With No Effort Whatsoever

Glad to report that I’m finally back to the daily walk that proved so beneficial last fall during the annual athletic event diguised as a Renaissance faire.

Must admit, I have a ton–well, maybe up to 70 pounds, whatever I can get off–of catching up to do after months of, um, inattention, but I’m already packed to leave pretty soon for the gym.

Yes, today is in the 80s, too hot to endure the unshaded road into the Reserve. Another advantage is that those treadmills have dashboards with readings for calories, distance, time, and pace that seem to motivate me more than looking at the license plates of passing cars and adding up the numerals as if they were cribbage hands. There’s also those sidebars that reduce the weight on my otherwise hopelessly abused feet.

On Monday, it was overcast with a most comfortable breeze off the marsh, and so I took my water-bottle to that bench where I like to sit for as long as I walk either way. It’s a 2.25 mile roundtrip, the same as I’m now walking in the gym where it takes about 50 minutes–and where I work up much more of a sweat because I’m not sitting down for 45 minutes in the middle of it.

I’m no speedster in the gym, clocking averages between 2.3 and 2.6, but I’m at my slowest on the road. So slow, that an elderly couple across the road went past me about a Canadian football field (with both its 30-yard endzones) away from the bench ahead of us and scored a touchdown before I reached mid-field–or the 55 yard line as our northern neighbors call it.

Though my fingers were crossed that they’d pass the bench, I watched them cross over and take seats when I was still more than a Canadian endzone away. Oh, how I missed a treadmill’s sidebars!

But I arrived and saw that they were at one end, something that I always do so that other strollers or bicyclists will feel welcome to sit down without asking. Of course, I did ask, as all who have ever joined me on that bench have always done.

In their greetings, I thought I detected a German accent. “Guten tag!” I hailed, and then to their invitation to the bench: “Danke schoene!”

For a moment they gave me blank looks until the woman responded, “That’s German. We’re from Sweden.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, “Welcome to America!” But then I did it again, adding, “Willkommen!”

Two more blank looks, but they were grinning as he said, “That’s still German.”

We had a nice chat about the similarities of climate, which led me to believe they must be from the south of the Scandanavian Peninsula, and of climate change–a reminder that while languages may not cross borders with much ease, weather patterns cross them with no effort whatsoever.

After they continued their walk, I recalled my two-weeks in Hamburg, Germany, 45 years ago when I learned that everyone in Western Europe is at least bi-lingual, often tri-lingual, and that English is almost always the second language. In Hamburg, I met teenagers who spoke English with far more of a vocabulary than many teenagers back here. With that in mind, I laughed out loud at my absurd and all-too-American idea that anything I thought close would do.

The couple didn’t go much further before turning around. As they approached, I was determined to offer a farewell in unmistakable English. “Enjoy your vacation” came to mind, immediately followed by remembering that Europeans don’t use the word vacation. They call it holiday.

Well, now, which is it that my new friends would prefer to hear from their would-be Yankee host?

“Enjoy the rest of your stay here in America,” I called out.

They smiled and sounded quite pleased. “Enjoy your charming island,” she said to his nodding agreement.

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