Thursday Tidbits

Posted on March 14, 2019 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

 

“Kick a stone down the road,

Run and catch the wind”

Run and Catch the Wind – Up With People

Are you forever reliving childhood memories? Are you trying to find a sand dollar on the beach? Are you building the most amazing snow fort ever? Are you holding a daisy pondering the imponderable: “she loves me, she loves me not?” Are you climbing a tree hoping to pluck an apple from the branches? Are you playing “red rover” with your best friends?

It must be a sure sign of oncoming senility but lately I find myself having all these weird flashbacks from my youth. I try my damndest to live in the present, with an eye on the future but the past always seems to lurk nearby. Maybe it is a form of escapism when the world seems to be going crazy. It all seemed so simple back then.

I might have been (?) the strangest kid ever. Am I now the strangest adult ever?

Did you ever kick a stone down the road? In my youth, for some unexplained reason, a stone lying haplessly on the road would become the object of my obsession. I had to kick it in front of me and see how far I could go before the stone would wander off the road or over an embankment. I am certain that there is an entire psychiatry course dedicated to this phenomenon.

The tragedy in all of this is that I find myself doing this again but because it’s winter, I am kicking chunks of ice along the streets of my hometown. Is this simply ennui or some deep seeded character flaw? The other day, on a long walk, I kicked a small mass of hardened ice from the Irving station on the Post Road almost all the way to the lights at the Superstore. As this would be considered “local knowledge” at the golf course, the distance would be about 400 hundred yards or approximately 365.76 meters, for you out of towners.

This past Sunday, after a few hours of watching golf and basketball at the same time (a distinctly male sickness) and feeling the need for fresh air to resuscitate my addled brain, I went out for a brief evening walk. The sidewalks were mostly clear but there were still many icy patches to be navigated. I don’t fear Kim Jong-Un as much as I fear a fall on the ice. I have had dozens of those close calls when you can feel yourself slipping but just catch yourself at the last possible moment. Your heart races a bit faster and you tell yourself to be more careful.

I wasn’t far from home and the sidewalk on which I was strolling was basically bare concrete. But wouldn’t you know, there in the middle of the sidewalk was a fairly large chunk of ice that was yelling at me to kick it. It was the perfect size. I looked in both directions to make sure there were no street cams to catch my lunacy.

“The first cut is the deepest.” Cat Stevens.

The first kick is the most important one. You want to kick the ice directly ahead of you. You can extend this game longer if you’re a straight shooter.

A funny thing happened. You can’t kick the ice too hard or it will disintegrate nor can you be too gentle. My first attempt was short and swift. The toe of my boot made contact with the ice.

Are you familiar with the irresistible force paradox? You know, the one about what happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object.

The chunk of ice was unmovable. I wasn’t. I could feel my body being hurtled forward by the laws of gravity. I was spinning out of control and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. I landed sideways hitting the hard concrete, first with my arm and then my knee. Battered and bruised, I picked myself up, once again looking around me to see if anyone had witnessed my folly. On a dark Sunday evening, on a poorly lit side street, I needn’t have worried.

I knew I hadn’t broken anything but could feel a distinct stinging sensation on my knee cap. On the completion of my walk, I discovered that most of the skin on my knee had been neatly removed by the sidewalk. I wasn’t going to say anything to my wife but wanted to make certain that I didn’t aggravate the situation by not taking proper medical treatment.

When summer arrives and apples appear on the neighbor’s tree, I will curtail the urge to climb it to shake one loose.