Sometimes our perspective is helped more by the little ordinary things that happen in everyday life. Take today for example.
I had to run to the post office and then stop by Randall’s on Memorial at Dairy Ashford to do a little grocery shopping. It was nearing noon and the weather on the Houston west side was starting to come at us with a little rain and much brisker temperatures. I had not dressed for the occasion and was only wearing a pair of my out of character but oh-so-dadgum-comfortable NBA droopy drawers and an orange tee shirt.
My wife refuses to be seen with me when I dress for comfort when going out. I respect her wishes on the occasions we do go somewhere together these days, but the rest of the time, I’m thinking: “Hey! I’ll be 77 this New Year’s Eve. When I go out, I want to be comfortable. It’s not like I’m trying to pick up girls or something. Know what I mean?
One of these days, I may paint me a little sign. Maybe I’ll starve myself in the process, but I think I’ll have it say something like “Will Blog for Food.” Then I’ll post myself out at Kirkwood and I-10 with regular comfy clothes and start working my sign. Then, by prior arrangement, I will get my son Neal to drive Norma by the corner I was working so that he can’t point me out as though I were one of those “Oh look, Mom, there’s Dad” accidental sightings.
Oh, No! – It will never happen. Norma would have me placed in an assisted living home by sundown if I ever pulled a stunt on that level. At any rate, those were just some of the playful thoughts that floated through my head as I made my way from the Addicks post office to the Randall’s parking lot today. When I stepped out of the car into the flush of all that cool wind, I was duly reminded that I had consumed two large cups of hit tea this morning. “I’d better make a pit stop before I start shopping,” I thought to myself as I began my walk to the store’s front door and almost ran into a poor old fellow making his dedicated, but very slow walk in the same direction. The guy must have been 100 if he was a day, but more power to him. He’s still out moving around – even if it as at snail’s pace. We were still a good fifty feet from the front door when our near collision occurred.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said, as I pulled away and avoided a collision at the last second, but he didn’t bat an eye. He just continued on his straight, intrepid, but perceptibly almost not moving way. I was around him in no time flat and on my now hurried way to the men’s room.
Wouldn’t you know it. As soon as I entered Randall’s, I ran into a friend I haven’t seen in a very long time. We must have talked for only five or ten minutes, but it was starting to feel like the dawning of eternity. Without much adieu, we quickly wrapped up the break with one of those “well have to get together sometime” moving on promises and parted company.
By now, what had started as a good idea had now grown into an essential. All I could think about was getting to the men’s room. On the way, I figuratively almost ran into the little old man again. We didn’t even come close this time. I sped around him across the store to the west side location of the rest rooms. Once inside the rest room, I quickly noted that all the few available urinals were busy. That’s OK. The men’s handicapped stall was wide open, more private, and lot more clean and dry, anyway.
Plop! Plop! Fizz! Fuzz! Oh what a relief it was! – And I don’t mean Alka Seltzer. It could have gone on forever. And there was one of those little lessons. When we are getting relief in the most basic of ways, the clock means nothing. But even that one wasn’t the lesson that stirred me to write an article that would take you with me on a trip to the men’s room at a Randall’s grocery store.
As I pushed open the stall door, guess who was there, waiting to take my place?
That’s right. It was the little old man. “It’s all yours,” I said, but again, he said nothing. He simply began the last lap of what apparently had been his goal from the time I first saw him in the parking lot while I was pulling to a stop and parking my car.
God Bless him! If any of us “younger” folk ever are lucky enough to live as long as this little old man apparently has – and we can still move on our own accord at any speed – no matter how slow – toward any goal – no matter how basic that goal may be – we shall be most fortunate.
What I still cannot figure out is – how did he ever get to the Randall’s parking lot in the first place. Good grief! I did see a beautiful red Corvette parked back there in the general direction from which he had to have come, given the beeline course I found him treading upon my own arrival.
Some mysteries are best left in the arena of our wildest hopes and dreams for what may still be possible in old age.
In the long run, one thing never changes, whether we are 20 or 120. All that matters at any age is how we handle each day, from moment to moment. We cannot capture what is yet to be with our promises – and we cannot regain what might have been with our regrets. Now is the only real time we ever own. Now is the only time in which we have the power to act on those matters that are within our control – even if it’s simply trying to get to the “john” on time. I like to think the little old man I saw today understood those truths.
The Pecan Park Eagle 
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