It is winter, still seems like midwinter, exactly as stated in my January 24 post. On that day it was about installing a new furnace. This day its about paying for that thing, fortunately cold enough so it doesn't feel like wasted expenditure. As most of you know, I walk daily on the pathways or sidewalks of our community. It's what I need to do for health reasons - physical, mental and spiritual. I also find it very enjoyable and for that reason probably overstate it just a bit. My children hear this as dad's solution for everything. Somebody has bad attitude toward something or somebody, "Take a walk." Somebody has a kink in the neck, or growly tummy, "Take a walk." Somebody has a broken back, "Take a walk - carefully at first." And to my fellow seniors, if they hint at a lack of bedroom pleasures, "Take a walk." 😌 The beauty of walks is that your grumblings and life maladies drain out of your system left right left right left right.
Until you hit minus 30 or so, or until you're slipping and sliding on unshoveled sidewalks! Then it becomes bit of a challenge, which brings up theme of the day. After considerable research, and some occasional creative dance steps to avoid falling on the old backside, I proffer my findings. I quite understand if these incidents happen on the morning after the snowfall before, or even the day after. My slippage hospitality, however, decreases as the days go by! Eventually I'm walking in full-on grump mode.
After many passings by I have a good idea who lives where (I know where you live 😏). Unshoveled walks and walkways along with sleds and toys strewn in half-open gates suggests a family with lots of action and youngish parents perhaps messy or untrained in home management. I’m okay with that. Sidewalks unshoveled with little evidence of action, I have a problem with that. Somebody there needs to take a walk! Then there's the place with ample 4x4 pickups and one of those right-hand steering noisy toonsie cars, corner lot no less, where I visualize much youthfulness plugged into devices, TVs and whatever makes that sweet smokey smell in their backyard! I did not enjoy my recent ice-dance going by there.
Then there are the many others I walk by. New neighbors to the left of us have a brand new baby, to the right a little school boy, next door down a high school teacher and family and children; next door to them an old Irishman who was here even before we arrived. Some of us are old and some of us are new. And most of us, dammit we shovel our sidewalks! Come to think of it, I do appreciate another neighbor from way down the street (a young guy actually) who has been coming by with one of those noisy snow or leaf blowers – makes a nice job on a cold morning even as he comes up my sidewalk a bit.
Lest I’ve sounded a bit crotchety here, I hasten to add, I like this neighborhood. It's our home in this modest community in a rather privileged location. The memories are mostly pleasant. Having been here 30 years makes us part of the history including several neighbors now widowed along with the thoughts and care that go with that - watching out for one another including some extra sidewalks. Three blocks from our house we have a man-made lake complete with beach, tennis courts, hockey rinks and toboggan hill. Two blocks the other way we step into the pathways, the grasses and the flowing water of Fish Creek Provincial Park. Welcome everyone, just as soon as this Coronavirus leaves town!
If one of our kids agrees to be our caregiver until the bitter end, I hope our sidewalks will be clear. And if by then they have robots programmed to take care of that detail, so be it.
