Halloween. The day after Jim died in 2010. That day in 2010 was, to that time, the worst of my life. I really had forgotten the date and instead chose to remember my brother and celebrate his life on his birthday – October 2nd. This time however, I was reminded by one of the staff at the Farm who was particularly fond of him. She asked me how I was doing, thinking that I would be remembering Jim and I told her how I chose to forget that day.
“That’s probably a much healthier way to remember him,” she said.
And it was. In fact, Mitch, who knew Jim well and worked with me, agreed that we should go out to the burn pile, get it started up, and have our lunches out there in his memory. He loved making fires you could see from outer space and so it would be an excellent testament.
Anyway, I’ve been pushing myself to get in 20,000 steps every day and was pretty sure I had over half a million for the month. I had a small window of opportunity before I was supposed to meet Miggie at Fisher’s for a rib dinner. We’d have to hurry through that and get home in time for trick or treaters at 6:30. Kathy had texted me about hiking, so I picked her up and with Dakota in the back seat, drove to Horseshoe Pond. We were walking on Tree Farm Trail when I mentioned how John had commented on the neat rows of pine trees through which we were passing. He had thought they had just grown that way, but I reminded him we were walking on property adjacent to a Christmas tree farm, probably land donated by them to the park and that the neat, perfectly spaced rows of pine trees were not an act of God, but planted many years ago by some tree farmer.
“Nope…I think he’s right,” she said.
I stopped her and pointed at the rows to the left and right of the trail and said, “you think that these rows of trees twelve feet apart and in perfect columns for the next 100 yards just happened this way?”
“Sure. Why not?”
This logical question was hard for my brain and tongue to get around.
“BECAUSE…THEY…DIDN’T!” I said.
As perfectly a logical answer.
We agreed to disagree…agreeably, though I reminded her, “your life would be better if you’d simply accept that because I’m a man, I’m right.” She wasn’t buying that, either.
I finished the hike with 20,000 steps and would continue to pile them on throughout the Halloween evening. I built a fire in my mobile, metal fire pit and had several of the neighbors over to sit in my driveway and hand out candy to the kids on a very crisp fall evening. A hike over to the community center netted me some candied apples from the owners of the development and over 23,000 steps. Not a workout, but not a bad day either. I went to the bother of totaling my steps on my Fitbit for the month and was pleased to see I had 582,483 for the month. I’m starting to think in terms of the 5 million steps I will have to take to complete the Pacific Crest Trail in a five-month period of time, so I am at least half way to the monthly total I will have to achieve. Almost none of it was with a loaded pack, though…
Hike: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 75 bpm.
Calories burned: 350.
Bonus: 23,000 steps.
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