Morning Walk
As many of you know,
my every-day morning practice is to walk to a neighbor’s house where several of
us like-minded loafers gather for morning coffee. The walk is normally a
pleasant traipse along a paved road through the woods with the neighborhood
birds offering summertime serenades. I am pig-headed enough to insist on my
walk independent of the weather and time of year. Even when it snows most days
and the road is unplowed, I insist on my free coffee. On the occasions of
unplowed snow, I find myself a little less buoyant during coffee and downright
grumpy by the time I arrive home. The reason: the pleasant walk becomes a
tiresome trudge as I negotiate a path through the snow. Of course, I try to
find the easiest path; following whatever car tracks allow the least amount of
foot lifting over the mounded snow.
I don’t normally complain about the lack of vehicle
traffic down my road. My isolated neighborhood with but a few scattered
permanent residents among a handful of cottages has little traffic most days
and I like that. Except in winter. When the snowplow is too busy clearing major
roads, the lack of car tracks down my road is a definite disadvantage for a
walker. During the holiday, our sparse traffic was even lighter, often with nothing
more than a single tire track in the snow. My trudge became a balancing act as
the track forced me to place each foot in front of the other, a gait for which
I am unsuited. Even the recall of a Christmas Carol that coursed through my
brain wasn’t enough to distract me. Just before arriving home, I had crated my
revised tune and in my agitated state of mind I decided to uncaringly thrust it
upon those of you who have so little to do that you are willing to read my
scribblings. If you decide to finish it, let me know.
Recite the following aloud to the tune of ‘Jingle Bells Jingle
bells, jingle all the way, O what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh
… ‘
“Wintertime, wintertime, winter every day,
O my Lord, it snowed again for my walk down the roadway, hey
Find a track, find a path, trudge thru the mounded snow,
O my Lord this is hard, as down
the road I go.”
