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Of course, I had to start my newest hobby on the day of the ice storm. It’s like trying to quit drinking on the day you break your kneecap: of all the days in your too-long life to break your kneecap, you break it on the day when you don’t have anything to anesthetize with.
I broke my kneecap once playing basketball. I was guarding the point at the top of the key, and he drove on me, and our kneecaps hit each other straight on. His hurt. Mine was broken. I didn’t know it was broken until a day or two later. After basketball we all went to a house party. I sat down like a cypher with my warm 12-pack and put my leg up and it was throbbing painful, which is all right looking back now. My philosophy is, if you ain’t busy cryin’, you ain’t busy bein’ born.
I tried to down some beers, but I was physically sick. You know, system failure from the broken kneecap. Good times. Life of the party.
So, my new hobby is jogging – running- I’m not sure what they’re calling it nowadays. Jogging, for me, I guess; I’ll never be a runner. That ship has sailed. But I always wanted to be able to do a 10K or jog for a bunch of miles, or jog for an hour. Seems like a productive use of one’s time.
The so-called ice storm didn’t matter much though, because, of course, we’re on a dirt road. Not gravel. Dirt. Not much ice to contend with right now. That comes in the spring when you can’t even walk the road up the hill from the creek to the mill because of the freeze of the spring melt. I don’t even think there was ice on the pavement this morning. I don’t know. We never made it to pavement. That’s the cool thing about up here: if I come out of my mossy drive and turn left on the dirt road, and then, like 6 miles up, turn right, I’m still on dirt road. And if I jog for the rest of my too-short life I could – if I chose, and rather easily – never ever come to pavement again.
But – and let me say this gently – if I ever am able to jog 6 miles up the dirt road to the turn on the right, put me out of my misery. There’s gotta be better things to do than jogging a life away.
Although, see, here’s the problem: it’s only at that 6-mile point, or at my one-hour goal, that the pups will even start to get winded. With me jogging and them on the leash at less than a trot, that’s no real exercise or challenge for them. Off the leash, sure, them running – really, truly running – like a pair of maniacs off their meds. A simple “walk” off leash up the road a ways and back – half an hour, maybe a couple miles, and they come back panting, exercised, happier than a hyena. You know, the back-and-forth across the road, into the woods, up Korf ‘s place, up the commune, up Johnson’s place, down into the river bottoms, jumping off the bridge like Underdog, swimming in the beaver pond. Just basically a couple of earthbound chickadees.
We’re gonna jog on the leash (short, no pulling), and I’m ashamed to say that we don’t do much on the leash. Almost never. Except maybe once or twice a year if I take them into Stone Harbor or Buck’s Hardware. And even then, when the coast is clear (although that’s never really stopped us) we let them have the run of the store. Or sometimes on the leash during deer hunting. Not even on the damn Superior Hiking Trail. I gotta stay off the trail when we’re hunting on the Superior Hiking Trail. I got reprimanded by a couple women from the cities one time. You gotta be kidding me.
Did I mention I’m a smoker? It’s like an old lady with the gout taking up ballet.
Yeah, this new hobby might be a burp in the breeze.
I was recruited to run in high school. The track coach, Mr. King, ogled me stretching out on the mat in the small gym on the first day of track and field practice in the spring. Well, he saw an athlete in my weight-lifting body (I was into the whole “No pain, no gain” thing with weightlifting). He never took the time to “see” me – short, weak legs, top heavy and muscle bound. So, I ran for him once. The 800 meters. Didn’t work out too well. Might as well take up cigarettes rather than regurgitating your damn spleen at the weekly track meet.
I would’ve liked to oblige him. You know, be some Billy Mills or Sebastian Coe, but I just couldn’t see running for two hours or 10 miles or whatever after school every day and twice a day on weekends. I just stuck with pole-vaulting… Where you could just lay in the grass and think about Kaylene until your turn was up, and you hoist your pole and run down the runway toward the pit and plant and pivot and hit the 10-foot cross bar with your face.
That’s kind of what it’s like when I take things up. But, as I say, “If you ain’t busy bein’ born, you ain’t busy tryin’.” Or whatever.
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