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Charlottesville to Ruckersville Due to my plantar fasciitis, I backed off the distances on my hikes over the last month-and-a-half. Just before being diagnosed, I had completed a 20-mile march. Afterwards, my walks stayed mostly in the 7-9 mile range, with just a few over 10. I've been stretching my foot and taking care of it best I can, so today I thought I would stretch my legs a little. I headed out to Charlottesville to do a long hike in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. My nephew Mike is a student at UVA, so I stopped in at his apartment and he drove me out to my starting point, 13.7 miles away in Ruckersville. The weather was unseasonably warm (in the 60's) and I was comfortable wearing just shorts, a t-shirt, and a windbreaker. My rucksack contained extra clothes, but I didn't need them. There were also sandwiches and 4 quarts of water in my ruck; those, I did need. The first hour of my walk was a little slow, but I picked up the pace and knocked out a fairly fast second hour. I thought the hilly terrain would challenge me but my biggest difficulty was the dullness of the road. The hilly asphalt was lined with barren trees and not much else. I took pictures of the few mildly interesting sights I came across (things like the Albemarle County sign noting its 1744 inception and a store called Junk-tiques... which, unfortunately, was closed), but mostly I just trudged ahead. Early in the third hour, Dawn (the "other Dawn," the one I know from high school days) called my cell phone. We chatted about nothing in particular and next thing I knew one more hour of my walk was completed as well (Thank you, Dawn!).
I arrived at Mike's apartment after a little less than 4 hours of walking and felt like I'd been rode hard and put away wet. Mike had been sick recently and he warned me that he might be sleeping. Sure enough, my knock woke him and when he answered the door with bed-head he looked as scruffy as I felt. What a pair. Keeping in mind my recent November setback, we bypassed the local Five Guys restaurant with Charlottesville's "best fries" and opted for grilled chicken at Boston Market. When I dropped Mike off and got back on the Interstate, my foot was a little sore and I was still a little hungry. A saying I'd heard a couple of months ago popped into my head and I reflected on how it applied to me now: Pain is temporary. Pride is forever. I couldn't help but smile. A Day That Will Live in Infamy With today being the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing, I wanted to do a walk today with a military connection. I thought of one of my loose ends and figured this would be a good time to tie it up. Although I'd already walked Fort Monroe's perimeter and interior a few months ago with my old Army buddy, Brad, I hadn't connected the path of my walk through Hampton Roads with Fort Monroe's front gate. Today I would. I called Dawn (the "original Dawn") and she met me after work near the Air & Space Museum in Hampton. We dropped one of our cars off and drove to a 7-Eleven a half-mile from the gate. We only walked a little over 3 miles, but it was a good time to reflect on the sacrifices made by military members and how much we all owe them for our freedom. Dawn told me one of her favorite sayings. "If you can read," she said, "thank a teacher. If it's in English, thank a soldier." I won't prattle on and preach about patriotism, but if any of you feel so inclined, consider a donation to the Pearl Harbor Memorial Fund. Early Morning Workout 
I woke up around 2 this morning and couldn't get back to bed. Oh well, I figured, why not go to the gym?I had a membership at Total Fitness, which was open 24-hours-a-day during the week, but hadn't used their facilities in the wee hours yet. Until today. I got to the gym at 3:30 and found one other night owl pumping some iron. He was working out in the free weights area and his physique looked like one of the athletes in a Nike commercial. I asked him if he could spot me on the bench so I could try to max and then slid 200 pounds on the bar. It had been a long, long time since I pressed that kind of weight. I'd been working out semi-regularly doing reps with 160 and 150, but I hadn't tried to max lift. I lined my hands up on the bar and took a few deep breaths. I lifted it off the notches and lowered it to my chest, not sure if I'd be able to push it back off or if I'd be gasping for help from my spotter. But I pushed it up fully. And I still had some steam left. "Good job," my spotter said. "Do another." I lowered the bar and touched it to my chest one more time, then heaved it up until my elbows locked again. This time, it was a bit of a struggle. But, I nodded to my spotter and said, "One more." Down it went and up it came, but only about halfway before my arms started to shudder. My partner put his hands underneath the bar and helped me push it up, then I dropped it in the notches with a sigh of relief. The rest of my routine used smaller weights to work various muscles in my arms and chest, and in-between reps I chatted with my spotter. Turns out he was once something of a celebrity. He's a former boxer who was once rated the #7 light heavyweight in the world. He had some great stories about boxing in Russia and getting knocked out and seeing someone's cheek open up after he punched him...but those stories I'm going to save for the book. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to rope-a-dope you. Skirting Gangland with an English Teacher Though I've already walked from the south to Richmond, done a hike through the city, and walked from the city limits northward, I still had to connect my east-to-west path with the one that ventured off to the north. I'd skipped the north side of Richmond because when I scouted it out for my walk with "high school Dawn" on November 10th, the area seemed a little dangerous. I was reluctant to bring along a woman I hadn't seen in 20 years for a hike through gangland. Not a great way to make a first impression. That seemed more like second date material. I scouted out the route two more times and finally found a path that would connect my previous walks while staying just outside the worst areas of Richmond's Northside. This walk would connect up with the starting point from my previous walk with Dawn, so I called to see if she'd be interested in going. In getting to know Dawn all over again, I learned she's a fan of reality shows. Well, here was a chance for her to play in her own version of Survivor. How could she pass that up? Dawn hesitantly agreed to go, but only if I promised that she wouldn't die. "I can promise you won�t die," I told her. "Of course, you might get molested...but that would just be during the car ride over." When that threat didn't dissuade her, it seemed like the walk was a go. But there was one more hiccup: Mother Nature. This morning, as I got my gear together and prepared to leave the house, Dawn emailed to warn me of a torrential downpour in Richmond. We pushed the time back then decided to risk the rain. What the heck. We both had rain gear.
I'd forgotten how fast Dawn walked. She's almost as tall as me but her legs move twice as fast. Clad in black Spandex, her slender legs were a blur and I did all I could to keep up. The streets were quiet after the recent rain. We had to step around puddles on the sidewalks and road shoulders, but the walk was otherwise uneventful. We passed by some worn down buildings and an area where a mall had been flattened, and soon we were walking past nice, suburban homes and businesses with neon signs and colorful banners. We were back in our comfort zone. "See? I told you that you wouldn't die. Hasn't this been funner than you thought it would be?" "Funner?" she said, incredulously. "And you call yourself a writer." I tried to quell her laughter by explaining language evolves and that "funner" is now an acceptable replacement for "more fun," but she waved me off and told me how I was "wronger." Then she laughed some more and I started wishing I was the one carrying the pepper spray. (Note: a later check of style guides proved both of us right...although Dawn was most rightest). All of a sudden, we arrived at our destination. Our 6-mile hike seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Well, maybe two blinks. "Wow," Dawn said, "it just flew right by." Of course, we had been going at a little over a 15-minute-per-mile pace, so we were flying as far as I was concerned. Dawn remembered a comment from our last walk together and an impish grin spread over her face. "I know, I know," she said, "it may have taken us an hour-and-a-half but it only felt like an hour-fifteen...right?" She took the words right out of my mouth...so I needed to put something else in there. We had just passed a restaurant called Lucille's Southern Cuisine, so we stopped in to feast. Dawn ordered the special (Salmon cakes) with sweet potato fries and I got the catfish with mashed potatoes and collard greens. "There you go," Dawn said. "If you're going to go Southern, go all the way." She couldn't have been more righter. The Photo Shoot 
My essay "A Walk Across Hampton Roads" will be appearing in the January 2010 issue of Hampton Roads Magazine. I've had plenty of articles in the magazine over the years, but something happened with this one that has never happened before: I got a call from one of their photographers to set up a photo shoot. All these years I'd been hoping my first photo spread in a magazine would be in Playgirl, but hey, you take what you can get.We met this morning at the Lion's Bridge and Dawn came with me so we could walk the Noland Trail afterwards and so she could poke fun at me during. The photographer, Jim Pyle, surveyed the area and figured out the best angles to get a shot of me walking. "Go over there," he said, pointing down a trail leading to the bridge. I headed over that way and turned around to see if I was in the right spot. "Nah," Dawn said, "Keep going." She waved her hand, indicating I should keep walking till I was out of frame. I walked back and forth on the trail countless times, and Jim kept shouting encouragement at me. "There you go. That's a great one. The camera loves you. Nicely done." An old song about models on the catwalk kept going through my mind: "I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it hurts..." (by the one-hit wonders, Right Said Fred). Needless to say, I had a hard time keeping a straight face. Of course, that might have been Jim's intent the whole time. "There you go," he said. "It looks like you're having fun." Which I was. It felt silly and fun all at the same time. When the photo shoot was over, Dawn and I hiked the 5-mile Noland and she jabbed me a few more times about my modeling debut. But nothing she said was affecting me. I may have physically been hoofing it through the woods, but in my mind I was out on the catwalk, baby! Playgirl, eat your heart out! Paying for It "Sixty bucks." That was how much the woman I didn't know said it would cost me. I was in a strange town and I had certain needs and I turned to her to fulfill them. I hadn't counted on it costing me sixty bucks though. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you how today started... This morning, as I pulled out of the garage, I saw that the windshields of cars on the street were rimed with frost. And it wasn�t getting any better where I was going. Today�s forecast for Ruckersville called for a high of 45 with winds at 10mph, making it seem even nippier. At least it wasn�t supposed to rain until later tonight�unless the weatherman got it wrong, and that NEVER happens! In addition to it being bitter cold when I left, it was still dark outside as I was leaving at 5 a.m. A sliver of silver moon hung in the inky sky. That and the Christmas lights strung on nearby houses provided the only light. I might be crazy for going off on these early morning romps, but I�m not alone. As I rounded the corner, I saw my neighbor, Rich, jogging down the street. He was bundled up like an Eskimo and jogged in place when I pulled over to chat with him for a moment and wish him luck on his run. He, likewise, wished me luck walking up in Ruckersville, where I was headed today. Ruckersville is about 18 miles north of my nephew's apartment in Charlottesville, so I was hoping he could drop me off at my starting point. But he had exams and was too diligent to blow them off. No matter how much I begged. No problem, I figured, I�ll just park my car and take a taxi. I parked at 8:30 and started calling nearby taxi companies. That�s when the problems started. The first two cab companies I called were one-man shops and my phone calls went straight to their answering machines. I didn�t want to stand around waiting for them to wake up before they got my messages, so I tried Yellow Cab and got an operator, who connected me to the Charlottesville dispatcher. That's when the woman's raspy voice on the other end of the line said those two words that caused my mouth to drop open: �Sixty bucks.� I only needed a ride from Ruckersville to Stanardsville, which was the next town over. There was no way I was paying that much for it. I told her no way and hung up. After fuming for a bit, I figured I�d just do another out-and-back walk, significantly cutting down the distance I�d be completing as �official miles,� but there was simply no way I was paying $60 to travel 14 miles! After I started walking, I forgot all about the highway robbery and just concentrated on making it up and down the rolling hills. But then, about 3 miles into my walk, I saw a Yellow Cab at a gas station. I entered the attached convenience mart and asked around until I found the driver. "How much will you charge me to go up to the big water tower on Route 33?" I asked. I'd scouted the route out that morning and had picked that out as a waypoint on my walk. It was short of my original endpoint, but if the taxi gave me a lift I'd be doubling back on the 3 miles I already covered and I didn't think I could do 17 today. He scratched his chin and said, "Well, normally, you'd have to pay for the distance for me to come out here from Charlottesville. But seeing as I'm already here, I'll just charge you straight mileage. $2.40 a mile." So my $60 quote wound up being fifteen bucks with tip. I did 10 miles for the day, with only 7 of it counting as official mileage. But I got something I wouldn't have gotten if I paid sixty dollars. A happy ending. Pigs in a Blizzard Today was one of the great surprise adventures that crops up every now and then on my walk across the state. Dawn and I had planned to go up to Occoquan this weekend to complete the last leg linking Virginia Beach with Washington DC. But then the weather changed and the forecast called for more than a foot of snow to fall in that area starting tonight. Oh, well. On to Plan B. We went, instead, toward Charlottesville, planning to pick up on Route 29 where we had left off before on the day of the VT vs. UVA game. On the drive up, we stopped in at a gas station and found someone locked out of his car. Appropriately enough, he was wearing a UVA sweatshirt and I was wearing my VT sweatshirt. We tried to help out but didn�t have much luck either. I didn�t have any coat hangers in the car, so we took the fly swatter attached to the bathroom key and wrenched that apart. Then the UVA guy and I forced a gap in the window and Dawn tried to hook the lock mechanism with the wire. Eventually, someone else came along with a coat hanger and was able to unlock the door with it. The detour had cost us precious time on a day when we were hoping to beat the weather, but it was not to be the last time we�d be sidetracked today. Once we scouted out our route and were thinking about calling a taxi, we decided instead to get something to eat before we started walking. I checked with my GPS and found the nearest restaurant was 5.5 miles away, and in a direction that would lead us off the main road. But when I saw the name�Schuyler Family Restaurant�something clicked in my brain. �Hey,� I said, �I think that�s the place where they filmed The Waltons.� Sure enough, as we drew closer, we saw signs letting us know that we were headed toward the Walton Mountain Museum. We passed by Godsey�s General Store and other landmarks from the show and finally made it to the restaurant, which was housed in the same building as the museum. Unfortunately, they were both closed down for winter. Undaunted (well, maybe slightly daunted), we went back to a gas station we�d passed, where we planned to get something quick and full of preservatives, something that we could unwrap or unbox, munch down, and be on our way. But when we pulled into the gas station, there was a couple of guys in hunting gear and I said, �Maybe we should just ask them to suggest someplace else.� �Let me talk to them,� Dawn said. �I speak Good �Ol Boy.� They told us that we could �go down the road a piece� and find a restaurant called Pee Wee�s Pit BBQ, which, they both promised, had the best darn barbeque in the area. �In fact,� one of them said, �if you go there and don�t like it, you can call me up and cuss me out.� With a recommendation like that, we had to check it out. Down the road a piece, it so happened, turned out to be 12 miles in the tiny town of Scottsville. We drove down the quaint main thoroughfare (Valley Street) and I noticed Pee Wee�s just as I was passing it. I drove 100 yards up to the next intersection where I was planning to turn around, when Dawn said, �Hey, I wanted to see Scottsville.� �That was it,� I replied. We each ordered one of the BBQ specials and feasted on the delicious sandwich & 2 sides. Then we marveled at the pig d�cor. There were pig paintings, pig figurines, and other pig bric-a-brac. There was also a missing pig poster posted on the front counter. When I asked about it, the owner, Suzette Oyler, said, �Oh, yeah, Our mascot was pignapped back in the summer. I was hoping it was just some kids being wild and that I�d receive some pictures of Wilbur at all kinds of exotic locales, but no.�
In addition to all the pig memorabilia in the store, there were also some spy novels in one of the display cases. �Those were written by Dr. Margaret Emanuelson,� Suzette said. �She was a spy in the O.S.S. during World War II and now she lives right here in town.� That caught my attention. I asked for some more details, and then Suzette called up Dr. E. and introduced me. Next thing you know, Dawn and I are sitting in the living room of a mansion with a former secret agent. I conducted an impromptu interview with the fascinating woman, but I didn�t have my tape recorder so we planned to come back another time for a follow-up. Ever since Suzette told me about her hopes for her missing pig, an idea began to coalesce in my mind. Pee Wee�s now has a new mascot standing outside the store. This one was a 35-pound concrete statue called Pork Chop. In honor of the season, Suzette had adorned Pork Chop in a Santa outfit. �This might sound strange,� I said, �but would you mind if we took Pork Chop on a little tour of the town?� I told her about my walk across Virginia and Suzette was thrilled that I wanted to include her little pig in my adventure. Of course, little is the wrong word to use. The base was so wide I could barely fit it inside my rucksack, and it rode high and unbalanced on my back. It felt like I was carrying an engine block. I had the top flap open on my ruck and Pork Chop peeked out at everyone as we passed, causing quite a stir. As we walked past a mother with two young daughters, one of the little girls stopped in her tracks, eyes going wide as silver dollars. �Mama,� she said, tugging on her mother�s sleeve, �that man has a pig on his back!� We also caught the eye of the police, who cruised back and forth past us as we walked through town. We thought for sure one of the cruisers would stop and ask us what the heck we thought we were doing with that pig. But they just kept a close watch on us and, I�m guessing, checked with Suzette to see if she was aware her second mascot had gone walkabout. A short while after we crossed into Fluvanna County, we realized we were headed in the wrong direction to connect back up with The Path, so we turned around and headed back into town planning to go out the other side. But by the time we reached the center of town, the first wisps of snow started falling from the sky. It was time to return Pork Chop and hit the road. The ride home was a scary one. We crawled over tiny mountain roads covered in new snow and passed about 40-or-so vehicles in ditches. At one point, we were at a standstill for about 45 minutes while wreckers cleared an accident ahead of us. Dawn and I took turns getting out of the car every 5-10 minutes to knock the ice off the wipers and scrape it from the windshield. After she got back in the car on what wound up being the last time, she turned to me and said, �Hey, why don�t we go clean off the cars behind us, too?� So we did. It should have taken us a little more than 2 hours to cover the distance we�d travelled, but traffic on the roads was creeping along the whole way at 15-30 MPH. I white-knuckled it on the way home and after 5-1/2 hours we pulled up in front of Dawn�s house. There was about an inch of snow on the ground here, so we let her 3 rottweilers outside and had a snowball fight. Every time we tossed a snowball at one of the dogs, it didn�t know how to react. One of the dogs was stacking up spent snowballs like they were prizes. The other two were biting at the flying snowballs and kept getting confused when they disintegrated. The walk itself was a bust, We only logged 2 miles before the snow forced us to stop. But our little walk in the tiny town was anything but a failure. It was one of those unexpected adventures that I wish on all of you! Pike�s Peak vs. Poquoson An old high school friend, Greg, was coming to town for the holidays. Greg was an Academic Bowl Champion and didn't run much in high school, but he's since run a couple of marathons and is in very good shape. Today we planned to head out to the western part of the state to walk. Piece of cake for two studs like us (well, 2-� if you just go by gross tonnage). Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans.
"Murfle moog zum blargo," he said. Then he cleared his throat and in a sleep-bleary voice told me that he wasn't really interested in walking around town. "I want to do a walk that counts," he said. So, I did what all good friends do to each other. I heaped on the guilt until he caved. Clad in 3 layers of clothes, I met Greg at his folks' house and we started hoofing it down the road. The streets were fairly clear and, oddly enough, we didn't have any problems until we got onto the sidewalks, which were frequently coated with a thin layer of ice. Each time we'd get that hunkered down posture as we eased across the ice hoping that we wouldn't be the one to fall and bust our tailbone first. Then Greg told me a story about how weather affected a half-marathon he ran UP PIKE'S PEAK. "A front came in," he said, "and so many people got hypothermia that the medical staff up top was tapped out. So they stopped racers on the course and turned us around. There were no roads the way we were going, so all we could do was go back the way we came." "And how far up were you when they turned you around?" "10 miles." "Yeah, the weather out there can be real capricious." "Capricious? Good word." "Thanks. Toilet paper word-of-the-day." That's what I like about Greg. He's got an MBA from Wharton and can drop ten-dollar words into conversation while remaining down-to-earth. He could've kicked my butt on today's walk, but he hung back with me. And strewn on the living room floor at his folks' house are the remnants of a project he was working on as a present for one of his nephews. All around, a great guy. Greg's sister was on the phone when I arrived this morning and I promised that I'd "ridicule Greg until he was crying like a little girl," but the best I could do was make fun of his sleep-addled state when my call woke him up this morning...of course, his whining did sound like that of a little girl, so maybe that counts after all! Let the Sun Shine Yea for the first day of winter. From here on out, we gain a minute of sunlight every day. You remember that big orange ball that you used to see in the sky, don�t you? In celebration, I went out for a walk before work this morning. Unfortunately, the temperature was a hair above freezing. I piled on 3 layers and wore a hat and gloves, but it wasn�t enough to get comfortable. Wanting to be warm but not wanting to give up on my walk, I began to run. I ran a little bit, walked a little bit, and kept alternating until I�d completed a 5-mile circuit and could get back inside and change out of my cold, wet stuff. Yay me! If today is the harbinger of things to come, I think I�m going to like this winter. Night of Many Faux Pas Greg Wissinger and I have been friends since I moved to Poquoson back in 1979. He now lives out in Minneapolis but is back home for the holidays. Every year, his folks throw one of the best and biggest holiday parties, and this year I would be going and catching up with Greg and the rest of his family. If I'd have known how big an ass I would've made of myself, though, I might have declined and stayed home to watch old re-runs of It's a Wonderful Life. I should have known how the night was going to turn out as soon as I arrived. When I parked out front, a dog came out to greet me and I played with it in the front yard. No problem so far. But then Greg's sister, Laurel, came out onto the porch to call the dog. She called out "Bill!" when she saw me, and I ran up the steps to greet her. Just as I was stepping onto the porch, she leaned forward to give me a hug and I stepped on her toe. I pulled my foot back quickly and then stepped down on the dog. Two for one. And I hadn't even entered the house yet!
Laurel's husband, John Lennon (his real name...I kid you not), was behind the bar, and when I saw I was a friend of Greg's he pulled out a bottle from below. "Have some of this," he said. "We hid a bottle of the good stuff." He went on to tell me about the qualities of the 14-year-old wine, but they went straight in one ear and out the other. I swirled it around in my glass, because that's what I'd seen folks do in the movies, then I took a sniff. Having no idea what I'd just smelled, I took a swig and gave John an appreciative nod. "Very nice," I said. John is super-fit and we talked for a while about his training regimen. When he first started, he couldn't swim a length in a pool. A year later, he competed in his first Ironman Triathlon. This was someone I was going to listen to. He got me feeling motivated enough to go out and run a triathlon right then. But first I had to pay a visit to the buffet. The spread at the Wissinger's was incredible, and I took a tour through several rooms worth of food. I saw several old faces from the neighborhood. A gray-haired Mr. Ambrose came up to me and said, "Is that Bill? You used to babysit for me." "My, how you've grown," I said. Around that time, a bunch of PHS classmates started arriving, and I started wheeling through my mental Rolodex to place names with faces. I'd heard that Phaedra Moran was coming to the party, so when I saw a blonde who looked like it might be her, I said, "Phaedra?" "No," she said, "Jennifer."
A little later, I met Phaedra, and then I met someone else who resembled her. I remembered that Phaedra had a sister, so when she introduced herself to me as Carol, I asked if her last name was Moran. "No," she said, "it's Evans." Oops number two. Not learning my lesson, I recognized someone else's face but couldn't remember the name. But I recalled a few other names of people who were supposed to be at the party and took a stab at it. "It's Betsy, right?" "No, Anne." I don't know what compelled me, but for some reason I couldn't keep my mouth shut when a last name popped into my head. And, of course, that was wrong too. Three strikes and I was out. I guessed no more names for the rest of the night. But that was not the end of my gaffes. Greg introduced me to a woman who was decked out in dressy slacks and shoes. She seemed too young to have been one of our classmates. "You remember that girl we used to spin around in the front yard?" he said. "This is her: Christina." When Christina was a 4-year-old living next door to the Wissingers, she would come over into the house to play with us and we would give her airplane rides in the front yard. Nostalgia got the better of me, for, as she was trying to leave the party, I grabbed hold of her wrists and pulled her out onto the wet lawn. She protested, pulling back, eyes wide. "I'm not a little girl anymore!" she yelped. But her protests fell on deaf ears. Even Greg wasn't helping her out. He was too busy laughing and egging me on. She might have grown up, I thought, but she was still a tiny thing. I was certain I could achieve liftoff. I was wrong. Centrifugal force is a funny thing. You've really got to get a lot of speed going before a rotating object (or person) begins to press out enough to start moving upward as well. I got nowhere near the proper speed. I started spinning Christina as fast as I could, but I only managed to drag her through the wet grass. Remember those stylish slacks and shoes I mentioned before? Yikes. I helped her to her feet and then searched around the lawn for one of her shoes, which had flown off into the darkness. Christina was a great sport about it all. I deserved a swift kick in the arse (or elsewhere), but she just laughed it off. I took that as my cue to leave. Before I did something that might really embarrass myself...something else, I mean. The Christmas Spirit Today, Dawn and I tied up one of my walk�s loose ends. We drove 2 cars out to Surry with the plan of walking from there to Bacon�s Castle. But as we were about to pass Smithfield, I pulled my car over to side of road and waited for Dawn to pull over behind me. Leaning on her window, I said, �You know, Doris and Atwill live 2 minutes over that way. What say we stop by their house and sing some carols.� �I�m in,� Dawn replied without hesitation. That�s what I love about her. Unless it conflicts with plans she�s already made, she will never turn down an invitation to do something fun. Or even something not that fun. �What are we going to sing, though?� she asked. The first thing that popped to mind was O Christmas Tree, but neither of us could remember the words. We weren�t about to let a little thing like that stop us. We rang the Gwaltney�s doorbell and stood back. When they opened the door we started belting out the only 3 words we knew, keeping the melody of the song but repeating those 3 words over and over and over. O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,Afterwards, we started in on an actual carol whose words we knew: God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. Just as we began, Atwill started to close the front door and Doris stayed his hand. Later, he said, �I thought they were about to do another verse.� Zing. Even with our scary-bad performance, we were invited to join them inside to sit and chat. When we were getting ready to leave, Doris said the sweetest thing (of course, Doris is incredibly sweet, so no surprise there). She said to Dawn, �I don�t get to see my daughter this Christmas, but she�s about your height and has blonde hair. Would it be all right if I pretended you were her and gave you a hug?� �Only if I can pretend you�re my mom.� �Okay.� �Thanks, Mom.� Then they hugged.
So, once again, we were off. We stopped at a ratty little gas station in Bacon�s Castle and Dawn said she was hungry. Big surprise. I went inside the convenience mart and got us a couple of chicken sandwiches, but was so taken aback by the attendant�s appearance that I forgot to ask about leaving Dawn�s car parked in their lot. The attendant had black fingernails, multiple tattoos and piercings, and hair that was an eye-searing scarlet color that can only come out of a bottle. All I can say is Wow. We drove up to Surry and began our 7-mile hike, but around the halfway point a sheriff�s car slowed down and pulled up alongside us. I leaned in the window and he tilted his head to look over his shades. �Where�s your car?� he said. How kind, I thought. He wants to know if we need any help. Then I explained that we were walking to Bacon�s Castle and he told me in an even voice that he�d gotten a call from them about a car parked in their lot. That was when Dawn stepped in. She told the guy that she was a 20-year veteran of the Newport News Sheriff�s Department and then shot the bull with him for a few minutes. His tone had become much more pleasant and he said, �I�ll give them a call and make sure your car is okay.� The sheriff wasn�t the only one working that day. As we hiked along the highway, work songs drifted out to us from fields of collard greens. We looked and saw a man hunched over a leafy green row and we called out to him. �Merry Christmas.� He looked up, waved, and went back to his work. A short while farther, we ran across the same scene in another field. The amazing thing was that right next to the fields were iced over puddles and patches of snow. The true amount of snow was deceptive, though, because there were stray bits of fluff from nearby cotton fields littering the sides of the road and catching in the brambles of low lying plants.
"If we add one," Dawn piped in, "he'd have to change two of the numbers." "Okay then, go ahead and lay an egg and we'll drop it off." "I've got a brown egg that I can give them, too!" Then she roared with a gust of laughter. But that's not really the "giving" spirit I'm trying to highlight here, so I'll move it right along... Luckily for her (and the farmer), we soon came across Mount Nebo Baptist Church. If anyone would let her use their restroom, a church was a good bet. We didn�t see any cars in the parking lot, but we walked around the backside and found one parked near the loading dock. The door was unlocked and when we pushed inside we found Jenny Stevenson in the kitchen surrounded by rows of turkey dinners, pans of stuffing, homemade rolls, and freshly made sweet potato pies. I asked if she was preparing for a church dinner and she told me how she was cooking Christmas dinner for people who couldn't cook it for themselves. "I like helping people," she said.
I bit into it and told her how great it was. "How about some stuffing to go with that." She ladled out a spoonful from a pan and let me try it. It was delicious, simply delicious. About that time, Dawn came back into the room and Jenny heated us a plate of stuffing to share. "And you've got to have some pie to go with that," she added, cutting us each a slice from one of the pans. As we were eating our slices, she said, "Why don't you just take the rest of it, too." Then she wrapped it in cellophane and put it in a bag with some more rolls. I was touched beyond words. It was Christmas Eve and Jenny was the embodiment of the Christmas Spirit. As we headed on our way, I suggested to Dawn that we give one of the slices of our pie to the gas station attendant as an apology for leaving our car in the lot, our way of "paying it forward." But when we got to her car, we found a note slipped under one of the wipers. It said, "Merry Christmas. I didn't have your car towed. Do NOT park in our lot again!" Even the Grinch himself couldn't dim the good feeling blooming in our hearts, so in we went, pie in hand. Before I could say anything, the red-haired stoner spoke up: "Sheriff called and said you'd be here a half-hour ago,� Pippi Bongstalking said. �Another 10 minutes and I was having you towed." He didn't say "Bah, humbug," but it was implied. We gave our apologies and told him we'd brought him a slice of pie. "I can't," he said, "I'm diabetic." There would be no paying it forward here.
Santa was selling crates of fruit to benefit the fire department. I pulled out my wallet to pay for a $16 box of tangelos, but he didn't have change for a 20 and all I could come up with otherwise was $15. But then I remembered my change dish in the car and found it had just enough. It wasn't quite the Christmas miracle of It's a Wonderful Life, but it would have to do. With that, we loaded up in our cars and continued on home. And I thought I could hear Santa exclaim as we drove down the road, Merry Christmas to all...except that gas station toad! Swimming in Pea Soup Today I was going to hike 11 miles in the Northern Neck with my old high school pal (and I emphasize the word OLD) Greg Wissinger. We originally planned to meet at his house at 6:30 a.m., but the weather forecast predicted rain until 9 so I called him last night to push back the time. I suggested meeting him at his house at 9 and commented how he�d probably appreciate that since he likes to sleep in. That was about all I remembered from the conversation. Unfortunately, I forgot the part where he countered that I should come by around 7:30 so that we could drive up there and arrive at 9. He reminded me about this when he called my cell phone at 7:40 this morning. Yikes! It was surprisingly warm when I went outside. The day before had been icy cold so I stepped outside with enough layers to look like the Michelin Tire Man. I stripped down until I was just wearing shorts and a tee, and I was still comfortable. Well, I also brought along the new ultra-bright yellow reflective vest I�d just received as a Christmas present (thanks, Dawn). I�d be needing it today. Accompanying the unseasonably warm temperatures was a thick blanket of fog.
Now that�s the kind of confidence I like to hear just before a walk. �My sister won�t mind, though,� Greg continued. �She�s my beneficiary. She gets everything.� �Yeah. She told me. And, yes, YOU are going to die.� He went on to tell me about other hiking experiences he'd had, and when he told me about getting sunburned from climbing Mount Rainier and how it had been especially bad on his forehead, I commented, �Forehead? You�ve got more of a fivehead up there.� �I know. I keep trying to tell people, I�m not losing hair, I�m growing face.� I parked at a gas station in Wicomico Church and, having learned my lesson from two days ago, requested permission to leave my car behind. In the parking lot, Greg said something about how far out in the middle of nowhere we were and that his GPS just showed a big question mark on the screen. Or something like that. Who knows. I wasn�t really listening to him. I was too distracted by his pants, which looked like a pair of breakaway parachute pants. Any minute, I was expecting him to do an M. C. Hammer impression and start shimmying down the road singing, "Can�t touch this...Hammer time!" When I grabbed my rucksack and started to adjust the straps, Greg chided, "Ooh, big man. You've got that big pack and all I've got is my credit card and my phone." Turns out, he would end up using the phone a lot more than I would use the ruck. Throughout our walk, I heard the click-click-click of his thumbs racing on the phone's keypad as he sent text messages off into cyberspace. Greg prefers texting to chatting. "I don�t like to talk to people," he said. "Not saying I�m unsociable, but I get in trouble too many times when talking to women.� He went on to explain how he got in trouble too many times when talking to a woman and didn�t catch some nuance in her voice or didn�t reply properly. And, once more, two guys got together and discovered that the root of all problems is, of course, women. So, as I said, Greg made much use of his phone. However, we only paused one time where I could offload my pack, and even then we didn't grab anything from inside of it. We merely stopped to take some pictures of a giant Adirondack chair on the side of the road. I climbed into the chair and waved while Greg took a pic. Then he hopped up in the chair for his turn.
The walk went by fast. We jibber-jabbered about old times, high school antics, all the times we should have been caught for crazy stunts we'd pulled, and all the near misses and clean getaways. Twice, drivers stopped to see if we needed help, and that added to the warm feeling of the day. Before you knew it, the walk was over. We'd humped the 11 miles at a fairly fast pace, finishing in a little less than 3 hours...slightly better than a 16-min-per-mile pace. Not bad at all. Greg followed me along the twisting country roads on the long drive back home, and when I stopped at one of the lights I thought I felt some sort of bump. I eased the car forward a little more and I felt it again, more distinctly this time. Greg was nudging my bumper with his Stealth. I looked back in the rearview, and he was laughing his head off. Let�s see if he�s still laughing when he gets the subpoena for my lawsuit over injuries sustained in the collision. And pain and suffering, too, let�s not forget that! Now all I�ve got to do is find a lawyer. And a whiplash collar. Suddenly, my foggy day didn't seem so foggy anymore. In fact, it had become bright with possibilities. Jesse Owens Reincarnated The holidays don�t just bring around tables filled with chocolaty goodness (though they definitely DO do that); they also bring old friends back to town. I got a chance this week to reconnect with a bunch of high school classmates and found out that two of them have become fairly regular runners. Listening to them talk about their morning runs stirred something in me. Once upon a time I, too, was a runner. So, what the heck�if they can get out there and torture their bodies, I could too. Just like a Phoenix rising from Arizona, I loosened up my legs and took them out on a run. Although "running" might be a bit boastful for what I actually did. Even "jogging" is a bit of a stretch. I�ve got to get a lot faster before what I�m doing can be considered running. Regardless of what you call it, I went out and did it. And at this point, that�s all that really matters. Last week I ran three times, each time going just a little bit farther before I had to quit. First time out, I did what�s called a fartlek, alternately jogging for a few minutes then walking for a few minutes. I did 5 miles, walking somewhere around 3 miles of it. My second time out, I did another 5-mile fartlek and this time I split it up evenly between walking and running. Yay me. I was so pleased with my progress that when I heard Dawn ("the other Dawn," you know, the one from high school) was going to run on Christmas morning I offered to go along. We started out at a nice easy jog and she said, �We can go at whatever pace you want.� Reading between the lines, I also heard, "...so you can start actually running anytime now." But I couldn�t go any faster. I plodded along and she chatted away. Somewhere around 2.5 miles into the run I told her I had to stop and walk for a couple of minutes. Or that�s what I meant to say. I think it came out more like "Aaaaaaaaaa." But she got the point. With those 3 runs behind me, I decided this morning to see if I could jog 5 miles without keeling over. My pace was ridiculously slow (12-minutes per mile) but I completed the whole 5 miles without walking. As I turned onto my street the Chariots of Fire theme song began to play in my head. I turned on the afterburners and soon I was sprinting like Jesse Owens himself. I mean, I must have run the last couple of hundred yards at an 11.5-minute-per-mile pace. Too bad the summer Olympics are 2 years away because I�m ready to go! A Long Day in Winter My friend Terry had been visiting her family this week and was flying in to RIA at 5 p.m. today. I agreed to pick her up, figuring I could get up to Richmond early, have lunch, and tool around Carytown beforehand. Of course, this meant I'd have to wake up extra early to get in my 8 hours at the office before heading up to Richmond. But I figured, I can handle it; I'm a big boy (maybe a little too big). Getting up just after midnight, I did a little work at home and made it in to the office by 3 a.m. By the time I finished up and was ready to drive up to Richmond around noontime, it had already been a long day. It was about to get a lot longer. I met "the other Dawn" at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant next to VCU called Elephant Thai, and just as I was getting ready to dig in to my "Drunken Noodle Jae" (a vegetarian dish...I'm so good!), I got a call from Terry. "The flight has been delayed," she warned. There was a storm front coming in, high winds, blah, blah, blah...the upshot was that it would be another couple of hours before she landed. Still, I thought, No problem. There's plenty to do in Carytown. Except there wasn't. Walking down Cary Street, it seemed that all the wonderful galleries and quaint boutiques I loved were boarded up. I peered in vacant window after vacant window, feeling a little hollowed out myself. Dawn wanted to go to a favorite store of hers and that too had been shuttered. Worse yet, the wind was stabbing through our jackets, adding to the somber mood. I figured I'd while away the time at a favorite place of mine in Shockoe Bottom: Cafe Gutenberg. Alas, no luck there either. And when I looked in the windows of every other restaurant and cafe on that block, I couldn't find any that were open. I asked a passing mailman, and he told me that Cafe Gutenberg had merely changed their schedule and was now closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. It did me no good at the time, but it was still a relief. That place is too good to close down. It was starting to feel like I was the one causing these places to be closed. I was too scared to try any other of my favorite joints. I mean, who knows what kind of bad luck I was toting around with me. So, I decided to head for the airport. As I drove past Chimborazo Medical Museum, I remembered a walking path that wound behind the building. Last time I was here, I didn't get the chance to walk it. Well, I had time now. And that is when my luck turned for the better. I may have missed out on visiting old haunts I knew and loved, but I got to discover something new.
With each step I took, the glorious statue rose higher until I was standing before a replica of the Statue of Liberty. A plaque at its base stated that it was donated and erected in 1950 by the Boy Scouts. Well, thank you Boy Scouts for making my day. I drove out to RIA and stopped across the street at a lovely little place called Ma & Pa's Diner (5600 Williamsburg Rd Sandston, VA 23150). And yet again, I'd discovered a precious little gem. The place felt like a visit to a favorite aunt's house. Half of the people there were regulars, joking around with the waitresses who greeted them by name as they walked in the door. The menu was filled with home-cooking comfort food. I saw a notation that their crab cakes were "Lily's Best in VA," so how could I resist? I added hush puppies, mashed potatoes, and corn bread too. I might have destroyed my earlier claim of being "so good," but it was delicious and well worth it. Not only that, the prices were insanely inexpensive. The owner hasn't raised the prices in the past 6 years. Nice to see a wonderful place like this thriving, especially after all the other spots I'd seen closed today.
Terry called a couple more times as her plane was bumped again and again. She eventually landed at 9:13, and after picking up her bags and dropping her off in Newport News I made it back home just before midnight. I hadn't been going for 24 hours, but it was a long, long day nonetheless. ...No, I need to revise that. Because today ended much better than it started, and it was filled with unexpected delights. So, yes, it was a long day. But it was a long, rich day. And what more could anyone ask for? Aww... I almost decided not to exercise yesterday. I was beat. I needed sleep. That's what I told myself. But I'd already skipped out on exercise the day before (my "24-hour day") and I didn't want to miss two in a row. Bad trend heading into a new year. So, grumpily and bleary eyed, I laced up the sneakers and went outside for a short run before work. I even remembered to put on clothes. Since I ran yesterday, I decided to walk this morning. But when I stepped outside at 5 a.m. my neighbor came out of his house at the same time. Rich is a runner and he was just about to take off on his morning ritual. "Want some company?" he said. Next thing I knew, my walking plan was scrapped and replaced with an impromptu run. When I ran 5 miles a week ago, my pace was an awe-inspiring 12-minutes per mile...awe-inspiring because when I tell other runners about it they say, "Aww, don't worry. It'll get better." And they were right, because today we did 4 miles at a 10:30 pace. I'd pushed myself as far as I could go but Rich hadn't even broken a sweat. Even so, he asked if I'd like to make this a regular thing, which we're going to do starting next Wednesday. Our pace won't be anywhere near what he's used to running�not for a while anyway�so it's nice of him to slate one of his running days to slog around with me. But Rich is the type of awe-inspiring guy you expect that from. (Aw, thanks Rich). |
