On Walking Alone

Walking
Originally uploaded by plasticrevolver.

Every morning around 7am a friend and I walk a vigorous three miles. We've been doing this for almost two years, holding each other accountable for maintaining the discipline of a daily exercise regimen.

Having not worked out with any regularity during the years when my daily schedule was less flexible, I now tend to approach this with a measure of self-righteousness. However, I generally choose not to reveal that my walking partner is eighteen years my senior and has had hip replacement surgery. On occasion he has walked our route with the help of a cane. Admitting this tends to diminish the image of manly fitness my hubris demands.

The friendship with my walking partner spans over 35 years and includes personal, family, church, and professional relationships. The hour we walk each day includes conversation about our fairly compatible political views, the state of our families, the miscues of our local sports teams, and sometimes some deeply personal issues. His sense of humor spawns stories that would evoke groans in any audience. I'm sufficiently used to it that I respond with the shake of my head and a brief prayer petitioning deliverance. Once or twice a week we develop strategies for saving the earth, creating world peace, or getting the Royals to the World Series.

Sometimes, like this week, he is out of town and I have to walk alone. I do so at a nearby public exercise track, replacing my friend with a strap-on radio/CD player. I know it's not much, but at least it hasn't had a hip replacement. Usually I listen to NPR's morning show, unless there is some burning issue being discussed by one of the city's two 24 hour sports stations.

I can't deny that an hour of NPR has a higher intellectual and cultural content than an hour of Dick and me. That might even be true of the sports talk show, except listening to it tends to make me want to scratch my crotch and spit. That is generally not well-received by the senior citizens who constitute most of the walkers on that track at that time of morning.

But here's the problem. I keep wanting to interrupt the NPR hosts and guests so as to correct or comment upon things they say. My radio/CD player is not interactive. No matter how loudly I speak they just move forward without benefit of my viewpoint. This severely diminishes the marketplace of ideas. With Dick there is an audience of one, at least as long as I'm walking on the side of his good ear.

One other thing I've noticed is that the hour seems longer when walking alone. The give and take of conversation causes the familiar surroundings to pass by more quickly. Sharing that slice of each day with a treasured friend is a gift. It's not the topic of discussion but the bond of friendship that transforms a workout into a sacrament.

So hurry home, Dick. See you Saturday morning at 7am or thereabouts.

And you know that one about the three walruses who went into a bar? I've heard it.

Seven times!

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