Two of my friends from the Irvington Community Chorus drove past me as I stepped down Ritter Avenue toward our practice session at the Irvington Presbyterian Church. Both Terri and Joyce have graced me with rides home from our Monday evening practices, but I have made it clear that I choose to walk the approximately 1 mile to our practice site, getting in my daily steps. On this recent excursion, my two friends, driving different cars, discussed how they both noticed what seemed to be a limp in my gait. I told Terri that I was customizing my stride, an act that was called a “mack” in my childhood. When I told my youngest daughter about the comment on my steps, she told me that she has noticed what seems to be a “hitch in my giddy up.” (She did not use that term.)
After hearing Terri and Joyce’s comments on my gait, I have been listening to the sound of my feet striking the pavement. I hear a greater “slap” from my right foot than from my left, which made me remember when I reported to the Selective Service office in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania for examination and qualification for being drafted into service in the Armed Forces of the United States. I was exempted from the draft because the examiners decided that a combat boot could not be fitted onto my left foot. After receiving my “1Y” exemption, I put on the thrift store combat boots that I had worn to the Selective Service center and walked back home. That left foot has gotten a lot of attention over the years; I have a protrusion at the arch that appeared to be a fracture, which I had assumed resulted from an accident I had with a curb, while jumping to slap a street sign. One doctor told me a small bone had not fused to the parent bone, but an X-ray from another doctor disproved that. I still don’t know what it is, but I never spent any time in the jungles of Vietnam because of it. But I walked a lot through the streets of Pittsburgh, and I walk a lot on the streets of Indianapolis.
In November 2018, I wrote “Walking On Purpose,” (Weekly View, November 29, 2018) about my walks to the store and around my first daughter’s neighborhood. My iPhone still tracks my steps, and the “Health” application is also on my Apple watch, which gives me daily “Atta-Boys” for achieving my fitness goals. My watch also gives me “Off and On” alerts, which tell me to get “off” my butt and “on” my feet. Now that the weather has (somewhat) become more pleasant, I will be spending more time stepping on the grass and gravel of the paths in Ellenberger Park, a portion of which I traverse each Monday evening on the way to my practices with the Community Chorus.
As for my youngest daughter’s noting a difference in my steps, I cannot say what that is about. I just keep stepping and my phone and watch keep recording the steps. I do feel somewhat guilty about achieving some stepping goals by moving around the pool table, but not enough to keep me away from the felt. And of course, my “Stepping Out” is not the same as the Joe Jackson song featured in the 1997 movie, “Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion.” I will stay aware of the differences between the pad of my left foot and the slap of my right, and just keep on, keeping on, stepping out.
cjon3acd@att.net