were on your way to church or, more likely, to a tee-time, I was at the still-so-new-it-has-that-new-artificial-surface-smell-to-it track at the private-public (but really private when push comes to shove) high school a three minute walk from our house. It's even closer if you run and feels even gooder if, when you run, there's no pain at all.

To make sure, I ran two laps around the track-not consecutively (Mom raised crazy children, not stupid ones and  I do have six decades on the odometer) as I haven't done any running for any reason in decades, and certainly not at anything approaching a world record pace. But since I figure I haven't been able to walk/run at all without pain for the last half a decade or so, it went pretty well considering.

We had a lovely day weather-wise and, as I mentioned, with most of the planet either in a pew or approaching a second shot about a hundred and ten yards from the pin, I didn't have to worry about being embarrassed because, truth to tell, I am one of those morons who, when he stumbles and gets hurt, is more concerned at who might have seen me make a fool of myself than in whether I have sustained an injury. Even when all that's hurt is my pride, I'm in pain.

So far, nothing feels awful or painful. I got up this morning expecting twinges if nothing else as if I'd put the legs on upside down but nothing. I still look like a little old man when I see my reflection, but I'm starting to slow the inexorable decline down just a little bit. Rediscovered an old friend yesterday, Richard Thompson,  "The dusty road will smell so sweet paved with gold beneath my feet. And I'll be dancing down the street when I get to the border." There's the signpost up ahead...
-bill kenny