I Am Ready for my Trophy!

In my previous article about being obese I said that I had begun walking, and that I was taking a little over twenty minutes to walk one mile. I have faithfully continued the program. I walk at least three miles every day, and sometimes I ease that up to five miles.
On occasion I will jog or run about fifty steps when appropriate music pops up on my I-Pod. My grandson Stuart loaded this machine with a good mix: along with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, he added in an album by Artie Shaw and another by Count Basie, two of my favorites. He also put in about thirty minutes of bagpipes straight from Scotland and it includes “Scotland the Brave”, which sent many a bonnie laddie off to war.
He and I both like the Beach Boys, and I can’t help but pick up the pace when “That Old Time Rock and Roll” pours forth into my eager ears. This is when I dance a few steps, and my neighbors avert their eyes, much as you do when you are at a family reunion and good old Uncle Lucius cackles out when he remembers a joke from his childhood and then forgets before he can tell it.
Even without the jogging I have been able recently to do my first mile in fifteen minutes, with the second one taking seventeen. And now the competitive drive has taken me. I know that I promised my readers that I would run a measured mile with “The Runner” on or about my eighty-fifth birthday, and we would do it in eight minutes. But we should all, as our preachers often remind us, “live in the here and now”. In short, I not only want recognition soon, but I really would like to receive a trophy for my efforts.
I live in a house filled with trophies. My older daughter, Meredith the Baseball Coach, lettered in four sports in high school, and took dancing also. That makes for a lot of trophies. Ashlee the Nutritionist, my second daughter, only participated in one sport, and that was basketball. She played two minutes, and that two minutes was in the waning moments of the last game of the season. The coach put her in, and someone passed her the ball, and she passed it off, and the final buzzer sounded. She got a letter, but no trophy. She did excel in cheerleading and in looking pretty and got awards in the former all the way to the national level.
So now you understand my desire. And I have taken a step, albeit a small one, in that direction. I entered the recent Smiling Pig Cookoff and Arts Festival 5k run/walk. Here’s how that went down.
I had loaded “Ron the Elephant” in my Explorer and was bound for the Republican Booth. When I reached the vendors’ gate at Citizens’ Lodge I was waved forward by Margo Lambe, famed Chipola Speaks TV star. She smiled and I decided right then to enter the run/walk. I paid her my money and received the “backpack”, which contained a rather garish tee shirt, some dental floss and a numbered sheet of paper, with four safety pins.
I was in and on my way to glory and fame!
The next morning I talked a young lady into pinning my number on my Seacrest Wolf Preserve tee shirt, and I began mingling with the crowd of athletes. I knew none of the walkers so I moseyed over to the runners. I would chat with one for a minute, and he would get a furtive look in his eyes and move away. Then I realized that runners dress in a certain way. I had the Nike shoes but was wearing long khaki work pants. They had special shirts and shorts and some of the women even wore cute little skirts with polka dots on them. Remember, I came from the era when Gussie Moran showed up at Wimbledon wearing frilly panties that showed under an above-the-knee skirt, and was ejected from the courts after several of the judges fainted.
My fascination with the attire, especially with the skirts, almost got me in trouble. The runners took off, and I looked around for the walkers. There were none! And then someone told me that they had been gone for at least two minutes in a different direction. I had to run to catch up. After some time I managed to pass two pregnant women, a mother carrying an infant and another with a dog on a leash that was checking out the bushes alongside the route. Just as I pulled ahead of this group a photographer took my picture, and I am certain that I appeared to be winning.
And I did win, in my age group, which is eighty and above. I was certain that I had a trophy, but I found out that no trophies were given for walkers, and that is a gross injustice and indicates prejudice of the highest order. I am not trying for “Miss Congeniality”. I can be just as nice as the next fellow, but it was time for a trophy, and no excuses!
Someone pointed out that I could have entered the run and I would have received a trophy because there were no eighty year old runners that day. NOW I know! I will be prepared for the next 5K run. I believe that there is to be one at Compass Lake in The Hills next weekend, and I should have no problem there.
But, just in case, I plan to bring my own trophy!