While Walking

Although being a "one car family" sounds good on paper, in reality it's no fun.  Jer's car is in the shop getting fixed from the Big Little Crash of 2012.  It was supposed to be finished on Wednesday so we thought if we gave it a couple of extra days, we'd be safe in picking it up this morning.  (Auto body repair men work on their own timetables and they are incomprehensible to laymen.)  Bright and early this morning we arrived.  It will be ready after noon,  they said.

Jer usually gets to work way, way before 'bright and early' and he was in a rush to get going.  I told him to drop me off past the major intersection and I'd walk home.  Truth be told, if I would have had the presence of mind to grab my cell phone on the way out the door, I might have called a friend to hitch a ride home but walking is my favorite form of exercise and it was a good day for it. I arrived at our driveway an hour and a half later.  Whew!

When I was little, our family had only one car.  When Mom wanted or needed to use it, she simply took Dad to work.  Most days the car sat in the parking lot of the company where Dad worked and we walked wherever we wanted to go.  If an emergency arose, some Mom in the neighborhood who had a car that day would drive us to the doctor's office or to the hospital, depending upon the amount of blood involved.  If Mom had the car and somebody else's kid ran the lawnmower over their foot (yes, really) Mom would return the favor.

We don't live in a village, town or city; we live in a residential community.  This means that we don't have any businesses nearby.   None. No grocery store, no post office, no library.  To get groceries, I'd have to walk almost five-and-a-half hours round trip and I wouldn't want to be carrying much.  Becoming a single-car family lost its charm roughly at the same time I realized this.

I met a lot of dogs on my walk today though.  One eleven-month-old beauty with red fur, aptly named Reba, really seemed to like me.  While she was enjoying my personal space, her owner told me that they were going to start a twelve-step program next week.

Not Reba but still a cute dog.

"Isn't that courageous," I thought, "to tell a perfect stranger about your alcohol abuse issues?"  (They do say that to admit you have a problem is the first step toward recovery.)  While I was forming a sensitive response to this admission, he clarified, "Reba will make an excellent nursing home dog."

How wonderful that the world contains people (and dogs) that are willing to share their love and their time with others.  While I'm not willing to abandon my vehicle quite yet, I enjoyed meeting Reba today and I am pretty sure the folks in the nursing home are going to feel the same way.