herbiehancock

Now that spring has arrived, I am looking forward to spending a lot less time walking on the track at the Y and instead be walking outside in the park, as long as weather permits. When walking at the Y, there isn't much to see while going around and around the indoor track. I don't think the folks at the Y would want me snapping their pictures while they are trying to exercise.  Instead,  I thought I'd post some character sketches of them I have composed in my head while walking and observing them.  "Mutt and Jeff" are at the Y nearly every morning.  No, those aren't their real names.   Well, I don't THINK those are their real names.  I don't actually know what their names are.  Mutt and Jeff are just the names I've given them in my head.  One of them is quite tall while the other one is short and stocky, so they remind me of those two comic strip characters.   The taller one has a full shock of white hair and appears to be fit and stron...

I've been walking on the track at the Y every day now for three weeks.  I've been getting up at 6:00 am every morning so I can fit it into my day.  Getting up early is sometimes a struggle, but I do it anyway because nobody can do this for me.  I've lost a little weight, not much, but a little.  More importantly, though, I feel stronger and have more energy and feel much less stressed than I did before I started. Going there has become pretty much routine in the mornings for me now which is what I hoped for.  I'd much rather be outside walking in the park, but the snow and ice and cold have been relentless this winter, making indoor walking necessary. I don't walk very fast.  In fact, I apparently walk even slower than I realized, or so it seems by all the people who keep whizzing by me as I plod along!  Yes, the twenty somethings and thirty somethings, both male and female zip past me, some walking and some running, as if I am standing still.  Th...

Here are a few sights from my weekend walks. This is a brazen bunny that only moments before I took this picture was in my neighbor's garden enjoying a feast on the fresh produce. (Brazen--I like that word. The definition of brazen is "Marked by flagrant and insolent audacity.") Mushrooms (or maybe toadstools?) growing in another neighbor's yard. It seems like there ought to be a leprechaun or a fairy sitting on one of these. Oh wait, let me look closer. Is there something there? Or maybe someone? Oh yes, now I see him. There he is. A tent is set up in the parking lot at the drug store. No the circus isn't in town. It's the Amish. They come and sell home grown farm produce from this tent during the summers here. This week they are advertising strawberries for sale. This is the helicopter pad at the local hospital. Accident victims are sometimes brought here by helicopter. Also patients are sometimes transferred to here or from here via helicopter in c...

It was late when I walked through the park a couple of nights ago. It was dark, but I went anyway. It was quiet for the most part. Just a little chilly, but really not too bad. It was peaceful. It did me good. This is the path through the park that I walk on. The lights in the distance are at the Imagination Station, which is a community built play area. There is a basketball court next to the Imagination Station. Every once in a while, I could hear the sounds of some young men playing a game on the court there while I walked. No one was out having a picnic at this hour. Nobody sitting on the park benches either. Some of the trees looked a little bit spooky. They reminded me of the trees in the movie the Wizard of Oz that threw apples at Dorothy (and her little dog too! ) For the photo below, I purposely took the picture from a weird angle and perspective. If you use your imagination, you might see half of an octopus in the bottom of the deepest black recesses of the ocean w...