I no longer need to get up at three in the morning to go to the gym to then head to work to shower and change to be at my desk at six o'clock. A week ago today was the start of my last day of work before retirement, based on measurable output, there were many on the staff who could have assumed I had retired about an hour after arriving from Germany in the fall of 1991.
Yeah, now it can be told, I worked with some pretty caustic characters and the worst part is they could say the same thing (and be far more accurate). It was a little disconcerting to say goodbye to someplace I'd been longer than anywhere I had ever been employed in fifty years of working for money (insert your own off-color joke here: ) especially since I said farewell to someplace I had never known existed much less ever wanted to be until I had no choice to but to go.
Anyway. I now sleep in until six and get to the gym at seven. There are quite a lot more people around at that hour than my previous time slot. I got pretty used to saying goodnight to Don Lemon and hello to Christine Romans and now it's all new folks on what some on the right might call the Communist News Network. (I tried watching Fox News but was unable to maintain any pace on the treadmill while shrieking "You lie!" (among other things) at the screen (Pro tip: you cannot throw your sneakers in anger at the TV and wear them on the treadmill at the same time. You're welcome)).
All this week two treadmills down from me is a guy in a very much worn and faded tee-shirt with jeans wearing leather chukka boots running like someone is chasing him as I arrive. I tend to run like the wind(ed) so I'm concentrating more on not falling off my treadmill as my session unfolds and lack both the strength and interest in noticing when he leaves but he does so before I do though I'm guessing not by very much.
When I come out of the gym and stagger back to my car I always see him sitting on his moped, leg dangling over the frame with a star-spangled bandana around his neck smoking a cigarette which, in light of the pace I watched him set indoors moments earlier always seems to me to be a little like draining and filling the pool simultaneously.
I suspect wherever he is, Jack Lalanne is shrugging if not actually juicing.
-bill kenny
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