I went out to the lake today for obvious reasons (it’s hot here), but mainly because the boat was being delivered. I never know what time, so I was carrying my phone around with me, doing little odd jobs here and there, waiting for the call. I went down to the lake and was digging around the footings of the steps to the lake (the steps started out unstable, and now they’re a cobbled together, still unstable, health hazard). Jean was out planting flowers in areas that the sprinkling system doesn’t reach so I’ll have something to do each day… the manly job of watering flower beds. Anyway, as I’m wading around in the water, she walked by a tree and said, “What’s this yellow paper for?”, like I could read it from 20 feet away. It said that the lake had been treated for weeds and there was to be no swimming, watering lawns, contact of any kind, etc. until dates specified on the notice. Too late!

Even after reading the note, Jean got in the water with me, and used the shovel handle to lift the side of the steps (lever…science class) while I reached underneath, pulled out the patio stones on one side, and inserted a thinner patio stone under the leg by the seawall to level the whole thing up again – sort of. She kept stepping on stones and rubble that had been piled near the legs to stabilize them, saying ouch and repositioning her foot. Finally after about the third time she said, “That’s better”, to which I replied, “Of course it’s better ‘cuz you’re standing on top of my foot”. We were in the middle of moving the stones and repositioning so she couldn’t let go of the shovel handle and couldn’t move off from my foot. We were both laughing so hard I thought she would drop the steps just as I reached underneath. Did I ever mention that Jean and I don’t work well together?

Kyle Matteson called and the boat would be delivered at 5 PM. Jean stayed around long enough to take me over to the landing so I didn’t have to drive over, bring the boat back, then walk two miles back to the landing to get my car. The marina had done some carburetor work last fall so it would idle better, and it did. I took the boat back to the cottage and docked it. I did have a couple of problems. One was that I had a mooring line for the stern, but I had taken the one off the bow and couldn’t remember where I put it. So when I docked, I was able to hold the back of the boat to the dock, but the front end swung out about fifteen feet. I had untied all the dock bumpers, so I retied them in three spots, setting the height for the height of the dock. I went inside and found the bow line in the basement walkout, so I took it out, pulled the bow back in, secured the bow, and the boat was docked.

I noticed when I jumped from the boat to the dock with the stern line in my hand that the dock seemed a little mushy and unstable. I looked and the outermost corner nearest the boat had sunk four inches under my massive weight. How do I know it was four inches, you ask? Because we set the dock so it rested on the cross-pieces four inches above the water. Now that corner of the dock is in the water.

Just (Will It Ever End) Jack

Part of the reason I’m selling the cottage is that, since our kids live out of state, except for Sara, and she may not be in Michigan long, I don’t have family (translate: young strong boys) to help me do things like put in and take out the dock. So I’m forced to bribe friends with the promise of a sandwich and a beer at Bell’s Eccentric Cafe, and ask them to help. Bill Bradley and Paul Moore have, on numerous occasions, gotten surprised and couldn’t come up with a reason why they couldn’t, so they have helped, and they did this time too.

We set the date for Friday after 1 PM. Thursday was a great day, and I was out at the cottage anyway, so I decided to set the first posts and crosspiece. Once that one is set, each section is added and, since the sections are bolted in, they line up perfectly, almost. To back up just a bit, I noticed this spring when the ice went out, that the high water and the ice flows must have done something to the steps from the yard to the dock. The steps were pushed away from the seawall and were six inches, at least, above the sidewalk height. Keep that in mind. So when I set the first two posts, I measured exactly six feet from the back of the bottom step.

Fast forward to Friday. Bill and Paul came to the condo and we all rode out to the lake together. I had a pair of waders I had worn in the past and offered them to Bill or Paul. Paul decided to use them, but put on his wetsuit too. Bill put on his wetsuit and walked around the condo for ten minutes gasping for air. Apparently the wetsuit had shrunk over the winter and he couldn’t breathe. I wore my old wetsuit and, having gained twenty five pounds over the course of this knee thing, I knew I couldn’t zip mine, so I wore a t-shirt and shorts underneath, and still had trouble breathing. As an aside, we plan to start our morning swims Monday out at Diane’s. I’m petrified to go out there ‘cuz I know I’m going to have trouble zipping up my wetsuit and, if I can’t, I won’t be able to swim. I feel just like I did in early junior high (no…not middle school…junior high!) when I hadn’t matured as fast as some of my classmates. They had pubic hair and I didn’t, and I didn’t want to undress for gym class with them looking. I don’t want to try and fail to zip my wetsuit with Bill, Diane, Jen, Eric, (who else) watching. But I digress!

So we got all the tools ready and went down to the lake. I looked at us, and laughed to myself. We looked like Larry, Daryl and his other brother Daryl from the Newhart show some years back. We were definitely the “anything for a buck” crew. I had decided that we would let Mother Nature help us out, so we brought down the inner tube that we use to float around on and used a couple of planks to protect the top of the tube so the dock wouldn’t puncture the rubber. As Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs, Ford Commercials, narrator of Deadliest Catch, etc.) would say, what could possibly go wrong?

We loaded the first section of dock onto the tube and boards and floated it into position. It rode quite high, but it was better than lifting and holding. Since I planned to add a short section from the steps to the dock, we wanted to reposition the first section on the crosspiece and drill new holes. I used a cordless drill that I had charged before winter, then put on the charger in the morning when I came out to check the weather. The drill made it through the South side of the dock, but had no juice to make it through the North side. Consequently, we couldn’t bolt the first section in place and, we found out later, it moved.

We got the first section set and went to pull out the tube and boards. About halfway out, we caught the spot where you fill the tube with air on the underside of the dock. Of course the plug came out and air started escaping. Bill kept saying “it’s losing air, it’s losing air”, like he expected Paul or I to do a handspring over the dock ‘cuz the leak was on his side. He got it plugged and we didn’t lose too much air. In fact, it made the next section ride more level and it was easier to set. On the next section, we pulled the tube and planks out, only to catch the plug again (slow learners) and, again, we managed to cap it off before all the air was gone. Again, it was a good thing because it made the last section ride more level than the second. As we finished screwing in the posts for the second section, I looked up, and the tube and planks had floated away and were going past the neighbor’s dock.

I couldn’t swim because my wetsuit wasn’t zipped up and Paul couldn’t go after it because he had the waders on, so Bill was elected. By then the tube had gone into deep water and Bill was going to have to swim for it. I haven’t mentioned the water temperature until now. It was 68 degrees near the shore the day before. Friday was colder and cloudy, so I’m guessing the temp dropped a couple of degrees in the night. Bill stood there trying to muster up the courage to dive into the chilly water. I was no help ‘cuz I yelled to Bill, “You know the longer you wait, the farther out it’s going to be”. Bill, the trouper he is, swam to the tube and dragged it back. Crisis averted.

We were down to the last section and it was going quite smoothly. Here’s where things got a little dicey. With my knee problems, I really couldn’t lift much, so Bill had to hold up the deep end of the dock section until we could get the screw anchors all the way down. For those of you who don’t know Bill, he’s slightly vertically challenged, so there he was, up to his chin in lake water holding up the dock. Paul, as you will remember, was wearing the waders. Did I mention the water was up four inches from last year’s spring lake level? I stood there and it was like watching a slow motion train wreck. The water went over the top of the waders and filled them almost instantly. He squealed like a little girl for a couple of minutes (actually he didn’t, but it makes for a good story). We kept on going and got the last section pegged in and solid, and then I went around and tightened all the nuts and bolts.

We started to get out and Bill and I were looking at Paul trying to get up the steps. I mentioned before that the steps had shifted and, if you stood on the bottom step for more than a millisecond, they would come over on top of you. Paul looked like he had elephantitis in both legs, and the water weighed a ton, so he had a little difficulty getting to the lawn. He stood on the lawn and water was spewing out from every opening. Bill and I almost fell over laughing so hard at Paul (not At Paul, With Paul). We continued to clean up and, as we looked back at the dock, it appeared to be slightly crooked. I won’t explain the science of it all, but if the dock moved one inch at the first section, it would throw the dock off a couple of feet at the other end. It really didn’t look that bad, so we decided to have a Tripel Karmeliet (Belgian Beer that Bill and I had made) and call it good. If you talk to Bill and Paul, that’s the end of the story. Au contraire!

I went back out today and decided to straighten up the steps. I had always thought they were made of treated lumber, but they had only been treated with rain and snow water, ‘cuz the wood is soft and a little punky. So back to the straightening. I thought I could grab one side, pull it toward me, and it would end up on it’s side. It did, but as it went, it collapsed on itself. The top step came off entirely breaking off the triangle part of the stringers (look it up) on both sides. The next two steps did the same on the North side, but the South side just pulled the nails and screws sideways. I dug out the sand and rocks near the seawall and set a flat spot for the steps to sit. After a half hour or so I was ready and I spent the next hour and a half rebuilding steps that were hardly worth the trouble. The problem was, I had no way to get out of the lake, so I had to.

Now I have them rebuilt, only to find that the blocks I had set to put the steps on had shifted, and the North side is two inches higher than the South side. I’ll have to wait until some hapless soul wanders by so I can get him to lift the South side while I slide a two inch patio stone in to level it up. As the steps are right now, I walked up them, but they are definitely unsafe. After I get them leveled, I need to screw in an angle bracket, attaching each step to the stringer, to keep the steps from tipping over sideways.

So I got up, took care of all the tools, and marveled at my handiwork. It was then that I noticed that the dock wasn’t just a little crooked…it was a lot crooked. The boat comes Monday so maybe that will disguise the engineering disaster. The problem is (as I mentioned before) that I need to build a short section to hook the steps to the dock. Remember, it’s six feet away. Well, it’s six feet away somewhere along the line, but it’s five and a half feet away at the North end and six feet, three inches away at the South end. How do I build that section?

Just (I Hope You Don’t Read About An Accident On Steps At Crooked Lake) Jack

I’ve gotten a little feedback from the last e-mail I sent out. Some of you thought I sounded very depressed and offered me reassurance that life would go on. Some of you thought I was whining too much, and tried to bring me back to reality. But some of you took it for what I meant it to be…a poke of fun at us Trilanders (and I’m as guilty as anyone) on how we react to temporary injuries or, more to the point, permanent changes that we will have to adapt to. At any rate, I found out that more than one or two of you read this drivel, so I’ll continue writing.

I went back to the doctor this morning and it was just like a repeat of a week ago. “That’s one big knee…a lot bigger than the other one. Let’s take some fluid off. You’ll feel much better”. I told him the procedure ranked third in the list of the health care procedures I hate, behind (no pun intended) 1) The “night before” prep for a colonoscopy, 2) A prostate exam when I had prostititis. Drawing out the fluid really didn’t hurt all that much, but it wasn’t a skip in the park either. I think I was playing it up so I would sound like more of a he-man for gritting my teeth and taking it. Actually I was not so much concerned about the procedure, but the nagging pain afterward. It doesn’t hurt in that stabbing pain sense, but in that toothache in the background sense.

As I was watching Dr. Merriman do the procedure, I thought back to all those times he would come into my office to pick up his taxes and I would say “Here’s what you owe”. I wondered if, in the back of his mind, he was thinking “Now you know how I felt. Here’s what you owe…bam!”

Of course, that wasn’t the only thing I did today. At the cottage, for the past couple of days, I’ve seen a drip of water on my workbench. I called a plumber and I had to meet him right after the doctor’s appointment. I thought, originally, that the drip was coming from the small water feed to the icemaker. When I looked at it closer, it was from the sink/dishwasher area. With the knee problem, I couldn’t tell him exactly where it was coming from. Now, $197.00 later, there is no drip. Will someone please buy this cottage and save me some money?

If that wasn’t enough, I had physical therapy at 3 PM. I know what they need to do, and I know it’s going to hurt. I need to strengthen the muscles on that right knee/quad area and I need to improve my range of motion. Both require exercises and stretches that push the limit of what I think I can do. The therapists are very nice, and I can see that they empathize, but they know it will pay off in the end. With the knee pain, and the pain from physical therapy, there are times I wonder if I would have been better off doing nothing, and limping for the rest of my life. Uhhhhh, NO!!!

So here I am writing another e-mail for therapy. Partially for my own mental health, but it gives me a chance to sit here resting, drinking a Bell’s Porter. I wonder if Dr. Merriman would approve of beer and vicadin? I’m not going to ask him and don’t any of you ask for me!

Just (Ready To Get Back To Whatever Normal Is) Jack

You all probably know about the knee trouble I’ve been having, and many of you know I had it scoped last Wednesday. I’ve filled some of you in on my progress since the surgery, but many of you are in the dark. If you want to stay that way, don’t read on.

The surgery went well (I slept through it), but not as I had initially expected. I knew I had a torn meniscus and the doctor would use the scope to take out the “ragged edges”. He tells me that we talked after the surgery, but I don’t remember a bit of it. Jean was there and passed on what the doctor said, but the details weren’t all that important to her, and she didn’t understand the technical terms. So all I knew was that the knee was worse than he expected. They told me that, during the surgery, while wrenching the knee into and out of position, my MCL (medial collateral ligament) tore. It happens in about 20% of the cases (why can’t I be in the 80%group?).

After I went home, the doctor prescribed a “knee machine” that straightens and flexes the knee to 60 degrees, over and over and over and over and…you get the picture. I have to be on that machine six to eight hours a day. This past week I didn’t feel like dancing around so it hasn’t been that difficult. But now that I’m feeling better, I’m BORED! As time went on, my right quadricep kept getting more and more sore. It was very painful until mid-day Tuesday, and it seemed to turn the corner, so it feels a little better. I’ve attached a picture, and the picture may not do it justice. It’s swollen and black and blue, turning shades of yellow and green. Disgusting!

Bill Bradley just stopped by…now where was I?

So I went to the doctor’s office today and got the answers to lots of questions. Without going into too much detail, the answers were:…I’ve never seen so much bruising in the quadricep from a knee scope…that knee looks like it has more fluid than I like to see; let’s suck some of that out of there…it doesn’t hurt any more than a cortisone shot to the knee would without the anesthetic…I think you need to wear a compression thigh-high stocking; it’s not going to be a fashion statement…No one should run; it’s hard on the joints…You have a complete cartilage loss beneath the patella and femoral tendon (lay terms, not medical terms) …I’d like to see you in rehab (I hope for the knee and not drying out from too much homebrew) a couple days a week…I’d like you to keep using the knee machine for a couple more weeks; more than six hours a day if you can stand it.

I just got a lengthy phone call…what did I miss?

So that brings me to the subject of the e-mail. One (or more) of our Trilanders always ends her e-mails with “Anything is possible”. When you’re young, that’s true. But as you get older, doors of opportunity start closing. Some close in a legal way. I can’t enlist in the military at my age and no, I don’t want to. I can’t play in the play room at McDonalds and I don’t want to do that either. Some close by simple logic. I could enroll in medical school, but my chances, at age 63, of getting accepted are nearly zero. And, if by some computer error, I was accepted, my chances of getting through on social security income would also be next to zero.

So as time passes, the doors close, and we’re usually satisfied to let that happen. It’s “the way things are”, so get used to it. Sometimes, others tell us that a door is closing and we fight it happening. I’m, in a way, at that point on my running and biking. The doctor has told me that I can run, but it’s a 63 year old knee. And if it hurts, I should stop running or stop biking. That leaves me three options.

Acceptance – this choice has two branches. One is to accept that you can’t do something, and stop doing it. The constructive way is to decide what you can do, and replace the activity you can’t do any more. Don’t send me any suggestions. I don’t want to learn to knit. I don’t want to join your bowling league. If I choose this path, I’ll find something for myself. I just hope it’s not skydiving. The second branch is to, on the outside, say you’re going to keep doing whatever you want, but on the inside, you know you’re done. You may kick and scream for a while, but the inevitable will happen and you’ll revert to the first branch.

Denial – this choice is the favorite of the Trilanders. We’re all reasonably intelligent, but when the doctor says one thing, we hear something totally different. We justify it by saying, “Just because they call them doctors, they don’t know everything!”. Or, “The doctor told me I can’t (fill in the blank), but he’s talking about average people, and I’m not average”. Or, “He just doesn’t know me well enough. I can do it, I know I can.” So we fool ourselves into thinking that we are invincible, but we eventually end up at the doctor’s office again. We can go through denial again (some of us have been on that loop several times), or we can go directly to acceptance like we should have in the first place.

Defiance – this choice comes from our macho image that we think we have to uphold, or a testosterone overload that we can’t keep under control. Our reaction is, “You say I can’t (fill in the blank), just watch me!” Or, “You may be done (fill in the blank), but I’m not”. We usually don’t realize that, by choosing this option, we have to be willing to pay the consequences, and there will be consequences. We can repeat this option over and over, but it inevitably ends back up at acceptance (or total knee, total hip, etc).

I wonder which option I’ll choose. Logic tells me that I’ll end up at acceptance anyway, so why fight it? But, believe it or not, my life choices haven’t always been logical. Hmmm!?

Just (After The Doctor’s Office I Think I Need More Vicodin Please) Jack

Again, for those of you who are still in the dark ages (prior to 2009), and still have dial up internet, I apologize for the time it takes to download an e-mail with a picture. I’ve been quite silent lately on the e-mails, due more to my bad mood than not having anything to write about. The bad mood may be related to a family funeral recently, or it may be related to living out of a suitcase longer than I like, or having a sore butt from driving around the country, or from this knee I’m going to have scoped on Wednesday, or due to the three checks I had to write this morning after completing our taxes for 2009, or from the credit card bills that came after our trips across America, or _________ (fill in the blank). But sometimes you have to get something out that’s “sticking in your craw” to be able to sleep at night. And sometimes it’s just something that tickles your funny-bone that you have to share. This is one of those things that made me laugh. If you don’t think it’s funny, I don’t care. It’s my story.

After the Easter weekend, with no kids able to come to dinner other than our oldest daughter, Becky, Jean and I were sitting on the deck chit-chatting, having a homebrew and some wine. Jean decided to make her favorite meal, and one of my least favorites, pork steak. It’s kind of like the old “Jack Sprat could eat no fat” nursery rhyme, except when you saw the graphics in the childrens’ book, Jack was skinny and his wife was fat. I can’t stand a “fatty” piece of meat, and Jean loves the fat on meat saying it gives it great flavor. The difference is, that in the real picture, not the nursery rhyme book, Jean is the skinny one and I’m the guy who has to buy his clothes in the “big and husky” department of Macy’s.

Jean put the pork steaks on the grill and we sat for a while solving everyone else’s problems. She opened the grill cover, and there was a flame from the fat (she said she had bought them lean with no fat on them) on one of the steaks, but not the other. When she turned them, she realized that on the one that had no flame, she missed taking off the maxi-pad they put in meat packages to soak up the blood that leeches out in the package. If you could see the picture, the pad appeared to be done, so she peeled it off and set it aside. It takes me back to the family holiday dinner when she left a spoon in the bottom of the jello dish, covered by cut up bananas, and put it in the refrigerator to set overnight. I fould it the next day when my spoon “clinked” as I was scooping out some jello. With these kinds of cooking faux pas, you’re probably asking yourselves, “Jack, how did you get so fat?” If you have any friends or family members that have trouble putting on weight after an illness, send them over for a few days and they can learn from a master.

On a different subject, Diane Ebaugh had the run at her place yesterday. I walked, probably my last walk before the knee gets scoped on Wednesday. I was walking a three mile loop when I happened upon a school of five or six suckers (a kind of fish for you city slickers) that had been run over by a car. They have eyes on both sides of their heads, so you would think they could see the cars coming. That part of the road is thirty feet above Algonquin Lake’s water level. I know the water got high this spring, but not that high!

After the run we sat around talking about everyone who wasn’t there. It was a small group since everyone who is anyone was on spring break or home with their families. I’m a little hard of hearing, but I thought I heard the other table talking about Margie Moore working in the emergency room of the hospital. I kept hearing about Maggie, and wondered who that was. It became apparent, the more I heard, that Maggie was the alter-ego of Margie. Margie was the calm, kindly clerk who never let anything bother her, and Maggie was the one who seethed inside when someone called, when the ER was inundated, asking where they could dispose of their thermometer that contained mercury. It got worse when Maggie told them they could call the health department, and the caller asked, “Do you have their number?”

Do any of you have one of those little bells that I could have by the couch, so while I’m recovering this next week and need something, I can ring it and Jean will come running?

Just (Trying To Stop My Checkbook From Bleeding) Jack

The few of you who read my last e-mail about the problems I had with my registration at the Phoenix Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon will get a kick out of this. The rest of you won’t know what I’m talking about, or you won’t read this, so it won’t mean a thing to you either way. I’m talking about the confusion with the two John Walkers being registered, me getting a race shirt that was two sizes too small, and me in the last corral since the “phantom” John Walker said he expected to finish in 4:40 or so. The debacle continues.

Today, in the mail, I received two envelopes from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona Marathon and Half Marathon. I opened the first envelope, and it congratulated me for finishing the race in 3:43:37. You’ll remember from the last e-mail, I thought I finished in 3:37ish. OK…I guess I was wrong. I opened the second envelope, and it congratulated me for finishing the race in 3:37:40. Is it my imagination, or is this getting spooky? Do you think that, in some parallel dimension, there is a “shadow me”? The only good thing I can get out of this whole mess is that I limped through the race five minutes and fifty seven seconds faster than he did, plus I got my registration fee back.

Most of you know I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago about this continual knee problem. After an examination, an x-ray, and an MRI, it was diagnosed to be a torn meniscus with some mild arthritis. I went to an orthopedic surgeon this past Wednesday, talked about several treatments, and decided to start with a cortisone injection and see how it reacts. He did the injection right then and there, and the knee feels great, but we’ll see how it is in another month or so. Jean and I will be in New Orleans for Rocky and Nina’s wedding, and I’m sure there will be much walking and standing around (rehearsal dinner, wedding, reception, etc.), so that should be a good test. The next step would be an arthroscopy. The doctor was encouraging, telling me that not very many people die from a “scope”.

Just (I Wonder If Phantom John Walker Goes By Jack Too) Jack

For all of you who didn’t know, ten of our Multisport Club, The Trilanders, did the Phoenix Rock and Roll Marathon…one, and Half-Marathon…nine. Since I was the last to finish, I’ll give you a quick, down and dirty version of the results.

Diane finished first, hopped in a shuttle to a local hotel, and flew out by 3PM. They tell me she was in the 2:08 range for the half. Jean ran the entire run, still hasn’t checked her time, but thinks she is in the 2:20 range. Patti and Nancy started out together, did finish but not together, and no one has told me what their times were, so there. Stacy started with Jean, started feeling not so well, and finished, but was quite sickish for quite some time. I don’t know her time either. Tom started several corrals in front of me, told me his entire training schedule included 15-18 miles of running (total) between Memorial day weekend and the race. He says his time was in the 3:15 range, even with all that training.

Judy and Kevin were supposed to start in corrals 22 and 23, I think, but moved ahead and started way before I did. They walked most of the race and finished in the 3:30 plus range which included two long bathroom breaks. Not the “reading the newspaper” long, but had to wait a while for a porta john to open up. That leaves two of us. Bill did the Marathon and had his usual pre-race barf to start things out right. He had trained well, but was having some achilles issues during training. A short version of his race goes like this…he was on pace until mile 18 or so. The sick-to-the-stomach feeling reared its ugly head again for a couple of miles. He then hit the proverbial “wall”, and his pace slowed. Sometime during the last six miles his quads, yes both of them, cramped, and he limped into the finish in 4:40 or so. His first and, he says, last Marathon. Congratulations Bill!!

That leaves me, and I know all the gory details. Most of you know I’ve been having right knee issues since May. I tried some limited running and in September ramped it up. The knee rebelled and I couldn’t run at all since then. The most I had done was a couple of five mile walks in Florida, and a couple of 4.38 mile walks in Phoenix. So who in their right mind would actually do the 13.1 mile half marathon? No one, which proves that I’m legally insane.

The debacle began before the race ever started. I got an e-mail from the race director who said that I had two entries to the race. One would be canceled and my entry of $85.00 would be refunded on my credit card. I sent back an e-mail saying there must be some mistake and that I had only been charged once in September. She sent back a response that said someone else must have signed me up and that my money would be refunded. I responded by asking if there was more than one John Walker. She sent back an e-mail saying that they matched name, birth date and e-mail address, so unless there were two people with all of those things the same, I would be refunded my entry. I sent back an e-mail saying no one had taken responsibility for signing me up, so I shouldn’t get a refund. She responded by saying “have a nice race”. Case closed.

I should have known that things may not go well. When we all went down on Friday to pick up our packets, I got mine right away. I had told them when I signed up that I should finish in about 2:10. With the knee thing going on, I didn’t update that information, knowing that I could move back in the starting area to a later corral. For those of you who don’t know what a corral is, it’s just what you would think. All the people who plan to run at a similar pace are placed in a group, separated by clotheslines. The fastest start first and then the corrals leave at equal intervals, but your race time doesn’t begin until you cross the start line.

My packet said that I expected to finish the race in 4:40 (not 2:10), so they put me in corral 26, the very last one. Since I was going to walk the race anyway, I didn’t mind. But when I went to pick up my race shirt, they had medium for my shirt size, so that’s what I got. You all know that there’s no way this body is getting into a medium t-shirt without me looking like 10 pounds of crap stuffed into a 5 pound bag. Apparently they deleted the wrong John Walker, or they changed all the details to get back at me for all the e-mails. At any rate, the race started, and it was 47 minutes before I crossed the start line.

I walked what, for me, was a brisk pace (16 minute miles), never stopped for anything, and finished at a 16:45 minute mile pace. The knee was sore every step, but not sore enough to quit. Afterward it didn’t bother me any more than if I had done a 4 mile walk at a slower pace. I forgot to hit my Garmin at the finish line and hit it a minute or two later, so I think my time was 3:37ish. I was happy with that considering I had no business doing the race at all, but my feet were another matter. Since walking is a different foot plant and push off than running, I had forgotten about the issues I have with long walks. Blisters!! I had a blister the size of a silver dollar on the pad of my right foot, one the size of a quarter on the pad of my left foot, and one the size of a quarter on the bottom of my left heel. My big toenail on my right foot had turned a blue (several shades) and was on its way to black.

Afterward I walked like I had done an Ironman race, but the only thing sore was my feet. The blisters are not sore any more, but my big toe throbbed all last night and all day today. Jean picked up some peroxide, I have a needle in my dop kit, and I’m contemplating drilling a hole in my toenail with the needle to relieve the pressure. I cringe just thinking about it, but the throbbing is keeping me awake and Jean doesn’t want me catching up on my sleep while barreling down the road at 70 mph.

Just (Where’s The Doctor When You Need Her) Jack

Well, actually I’m not lost, but you don’t realize how much you rely on a computer until you don’t have one at your fingertips 24/7. While we were in Florida, you probably remember, the rental didn’t have a computer hookup, so we had to go to the activities center to pick up the wifi signal. We stopped at Rocky and Nina’s for a couple of days, and they didn’t have wifi. We could use their computer to check e-mails, but it didn’t have my address book in it, so there was no way for me to send e-mails from the yahoo website without knowing what the e-mail address is.

Now we’re at Kevin and Stacy’s in Arizona and, since they’re only here on short vacations, they don’t have a wifi signal here either. Luckily, we’re able to use Stacy’s parents’ computers and hook into their wifi, so we aren’t totally incummunicado. We were sitting here last night watching the Fiesta Bowl and talking about Kevin and Stacy’s condo in Middleville. Kevin had told her that they were building townhouses across the street. None of us knew the exact definition of a townhouse and how that differs from a free standing house or a condominium. I would normally go to my computer, type “townhouse definition” into Google and see what came up. It probably would have taken me to Wikipedia and it would have told me way more than I ever wanted to know about townhouses in easy to understand language.

I’m typing this Tuesday afternoon while Jean and Stacy are shopping. I decided to stay here and guard the house rather than follow a bunch of women around in several stores, getting in the way of other shoppers. I need solitude to write these e-mails. Things are going around in my head and I can’t type fast enough to get them all down. When Jean comes in, she usually starts talking the minute she hits the door and telling me extremely important information that I need to know to survive. I lose my train of thought (a short train with an engine, a coal car, and a caboose) and my thoughts are gone.

We had a great Christmas with Mom, brother Bob (aka Bobbie Butane), his friend Patti, my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Fred. We often have Thanksgiving and/or Christmas with Becky and whatever kids can make it home. For some reason, the conversation usually turns to Becky and her ex husband raising dogs, which degenerates to discussing the exact process of the collection of materials for artificial insemination. I knew that wouldn’t be the case with Mom, Aunt Sharon and Uncle Fred there, but it wasn’t much better.

Bob was talking about his friends who were naturalists. I was naive enough to think that he meant those people who walk around watching birds. They are usually wearing khaki shorts and pith helmets with a pair of binoculars (the people, not the birds). WRONG!!! He meant they were wearing nothing at all and they lived in one of those communities that junior high boys try to sneak into all the time. Then he told us they were in their late seventies or early eighties. For some reason, we all stopped eating and that was the end of a very good Christmas dinner.

The trip through Texas, New Mexico and Arizone was relatively uneventful. However, if I never drive through Houston or San Antonio again, I’ll be happy. The cities go on forever and ever and, since they’re otherwise in the middle of nowhere, a whole bunch of interstates converge there. We went though in the middle of the day, but the traffic was heavy and the lane I was supposed to be in was not always obvious. The Tom Tom told me where to go, but I couldn’t look at the picture on the screen and stay out of the way of maniac cowboy drivers at the same time. We made it OK and only got the “you’re number one” wave a couple of times.

We stopped for the night in Ozona, Texas. The towns with motels are all about 60 miles apart in West Texas. We had planned to get to Fort Stockton (I expected to meet he cavalry there), but it would have taken us until past 8 PM to make it. We had gotten up at 5:30 AM and started at 6:15, so we were both very tired. We went into a Best Western that looked nice and were third in line to check in. The guy at the counter was about 5’3″ (both tall and around). He asked what the price was and the clerk told him $89.95. He said, “I only have $80.00 in the budget. Would you drop it to that?” Jean and I both could have strangled the guy. I was thinking to myself, “You’re out here in the middle of nowhere, and the only other choice is a Holiday Inn Express for $119.99. What makes you think you are in a strong bargaining position?” The clerk told him he had a room on the second floor with one bed for $85.99, so the guy took it. The clerk was kinder than I would have been. My answer would have been, NEXT! We saw the guy and his wife at the only restaurant in town while we were having dinner. After seeing her, that bed was going to be stressed to its limit (weight…not action).

We drove along the Rio Grand for about 50 miles on the way to El Paso. I’d like to say it was beautiful, but we couldn’t see it. The air temperature was 31 and the river was much warmer than that, so we drove in a fog bank for all 50 miles. Since we were so close to the border, we saw a border patrol stop on the Eastbound side of the highway. All cars and trucks had to stop and traffic was backed up a half mile or so. After we got past El Paso and crossed into New Mexico, we had a border patrol stop on our side. There wasn’t much traffic and we were the first ones in line. We slowed to about 20 mph and I was preparing to stop when the young girl waved us through. Jean wondered why we didn’t have to stop, and I said “Just look at us. We’re a 60 plus year old couple with bikes on the back and Christmas presents sticking up all over the place. What could we possibly be trying to sneak into the United States?”

A short note on the knee recovery…it’s not happening! It’s no better and may be just a shade worse after helping some people move on Saturday morning, touring new home models on Saturday afternoon, a four plus mile walk Sunday partly through trails, and a 13 mile bike ride today. Maybe I can rub some Tequila on it to numb the pain.

Just (Maybe Not Even Able To Walk The Rock-And-Roll Half Marathon) Jack

PS – The weather here is relentless. Day after day of sun, no clouds, and 70 degrees. You would think we’d be sick of it by now. We aren’t. We feel sorry for all of you enduring crappy weather. But remember, you were all kind enough to tell me how good the weather was on spring break, knowing that I hadn’t had a 1/1 to 4/15 vacation since 1972.

I thought I was in the running for Dad of the Year until this Florida trip. Now, granted, all but one of our kids live out of state, but that shouldn’t matter. For Sara, my middle child and oldest daughter, it was when we told her at Thanksgiving that we would be going to Florida and wouldn’t be around for Christmas. Her look, and her question “Where am I going to go for Christmas?” dropped me down on the list of Dad of the Year finalists.

Then came the Christmas gifts. We all like to think that our kids are still three or four years old, and we can’t wait for them to get up on Christmas morning, excited about what they might get. Since I won’t be near Matt, Sara or Anna for Christmas, I’m relegated to getting presents to them from a distance. It usually isn’t that difficult, and I send them via computer. I always get a list of things they want, sort it out with others in the family, and get them sent soon enough to get there before the big day.

Sara wants a ticket to San Francisco, but she won’t be able to go until her birthday, so I’ll get her ticket sometime before May. She just moved and I don’t have her address, so I couldn’t send anything to her anyway. Nothing for her to open Christmas morning and no family to be with. One more notch down the ladder.

Anna was good this year and sent me two or three links to things she wanted. They were all clothing, and Dads aren’t good at buying exactly the right things, so I opted for a gift certificate. I clicked on the link she sent me, went to gift certificates, clicked on add to my shopping cart, and it threw me out to Google with a message like “unable to find http:\\whatever” and suggested several other sites to visit. This happened two more times before I gave up. I sent her a check yesterday morning. Another notch down the ladder.

Matt sent quite a list, but most of the items were taken up by other family members. One of the items was a Costco gift certificate for a large purchase he was planning. I figured that would be safe, so I went to the Costco website. I added a gift certificate to my shopping cart and went directly to cash out. After I enetered much of the personal information, it said I needed to buy a membership to buy the gift certificate. I wasn’t ready to spend $50.00 to do that, so I backed out of the website, and now I’m getting spam from Costco. I sent him a check yesterday morning too. I hadn’t gotten a list from Heather, and planned a gift certificate for her too, but I didn’t want to choose the wrong place. I sent her a check yesterday as well. Two more quick notches lost.

Usually, when I send the kids cards for birthdays or Christmas with checks, I’ll send ones that charities send me, enticing me to send more money, or feel sorry for the poor person that made the card, also to make me send more money. I didn’t bring any of those with me, and I’m too cheap to buy cards, so I had to use plain paper. I didn’t bring any of that either, and we’re in a rental here in Florida, so I used the back of three flyers the sales office gave us along with the keys to our manufactured home. Yes, down even farther.

We’ll see Robert the day before Christmas and Rocky and Nina the day after Christmas, and I haven’t bought anything for any of them yet. I usually get them gift certificates too (do you think I’m in a rut?). Robert hasn’t given me a list and neither has Rocky. With the wedding coming up for Rocky and Nina, and Robert being a new college graduate (congratulations Robert), a gift certificate or money may be just the thing they need. I’m not sure whether that drops me down another notch or keeps me even. I’m sure it doesn’t raise me up any of the notches I’ve lost.

I was out of the Husband of the Year contest way back in January. I had the knee thing going on all summer and fall, so Tiger Woods beat me out of Athlete of the Year honors. But, with his recent escapades, I think I’m still above Tiger for Dad of the Year and Husband of the Year. At least I can beat him at something.

Just (Missing Another Friend From The Four O’Clock Round Table) Jack