65 and Alive: Walking, Rambling and Yes Dear

Even though I took a blog vacation for most of the summer I continued to walk regularly, both indoors and outdoors. My recent routine Saturday morning walks with Mark, my youngest son, continued without interruption but will move to Sundays during the current football season because of his work as a football statistician. I’ll walk Saturdays without him and Sundays with him. Saturdays will be for endurance and training (as I have a charity 5K scheduled on September 15th) and Sundays will be for family. After our walk we join Iris for breakfast at one of several Mexican restaurants in the area. Mark’s wife, Nina, says she’ll join our walks when the weather turns a little cooler. In San Antonio that is would to be two weeks in February during the rodeo (and it usually rains then also).

Mark’s Thursday and Friday night avocation (see his blog) will most likely be expanded from soley high school games to include five Saturday afternoon college football games. On our walks we sometimes talk about his serious interest in sports and my lack of interest. In fact, his mother and older brother share my lack of sports interest. We think the sports gene skipped a generation since both of his grandfathers were sports fans. He never knew my father who I remember keeping score at home for TV baseball games when he watched baseball on our black and white Admiral TV on Sundays. His score-keeping activity is the reason I know why a strikeout is noted as a "K." My father-in-law, who would cry when the Yankees lost, knew Mark well and they enjoyed watching a few games together.

Mark shares my interest in writing and so while we don’t blog about the same ideas we both like reading each other’s blogs. Nina is proof reading a novel I wrote, that neither of them would select off the bookrack. She cares about his sports blog because it involves her husband. But she also has a love for the written word. And she perhaps is more knowledgeable about technique and style than Mark or I. Sharing an interest creates an interlocking life force. On the surface they seem to have different interests and to a degree this is true. But their interests overlap and that blending helps their partnership flourish.

Now I am sounding like a love advice writer. But the simple truth is that every marriage, union or relationship relies on finding areas of life that overlap to link the companions together.

My wife is a superb cook and I like eating. While that is true, that is not what I mean. Our marriage has been tested most when we kept things separate and compartmentalized from each other. Mostly it was me not being open at times. Sharing good news is nice, but sharing bad news can be more significant. When a trusted doctor told me I had cancer (when I was 1500 miles from home) I couldn’t tell Iris over the phone, it was suited for an in person conversation and those few days apart were very uncomfortable for me.

I remember twice in our marriage that I either came home from work or woke up in the middle of the night and told her I quit my job or would turn in my resignation later that day. To my surprise or relief Iris responded positively and with agreement.

“Good,” no long winded question or discussion, just affirmation that she knew that these decisions were good for me and good for the family.

I still argue a point or two lately, but realize that she has the intuition, the gut feeling and a mostly accurate assessment of many situations that I now tend to agree easier and faster with her with each passing day.

When I accepted my current position immediately upon its offer, without hesitation, I knew Iris would be pleased when I came home.

Her response was, “Great.” Eleven years later that decision proved to be a wonderful choice. No need for discussion or explanation.

“Yes dear. You’re right,” is a phrase I utter more frequently these days. Not because I was wrong, but because Iris knew first. Most of her recent questions come from her concern about my physical well-being. They are questions dealing with my walks and exercise.

“Are you sure you doing okay? How do you know when you’re doing too much?” On rare occasions I skip a walk when I feel sore, tired or just not right.