We're All Athletes, Indeed

Ah, Bill flick.  Remember the last time I shared something from him?  He's once again stolen the words right out of my mouth! 

Finally, a 'sport' he can even handle - walking!

As part of that community-wide Bloomington-Normal Employee Wellness Challenge, I am tromping around these days with a little gadget attached to my belt that is counting the number of steps I take.
I average about 8,300 steps a day, according to the little gizmo.

Not to brag here but I walk pretty well.

Not to brag even more here but I have for quite a long time.

As a child, due to genetics and gross underdevelopment of my Michael Jordan Superstar Gland, I was never what you would call an athletic standout.

I was too short at basketball.

I was too small for football.

I wasn’t quick enough to get around on a fastball in baseball.

I didn’t have the endurance for long-distance running.

I didn’t play soccer because in the ‘60s, no one did, as America had yet to discover that special game that requires only a few basic skills, a ball, an open field and 12,000 parents with minivans.

That’s why this new-fangled walking thing, and things like these wellness challenges that feature walking, delight me.

Walking? Newsweek recently even called it a “sport” now and I am very proud.

Every morning — first thing out of bed, in fact — I often walk, usually straight into the bathroom.

Then throughout the day, I walk a lot, too, most of the time to get from one place to the other.

Therein, of course, is the real beauty to walking.

It is very easy to do, with simple-to-follow instructions.

(Step 1) Take one step.

(Step 2) Take second step.

(Step 3) Repeat, as necessary.

And that’s all there is to it.

Its elevation to “sport”? Is it not something that, given the times, we probably could have envisioned as well?

Have you noticed what has happened to water?

It used to just flow out of the tap of your home. When frozen, it was called ice. If you asked someone for a glass of water, they would usually give it to you.

But now?

Now people pay up to $2 for a bottle of water.

There’s coffee, too, of course.

It used to be just that — coffee.

But now it’s flavored, frothed, frapped and sold at slightly less than the cost of a second mortgage.

There’s worn-out blue jeans, too.

Used to be, when you would see someone with hole-pocked jeans, a tear might well in your eye out of deep sadness and despair for them
.
Today?

Now you ask where they got that $85 pair of great-looking, completely faded, hole-mired, completely frazzled jeans.

Yup, the same goes for walking.

What all of us learned to do back when we were about 13 months old now is a humongous “pastime.”

Now there are special shoes for walkers.

At the mall, they have a walking club.

Just the other day at Barnes & Noble, I spotted an entire book on walking and it had “valuable walking tips,” like on how to begin walking (”start slowly”) and how to warm up beforehand so that you don’t injure yourself (remember when walking WAS the warm-up to exercise?) and that during winter, a wise investment for us real good walkers is to invest in our own treadmills for only $1,000 so that we can successfully walk without having to go through the actual drudgery of going anywhere anymore.

Which reminds me …

Not to brag yet again, but I am very talented at going nowhere fast, too.

I wonder if I can get a special little gadget to measure that, too?