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Pastimes : NNBM - SI Branch

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To: Poet who wrote (25070)	3/30/2003 9:24:43 AM
From: Clappy	Read Replies (5) of 104197

That was good wasn't it. It was just what I needed. It gave me a boost. A shot of energy or something. I got all revved up and figured I'd go for a nice long walk with the pup. I got suited up and opened to door to find out it had started raining within the last hour. I was disappointed. I looked down at my walking partner and his eyes said, "So what its raining. Let's go anyway!" So I that's what we did. We walked and walked. Nobody else was around. Just Duffy and I. There was an occasional car heading out for the morning paper and coffee. Most of them were surprised to see us out in the rain. Each of the drivers gave a friendly toot on the horn or smile and wave as they passed by. The birds didn't seem to mind the rain. They were still singing as if the sun was rising on a clear day. We do this odd sort of walk together where he runs out about ten feet and sniffs something then I catch up, pass him, and then give him a little tug when I'm about ten feet ahead. Then he rushes ahead for a few seconds until he gets another whiff of something and then stops again. This goes on for nearly the entire walk. He likes to keep me guessing as to which side he's gonna make his pass. Left or right. I usually do the ol' switch-off behind the back leash pass but today I had the umbrella so I'd have to pirouette each time he came around my left side so that the leash would not be wrapped around me. It was as if we were dancing. Perhaps with the umbrella I looked like Gene Kelly singing in the rain but it felt more like Fred and Ginger in the way I would anticipate the move around to my left and just sort of lead the dog that way as we tangoed the Dog Walk Tangle. As we walked the neighborhood part of our journey takes us to a busier road. A town road with the yellow lines down the middle. There's a large contrast between this road and the normal residential road. The cars zipped rather fast. Absent was the warm smile and friendly wave of the people driving by. The shoulder of that road seems less pleasant than the curbed area of our street. As if it gets ignored more. People don't really see this part of the road very often. It seems less explored. Sort of barren wasteland where the gray pebbles collect after being left this winter from the salt spreader trucks. Plastic bottles, candy wrappers, and an assortment of odd garbage there until it gets blown deeper into the woods or covered with autumn leaves. The signs of life along the road are usually a bit more weathered and tough looking. Clumps of grass seem to have thick stalks and have not turned the same dark green as my neighbor's lawn. They look stressed but determined to survive. Duffy stops his happy walk and doesn't budge as I nudge him along. I turn around and see he found a dead squirrel that must have bounced and rolled his way out from the under section of a car. It was probably dead for a day or so. The dog stayed a foot away from it waiting for it to move perhaps. The squirrels eyes were squinted and his mouth was way open wide as if was screaming. I never noticed how long their teeth are. Sort of scary looking. At fifty miles per hour you don't usually get a good look at the road kill. Walking along the side of the road it's different. You are almost forced to look at it and smell it. I started drawing comparisons in my mind of what the battle field must be like. How different it must be for the actual soldiers than it is for the bomb droppers and button pushers. Duffy must have realized my mind was back on the war so he tugged me along and tried to get me forget about it again. Soon we reached the next residential road where we would make our turn and head back toward home. Ah, back to the the peacefulness and tranquility of our neighborhood. You could make out the daffodils attempting to break up out of the ground. The little crocusses waking up after a long winter rest. We continued walking up a long hill. Like mountain climbers the two of us took turns taking the lead and pulling each other upward. There was a section of the road where we noticed a lot of earthworms. As we walked there were more and more. It got to a point where the road was covered in worms. Probably spread out a foot apart of so. Almost as if you could not walk without stepping on one. They were three inches long and very thin. An occasional nightcrawler would be stretched way out long. Longer than you ever thought a worm could stretch. I did my best to tap dance around them as the dog pulled me up the hill. It was really strange seeing that. It was almost as if we crossed a migratory flight pattern of a huge flock of worms. By the top of the hill I could feel my heart beating fast while I broke a sweat. It was all down hill from there. We turned the corner and coasted home and realized I barely noticed the rain anymore. We had become accustomed to it and found that our minds wandered just the same as if it was a sunny day. Hopefully I'll remember this the next time it looks rainy out there and I start giving myself reasons why it sucks. -Clappy

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