With the lovely weather of the fall days we're having here in Southern New England (I always think I should throw in a couple of y'all's when I type the word Southern), I've taken to walking after eating my lunch of a green salad.
I have a pretty organized route that I've now altered it so I no longer go past the burger joint as I wander because nothing makes the memory of a salad you just finished eating resemble a recollection of a bowl of grass clippings faster than the scent of grilled Angus beef and the tangy aroma of bacon.
Yesterday on my route across the work compound, I discovered one of those speed measurement signs set up on the main road. You know the kind I mean-they have the posted speed limit sign on the top of the device, and a flashing display with "Your Speed" underneath. As a motorist, I always slow down often in chagrined surprise over how fast I was really going.
But as a pedestrian, Bill Bi-ped, on the sidewalk, I was ecstatic to discover I was hurtling along at better than 14 miles an hour. Say it ain't so! I half-expected to see smoke coming from feet. I can't run anymore after the surgeries and replacement knees and they refuse to run by themselves so I try to keep a steady four mile an hour pace as I walk. I was really stoked reading the display.
Okay I was a little less stoked when I stopped at the intersection but was still clocking at a little over 12 mph. Those New Balance sneakers were worth every penny I paid for 'em except....well, as you've probably guessed, the machine wasn't measuring my speed but rather that of a Ford Escort, teal-colored I'm saddened to say, zooming up behind me.
For an all-too-brief moment, I'd felt like Colonel Steve Austin only to come crashing back to earth as Oscar, Madison, not Goldman. And as much as the pain of disappointment hurt, I knew I couldn't just walk it off.
-bill kenny
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