Walking to....Where-ever!

I’ve been early-morning walking for exercise.   I’m slow, but I go.

I notice things around the neighborhood at 5:30 a.m. are a little different than they are at 5:30 p.m.   I now have new nicknames for some of my earlier rising counterparts…there’s “Mr. I’ll-Chase-The-Dogs-Away-For-You!” who, being a little on the…er..older side, came running out of nowhere after some little mutts that were yapping at my heels one morning…chased them away with a stick.   I don’t go on that street anymore.   It’s the same street where a growling boxer lives, and I’ve found a very nice substitute for that hill, thank him very little.    The boxer liked to watch me until I got close, then he would start to growl…then as I passed him, he would start following me, barking like he was hungry for a bite of me.   :::Shudder::::

Then there’s “Mr. I-Am-Not-Nice-So-Don’t-Even-Look-My-Way.”   There’s a house on my street that I thought was largely adult-less until I started this early walking.   It just looked like a group of teenaged boys and/or young men in their early 20’s.    Apparently, there are adults who live there and they leave around 5:40 a.m. every morning.    Mr. Unfriendly gets in his little van (which I had never noticed before) and starts it up…and waits and waits….and waits until the other adults finally come out.   I try to smile and wave to all the neighbors who live right on my street…you know…if I can see their house from my house, perhaps I should be friendly.   These folks don’t like to smile and wave back.  Seriously.   The kids are usually nicer.    I only smile and wave to folks until I get hot and sweaty and want to be finished with my walk…then I am like Mr. Unfriendly, and don’t want anyone to even look at me!

I didn’t realize how many folks are up and going by 5:30.   There are two other neighbors who always leave around 5:30.   One of them always throws his hand up at me as he’s going by, which is an old southern tradition.    You wave.   Folks just wave to anybody here.   If you pass them, they wave.   Well…this guy waves, but he always has a look on his face like, “Why are we waving?”   I figure he must be a misplaced Yankee, because a nice southern gentleman would know Southerners just wave. 

There’s another man on my street, whom I do not know at all, but he leaves at 5:30 ish.   However, for 20 minutes before he leaves, he talks.   I mean, I can hear him in his house, when I am out on the street.   He’s Mr. Loud.   I never hear anyone answer back, but I know what he’s feeling at the moment.   (I am now hoping he’s not just talking to himself.)

I’m probably not making any new friends on my morning walk.   It doesn’t happen every morning, but some mornings…one dog starts to bark, and must be shouting to the neighborhood, “She’s coming, Boys, she’s coming!  Get your bark on!”   Because suddenly every dog for two ‘hoods is barking!   Most of them, thankfully, are behind fences…but one or two roam free, one of which is a pit bull, who, mercifully when I see him, never even bothers to spare me a glance.  

So..anyway, this is starting my fourth week of walking.  Go me!