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Chapter Four -- The Plodder's Mile

CHAPTER FOUR

At the police station, Officer Jones looked at John with the RCA Victor dog head-tilt. “You found this out on the railroad tracks?”

John nodded his head.

“I was out jogging and saw the train,” said John. “I talked to the detective, who said cash had been stolen, and right after the train pulled out I saw this package.”

“So, how do you know there is money inside?” Greg Jones was serving in a small town, but he wasn’t slow. His good friend John started to shuffle his feet.

“Uh… I did open the package and look inside, but when I saw it was money.” John lied, “I wrapped it back up and brought it here. I guess that’s bad for evidence, with my fingerprints all over it.”

Greg liked John, but still wondered at the story. “The train came by hours ago, and you’re just bringing it in now?”

John blushed some more. He had expected kid glove treatment from Jones, who he had known for over 10 years. Greg was a favorite speaker at the high school.

“Sorry, I guess I should have brought it in right away.” John moved his hands in the air to look convincing. “But I wanted to shower and get cleaned up before I came in.”

The honest looks and the past history he had with John persuaded Jones to believe. But he still wanted to try one more probe. “Maybe you thought about keeping it instead of turning it in? That’s quite a pile of cash.”

John’s mind was racing. Was he really that transparent? Did Officer Jones suspect that money was missing? Was it better to pretend that all the money was still there? Greg hadn’t done more than a cursory glance at the package, so he wouldn’t be suspecting any money was gone. Or was he? Would it be better to try to convince Greg that the bundle had been faked before he found it, to throw off the cops? Decisions, decisions.

“I don’t think it’s really full of money,” John finally sighed. “I was tempted at first, but when I opened it up and flipped through a few bills, I could see that the rest is just paper.”

Officer Greg Jones acted surprised as he looked. He had been planning to return the money to the bank personally and gain some recognition for his small town, maybe get a reward, a reward for John and maybe get a raise from the city council. He did just as John thought he would, and pulled the brown wrapper off and looked at the stack, flipping the edges.

“You’re right, there’s mostly paper here.”

John looked at his long time friend and asked, “But if no one claims the bundle, do I get the money that is real? It looks like there’s only really about eighteen hundred dollars.” Jones looked up after counting the outside bills and flipping into each stack.

“There is only $1800, you’re right,” Greg said as he smiled at his friend again. “You must have counted those a few times.”

John blushed again, but it worked to effect. “Yeah, I checked it out pretty thoroughly. I hope it doesn’t screw up the investigation.”

“Tampering with evidence. Punishable by 3 to 5 years in the pen.” Greg tried to look serious, but found he was smiling and waved off the concern. “Don’t worry, John, this really is normal behavior. People are curious, and really don’t usually have any criminal intent. We think we know who did this anyway. The real question is where the rest of the money went.”

Officer Greg Jones looked at John Graham, who only shrugged his shoulders. It was the moment of truth, and John wanted this look of curiosity to look sincere. “Is there supposed to be a lot more?”

“Yeah, but don’t worry about it,” Jones replied. “And yes, if no one comes to claim this money, it’s yours after 90 days. But don’t get your hopes up. There was a bank robbery south of here earlier today, and they have the serial numbers. I would bet this is theirs.”

John looked up. “So, probably no reward either, huh? Well, is there anything else you need from me? I guess I’ll go home and tell Reba we just lost $1800 in cash.”

Jones nodded. “That’s all I need for now. But maybe it would be better not to tell Reba the amount.” They both laughed, and John went out the door.

John found himself smiling as he left the tiny police station – really just a two room shack. He was smiling the smile of the deliberate, slow and careful person he now perceived himself to be. His plodding behaviors were crossing over into his thinking, and now he was “plotting” as well as plodding. He believed he had conned his friend, and might be spending a great deal of money in the very near future.

To himself, he thought, “Well, one foot in front of the other. I guess we’ll see what happens.”

To get back to Ridgeway, Ray would have to get some more cash. Tonight. The easiest place for him to hit would be a gas station, since they were cash rich and the smaller ones were usually only staffed by one employee.

Ray had robbed over 30 gas stations during his 49 years stint of living by his wits and a little bit of force. He had served time for only 3 of these robberies, and had learned much more to refine his technique while talking with other inmates during his all-expenses paid “vacations”.

Tonight would be a “hit and run”, especially appropriate since he had no transportation and would have to run as fast as he could to get away. He had been “inspecting” several gas stations locally, and had decided on one that had a small forested area nearby which would aid in his flight.

For his weapon of choice, he had invested in a sharp electricity-testing tool; actually buying it at a local automotive store. No sense in getting arrested lifting something that only cost three bucks. Ray expected to make over $2000.00 tonight with the help of his little three dollar friend.

Ripping off the electrical connections and pocketing the tool outside the store, Ray walked back toward the gas station and took cover in the trees nearby, knowing that the longer he waited this night, the more money there would be in the till. And the darkness would aid him if he would be patient and wait an hour or two. But if he waited too late, he knew it would be easier for the cops to flush him out, since there wouldn’t be anyone else around to confuse their search. An hour or two would be fine.

Mike Shepherd bounced his head up and down, “head-banging” to the heavy metal music which the boss let him play, as long as it wasn’t too loud. It was incongruous – the music was meant to hurt your ears with its volume, but could still produce the happy feet Mike liked when he listened to metal.

This was a good job for a high school student. Three or four nights a week in the gas station gave him spending money, a gas “charge” account (which came out of his check every two weeks), and access to lots of music time. Sitting around gathering money and then counting it at night beat the old days when attendants had to pump the gas, and with very few other things to buy in the station, there wasn’t the confusion of having to worry about selling drinks, food, and other items like at other stores. It was a simple business, and judging from the stack of money he placed in the safe each night, the owners were happy to keep it simple.

His best friend Eric had got him this job, recommending him to the ancient boss who didn’t hear so well. Training had involved both of them working together for one night, while Eric explained the gas reset controls, the safe, the restocking of oil, the cleaning of windows, the expected pleasant behaviors towards even the biggest jerks who might show up that night to pump their own gas.

Mike had so much information crammed into his head that night he was trained he had bounced his head off the glass-plated sliding door of the cashier’s booth. Hard. He had been carrying two oil cans when he went to cross through the booth to the other side. Through a closed door. He had such inertia going that the impact had knocked him back three to four feet. Both Mike and Eric had a good laugh about it. There was a lot to learn in only one night of training, and the rising bruise on his head helped remind Mike to open the door next time before crossing through.

That had been almost a year ago. This was not the most demanding job in the world, but he was happy to do it, listening to his own choice of music. His long hair swayed and bounced as he marveled at being paid for sitting on his butt for eight hours.

Ray had watched Mike rock out in the small booth, and waited for dark. Lit like a torch, the booth and Mike were on display for anyone who drove by, but this road was not as traveled as some Ray had scoped out. Now that it was dark, and most of the commuters were safely home after their long day at work, the business at the pumps slowed to a crawl. There was a customer every five minutes or so, and that would be plenty of time for Ray to take care of business. If all went well, he could be in and out in less than two minutes.

Ray walked up to the gas station palming the sharply pointed metal calmly in his coat pocket. He was about to pull it out when a car approached for gas. It was self-serve, so the guy got out and started to pump. Mike Shepherd opened the cashier window and greeted Ray.

“Hello, sir. Can I help you?”

Ray looked at the car pumping gas. Looking back at Mike, he muttered something about using the restroom. Mike pointed to the back of the lot, where a separate building held the “facilities”. The company policy was to let customers use the toilets, and if the attendant was feeling generous, to let others use it, too. Though the sixties were long past, Mike viewed himself as something of a hippie, and had the social concerns for the indigent appropriate to that social segment.

“Out in the back, man”, he said, tossing Ray the key to the door.

Mike continued to rock on, feeling justified in his social concerns of helping to equalize the societal inequalities, and turned up the volume a little.

Ray watched from a crack in restroom door while the customer paid with a check. He then emerged with the resolve to do this now, before another interruption came by. The cold metal dagger in his hand fit perfectly across his palm and up to his index finger, so he was confident he would be able to hide the weapon from everyone but Mike, who would be the only one to see the slender spike of steel in Ray’s hand.

As he approached the booth, he took the key and held it out with his left hand, intending to keep that hand in the window once it was opened. Mike blithely grabbed the key and stuck it on its appropriate metal screw to hang from the front of the booth. As he looked back, Ray had his arm in the booth, with his other hand just outside the window holding something that looked sharp.

“Give me the money in the till, and the twenties you have under it. I’ll take any bundles you have already made up, too.”

Mike looked back at the eyes of the man he had just befriended. An incredible sense of betrayal began to well up inside of him, but looking into those eyes immediately banished any protest. The eyes were unwavering and serious, with no hint of compromise. Mike reached into the drawer and pulled out a stack of ones.

“Forget the little stuff. Give me the big bills.”

Still stunned at his first encounter with violent crime, Mike began to shake. He pulled out the stack of twenties, about three hundred dollars worth. “Now give me the stuff under the drawer,” growled Ray, quietly, as if someone nearby might hear. Ray looked about slowly to see if they would be interrupted.

Mike grabbed the fifties and stacks of twenties he had made. They were instructed to put five twenties into stacks and put them under the drawer as they received them, although at this moment Mike was thinking it would have been a better policy to put them in the safe. But then again, you never know when you might need change for a hundred dollar bill.

There were five or six stacks, with another half-dozen fifty and one-hundred dollar bills. Ray could see he was only going to net a thousand, but with $100,000 waiting for him in another town, he decided to cut his losses and not have the kid get into the safe. Besides, the kid was starting to shake pretty badly, and that was when things usually began to go wrong. The cash would fit in his pockets, and then he could run.

“Quick. Give it to me,” Ray barked, making Mike jump. He dropped one stack and began to bend over to pick it up. “Leave it, and give me what you’re holding.”

Mike, in slow-motion it seemed to him, handed over $1300 to Ray. As if to emphasize the seriousness of the moment, Ray held the shaft of the tool in his hand, exposing the dagger. “Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll be watching, and I don’t want you to call anyone for five minutes.” Ray backed away and after 25 steps, disappeared into the thicket of trees to the west. Mike’s eyes were transfixed as he watched his attacker walk slowly backwards. Then he slowly looked down at his hands and noticed he was shaking.

His pacifist roots also shook loose at that moment in the realization that he had just been robbed. The station policy was to not resist when a robbery happened, but it had never happened to Mike before. It felt like someone had just kicked him in the stomach, and as his blood began to heat, the money became not the station’s money, but his own money, which he had just let a greasy little man escape with into the woods.

Logic and reason lost their appeal as Mike unlocked and threw open the sliding doors and ran into the woods after Ray. There was no reason to try to get the money back, but the sheer terror of the moment had been replaced with anger, and a desire to tackle the short guy. That single thought drove him forward on his young legs. Mike was in considerably better shape than Ray, and in moments had overtaken him. Mike jumped onto the back of the smaller man, and wrestled him to the ground.

Ray had never been chased and caught before in his countless robberies, and was in fact, used to getting away without any trouble. The excitement of the moment must have distracted Ray as well, since he didn’t even hear Mike approaching. All he felt was the sickening thud as two bodies thrashed to the ground in the leaves.

Mike had never been a fighter, so he had no idea what to do now that he had Ray on the ground. Ray, however, had spent his life scrabbling for bits, and the fighting instinct took over. He fought almost without thought, and though Mike was bigger and stronger than Ray, it was only moments before Ray was pummeling Mike with his fists.

A kind of frenzy took over as the blood began to flow from Mike’s face, which seemed to change. Ray then saw the face of his brothers, saw cruel cellmates, and saw the face of oppression. The rage swelled as Mike stopped caring about the money and was fighting to protect himself, and thought only of escape. He flailed out at Ray, scratching and punching as best he could, but mostly Mike was just trying to dodge the punches.

As Mike dragged his fingernails across Ray’s face, blood oozed out slowly. The pain of the scratches were the final blow, and with renewed energy, Ray grabbed Mike’s long hair, pulled him up, and took the spike of steel in his other hand. Turning Mike around, Ray stabbed the short piece into the base of Mike’s skull.

Mike’s body went limp and collapsed to the ground.

Ray was pulled down with the body. Then he let go of the hair. Blood was running down his cheek, and his bottom lip was beginning to swell. He could taste blood in his mouth, and the anger he had felt continued for a good while. Slowly, he backed away from the body and looked around in the trees.

No one had seen this. Ray doubted anyone had even seen the robbery. He took a deep breath and backed away a few more steps.

He rubbed the blood from his face and gathered his thoughts. He needed to get away from here as fast as he could, and the bus station was only a few blocks away. He could get cleaned up there and find out when the next bus was going to Ridgeway. “What a stupid kid,” Ray thought to himself. Stupid to get killed for money. This would complicate matters a bit, but for the money that waited for him in the near future, this inconvenience wouldn’t stand in his way. He had killed before and not been caught.

Another dead body would make no difference.

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Proclaim Thanks

Proclaim Thanks

What is “Abundance”? It is a chance for you to celebrate with me this incredible universe, where we are given 3 million seconds a year to spend as we wish. We may have to work during some of that time, we all have to sleep, eat, travel from place to place, and perhaps do other things we might not really want to be doing. I hope you are doing those things which bring you happiness and joy.

If not, it might be time to re-examine what I believe is an incredible opportunity for you to find out why you are here, what it is you are supposed to accomplish, and how you are to bless the lives of others. It really isn’t just about ourselves, but being happy in what we do is one component of the plan of this universe for you. I believe we all live in a time of incredible abundance, and with all of the creativity and potential of the billions of people here on this earth, we can all find a way to find our own individual purpose.

Why do I try to proclaim thanks here each week? I want to show you how a grateful attitude can open your eyes to the abundance which surrounds all of us. I celebrate the 1001 things I am thankful for in my list of 1001 Thanks, so that you might start to proclaim a thankful attitude for all that you have. I try to share with you the ups and downs of my life to show it isn’t all a bed of roses. But maybe when we look back on those terrible times, we might be able to laugh about some of them, but at the very least, be glad for the strength we had to make it through the especially tough times, to the better times today. The real message might be that even if today looks especially dark and gloomy, we have experienced those kinds of days in the past and survived. We have grown and strengthened our resolve to succeed, to help others succeed, and to offer thanks for even the smallest success.

Robert Byrne once said, “The purpose of life is a life of purpose.” I also believe this, but I want to modify it a bit and say the purpose of life is a life on purpose. This means we are doing what we do because we have chosen to do what we are doing. You may not want to go to work, but you may choose to go to support your family, to earn a living, or maybe to pay your bills. This is a choice, and we make it every day when we awaken. But unless we know why we are doing what we do, we may still be asleep, walking through a life which seems to have purpose, but is only a connected series of events.

I know you wouldn’t enjoy the things I do. They are for me. I’ve been given a set of skills and talents, and when I use them in a productive way, I get a feeling of peace and happiness. You might think it strange to enjoy mowing the lawn – you may even curse the time you spend doing it. But I know I have to do it, or pay someone else to, and I’m much too cheap for that. So I have decided to make the best of this weekly summer chore by paying attention to the job at hand, but also celebrating the following facts: I am healthy enough to work the mower; I have the disposable income to buy a mower; I have a lawn, I have the time to mow; The lawn grows mostly without my supervision and makes my home more attractive; I have a home. I think you can see why my list of 1001Thanks is really just a few notes about the incredible abundance which blesses my life. Have you stopped to consider the abundance in your life today?

I hope you are doing something to help others, because this may be the best way to show our thanks for all we have, and also the best way to find out how much we really do have. My mother is a volunteer at a local hospital. She loves the work, and throws herself into it. A hospital administrator once introduced her as an employee. She corrected him, and said she was a volunteer. She didn’t want the pay, but she does want the satisfaction of doing for others. If you have been able to help others, you will understand it really isn’t about an hourly wage, but about a personal feeling of fulfillment.

What is “Abundance”? It’s all about learning to say “Thank You.”

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The Plodder's Mile -- Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

Captain Greg Jones sat fiddling with his holster as the phone rang. “There has got to be a way to fix this thing,” he muttered under his breath, wondering how long the latest bruise from his gun would take to disappear. “Captain Jones speaking.”

“Hey, Greg, this is Harold from the big city! How’s the ‘burg?” Harold Smith never let a chance go by to harass his old high school buddy.

Jones smirked into the phone. “Smitty, here the air is clean, I haven’t shot my gun in a month, and the only bruise I got this month was from my holster turning my pistol into a hammer – on my hip.”

“You country bumpkins really know how to rub it in, man,” said Smitty, as his friend interjected another barb.

“How’s the leg hole?” inquired Greg.

Now Smitty was smirking as he thought back to the six months he had just spent rehabilitating a gunshot wound to his calf. “Good as new,” he lied into the phone. Greg knew it was a lie, and let it slide.

“What’s the occasion? I never hear from you anymore,” the small town cop said.

“Just a head’s up. We’re calling all the towns along the rail line to be on the lookout for some bank money. You remember, that big guy you helped us with on the train?”

“The ‘brains’ of the operation?”

“This oaf walked into a bank and got the teller to find $100,000. We think,” continued Smitty,” that they dumped the money somewhere along the tracks.”

“They?”

“Yeah, we’re looking for a small guy,” said Harold Smith, wondering how many more calls he would have to make like this today. “At least compared to the big guy, who we got off the train, the other guy is small.”

“The big one talking?”

“Yeah, non-stop about his kitty and the trip he was gonna take with his friend Raymond.” Smitty let the name sink in.

“Short guy named Raymond. Got it, Harold,” said Jones, letting the dig sink in. Smitty hated being called “Harold”.

“I knew I shouldn’t have said this was Harold.”

“You love the attention,” said Jones. “But I better let you go – lots of miles of train track to call.”

“Yeah. Thanks for reminding me.” Smitty chortled to himself. These small town cops really had it made. “Give me a call next time there’s a murder.”

“Ouch.” Jones kneaded the leather of the holster again. “I’ll call when we get our next moose sighting.” Jones hung up and wondered if there would be another incident with the local moose herd this year.

John Graham had a problem. There was no way he could keep the money, but there was no way he was going to give it up. Dueling with his conscience, he found that if he rationalized long enough, there was usually a middle ground where reason was not too shaky and ethics were somewhat satisfied. But where would that middle ground be with $100,000 sitting in front of him in a neat stack of bills?

If he turned the whole amount over to the cops, the bank would get it. If he kept it, his greed would never let him rest. Even now, he was having a struggle trying not to involve Reba, and only because he knew she would be the moral compass that she always was. He could hear her in his head, “Take it to the police. Now. Right now.”

But moral relativism was winning out today. They had struggled for so long with so little reward for the good they were doing in the community. Everyone knew school teachers don’t get paid enough, and if there was a magic way to bless the lives of two dedicated education employees like themselves – well, you just don’t kick fate in the groin when offered a gift. Perhaps the bank would write off the loss and the insurance company would pay the claim, and no one would ever come to claim the money. Right. That was never going to happen.

But in the convoluted paths of mystery and intrigue that were crowding John Graham’s brain at the moment, a brilliant solution was beginning to form in his head. He thought back to when he had first unwrapped the bundle, and noticed the 10 or 20 bills that surrounded the hundreds of other hundred dollar bills. At first, his mind registered disbelief and convinced him that there really wasn’t an entire bundle of bills, but that someone had made a fake bundle with just the outside bills being real.

And John Graham had created just enough stage props to understand how to make the bundle that looked like it had $100,000 in it.

So after three hours of cutting paper and hand dying it over the sink, the bundle, once retied, looked exactly like when he had first opened it. He had kept the brown paper wrapping of the original, and once again, sat looking proudly at the newest addition to the Graham home. A brick of mostly bogus bills, still consecutively numbered except for 18 bills which were now a stage prop. An $1800 stage prop, but still a prop ready for the performance John hoped would convince Officer Greg Jones down at the local police station. Satisfied with his afternoon of work, he now turned to the large stack of real money. Where to hide it for a while?

Raymond Johnson had a problem. There were two pressing urgencies he needed to take care of, but he was uncertain which to handle first. Not the fastest thinker in his third grade class, Ray had devised a system to help him make decisions. He didn’t realize he was using the same system Benjamin Franklin discussed in his autobiography, but that was just a sign of a good teacher in his past who had passed the idea from the book by Franklin into the brain of Johnson.

He sat at the diner eating his banana cream pie, which he noticed, had no banana pieces in it. But the large amount of whipped cream more than compensated for the lack of real pieces of fruit. Even though the waitress had given him a strange look when he ordered double whipped cream, Ray found unless he asked, he never had enough whipped cream. “A little pie with his whipped cream,” his mother used to say.

In front of Ray was a paper napkin with two columns. One was titled “Tommy” and the other “Football”. Ray was just paranoid enough to not write the word money, even though the robbery had taken place over 100 miles away. All the local newspapers had carried the story, with a giant photo of Tommy smiling as he held up his ID number for his arrest photo. The list for “Tommy” was not as large as the list for “Football”, and it looked like the money would be the very next thing Ray would take care of. He had less than $20 in his pocket, and would have to make some sort of “arrangement” tonight for another kind of “withdrawal”.

He liked Tommy, and realized that it was wrong to desert Tommy on the train, and probably just as wrong to leave Tommy in jail. But busting him out would get them both put away, and with both of them in jail, who would get Tommy out? Plus, Ray was seriously contemplating the loss of an excellent “business associate”, who would be dependable to get the job done without asking too many stupid questions. A partner who didn’t care how much of the take he was able to keep, a partner who would never be trusted by the police or attorneys to testify credibly in court. The list was long, and almost persuasive.

The nagging doubt about someone else finding the money first, or the police finding the money were the deciding factors for Ray. He knew where it should be, and the faster he got back to “Ridgeway”, the faster he could come back here and wait quietly for the police to release Tommy. Ray figured that there was no way for the cops to convict Tommy since he was not responsible for his own actions, and no one would want to take care of the big lummox anyway. So when the release came, Ray would be right there to scoop up his valued partner.

Besides, without the money, neither Ray nor Tommy would be going anywhere soon. Ray pushed the empty pie plate back from the counter and left a quarter tip. He needed to go get that money now. But first he would need to make “some arrangements” for some traveling money.

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Abundance Escapades April 11

This is the complete episode from April 11th.

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The Plodder's Mile -- Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

Tommy sat in the railroad car turning the bundle over and over again in his hands. Smaller than a shoebox, it contained something very solid, and the brick seemed to weigh almost ten pounds. A strong and very tall man, Tommy had no problem hefting the weight in his hands, tossing it up and down, then from side to side, then rolling it over from top to bottom, then back again.

Ray didn’t have the patience that seemed to come naturally with Tommy’s mental challenges. Although easily amused, it was also easy for Tommy to irritate Ray. “Give me that, you idiot,” Ray whispered to Tommy a bit too loudly, since the other three passengers in the car looked up to see if Ray was going to reprimand his big friend again. Ray smiled and asked a little too politely, “Could you give me that for a minute, Tommy?”

“I like playing with it, Raymond.” Tommy held the package close as if protecting a pet. “It’s like a really heavy football, and I feel like I’m one of those catching guys on the football team.”

The little girl, the girl’s mother and the businessman turned to look at Ray. Over the last hour they had seen several tantrums, cajolings, negotiations, and stand-offs over the package. Ray realized he would need to get rid of this unwanted attention.

“Tommy, you do look like one of those football guys, but not the receiver,” Ray intoned in a child-like voice. “You look like the quarterback, the guy who throws the ball.”

Immediately Tommy lifted the package for a forward pass, which brought Ray to his feet. “But, sometimes, Tommy,” he said getting closer to the towering Tommy, “sometimes the quarterbacks pretend to throw and just hand-off the ball.” Although shorter than Tommy by at least a foot, Ray sidled up to the quarterback and took the hand-off, and excused himself into the next car. Tommy followed like a puppy.

As soon as the door shut, Ray pulled Tommy closer, which also meant lower. “Listen you big stoop,” said the little man. “You drop this package and it breaks, there won’t be no money for us to spend later. Those people in there, you think they’re just going to sit there while money flies around the train?”

The idea seemed to have an appeal to Tommy, who reached again for the package. “No, Tommy, we are not going to throw the money around the train. I want you and me to spend the money, not them, so I am going to keep a hold of it for a while, okay?”

Tommy slumped into another seat, with his lower lip protruding in a pout. He rehearsed the rules he had learned on this train ride. “Don’t talk about the money, don’t say the word money, don’t talk about what you are gonna spend the money on, don’t play with the money…Why do there have to be so many rules?” Ray sat down next to Tommy to whisper more instructions.

“Stop saying the word money.”

“But you just said money.”

“That’s because you said it four times in a row.”

“But then you said it, so I can say it, too. Money, money, money, money…”

Ray knew there was no hope in winning an argument with Tommy, so the next best thing was to distract him. Out came the yo-yo, which Tommy had yet to master. But he could spend hours flinging the yo-yo down and then winding it back up again.

“Yo-yo!” erupted the squeal, which frightened the two other people in this car to move farther to the end. Tommy was an imposing sight, and when fully frenzied, he would strike fear into grown men. Even cops. Especially cops.

A confrontation with the cops was where Ray got the idea to recruit Tommy as a partner. After three cops had retreated from an especially big Tommy tantrum, calling instead for back-up and some psychiatric help, Ray had sat back and made some plans. Fortunately, Tommy had committed no great crime, only wanting to ring the bell at the carnival hammer game 50 or 60 times, so when the proper authorities worked to sort out the confusion, Ray stepped up to gain a partner.

“Sorry for the fracas, officers,” he had said. “My friend here isn’t working with a full deck, and sometimes he scares other people. I’ll take care that he don’t cause no more trouble.” Tommy had then looked at Ray, smiled, and everyone was happy to part company. After a few hamburgers, Ray found out Tommy was alone at the carnival, but lived up the street in a group home. Taking Tommy by the hand to a new life, Tommy was content to leave his past behind and seek the adventures Ray had planned for him.

Ray knew the perfect partner when he saw it. Though twice the size of Ray, Tommy was unable to distinguish right from wrong, instead relying on Ray to “clarify” the situation. Ray had been in prison several times for burglary and other minor crimes. The short stocky red-haired man was getting older now, and had yet to make his big heist. Now he greedily hugged the bundle of money, hardly able to contain his enthusiasm for the successful crime. It was almost all he could do to not stand on the seats and proclaim their collective brilliance, which of course, meant Ray’s brilliance.

Tommy was almost more trouble than he was worth, botching the first two hold-ups by pointing out Ray and confessing the entire plan to the tellers. Out came all the details, and after another rescue or two, Tommy had finally got it right.

One hundred thousand dollars right.

Now if Ray could only get him to shut up long enough to get away, they would have plenty of time to figure out what was next. Ray confessed as much to himself. He hadn’t really thought it would be this easy, but with the gentle giant next to him, he started to contemplate the next big heist.

But then the train began to slow, and then stopped.

The train was still miles from its destination, and Ray knew they weren’t supposed to stop for at least another hour. The few times Ray had checked out this escape route, the train had never stopped this early.

Tommy looked up and kept winding up the yo-yo. He looked out the window and pointed. “Look at the pretty lights!” he said, motioning to the two police cars directly outside the window of the train.

Ray instinctively pulled Tommy to the near side of the car, popping open a window to hear the conversation outside. Ray and Tommy huddled next to the window. Four detectives were gathered around one of the cars.

“Short guy and a big guy,” said the boss. “A really big guy,” he motioned with his hands gesturing far above his own head.

Almost before the gesturing stopped, Ray was dragging Tommy to the front of the train. There was no way they could leave the train and not be seen in the opens fields which surrounded the tracks. Ray was thinking as fast as he could, still dragging Tommy along with him wondering what to do next.

As he opened one door at the front of a car, and crossed the landing to enter the next car, Ray paused to look down. He could see the tracks under the train. The entire train was about to be searched. But maybe they wouldn’t think to search under the train.

Ray tossed the bundle up under the next car, hearing it hop two or three feet before landing next to a wheel. Perfect.

John noticed the commotion on the tracks after he had started jogging back toward home. Even though he knew it was better to keep running so there wouldn’t be as much muscle soreness the next day, the sight of four policemen escorting a huge man from the train was too intriguing to miss. He stopped next to the end of the train and watched.

“Yeah, we took the money and it was a big football, but it was heavy, and Raymond said we could spend it on anything we wanted.” The big man practically gushed at the prospects, not wanting to wait to share his excitement. “I told the nice lady at the bank we was going for a train ride, and she said she wanted to ride, too, and on the same train, and so I wonder if she is here?”

Two of the detectives held onto Tommy’s head to make sure he didn’t hit it on the door as they put him in the patrol car. The car springs bent under the load as his head barely cleared the doorway.

While the car sat full of Tommy, John finally decided to ask what was going on. His friend from the local police force told him it was a search for some stolen cash, and that he should stand off to the side of the tracks. It wasn’t more than 5 minutes before the train pulled out.

The prospect of sore muscles faded as John decided to stay and watch the show. Just like everyone else who slows and gawks, John wanted to be in on the discussion. So little happened in Ridgeway that a good police story would be discussed for a week.

After the train left, John approached the same detective, his friend Greg Jones . “Any luck?” The dark-suited man shook his head, but pointed to the car. “Looks like we got the brains of the operations, at least,” he smirked, ducking into one of the cars and pulling away.

Ray smiled to himself as the train pulled out. He had told Tommy he had to go to the bathroom, but that he didn’t want anyone to know about it. So Tommy was supposed to wait for Ray in the second car, while Ray went to the bathroom in the third car. Ray had actually gone several cars down, and sat in the toilet for a while. When the police found Tommy, Ray was several cars away and the two were never matched up. Ray had sat next to the small fatherless family looking out the car amazed at the sight, and when the detective walked by them he didn’t even give Ray a second glance. Even though he had to ditch Tommy, the money would be here on the tracks when he came back – if he came right back. Then Ray would worry about what to do about Tommy. Or maybe he wouldn’t worry.

Now to look for some landmarks so he could find his way back. The sign at the edge of town said “Ridgeway.”

John shook his head and watched the police cars pull away. He stretched briefly on the rails, trying to get the stiffness out of his calf muscles. Sitting for too long next to the train had made him feel the cold, and he could also feel his muscles beginning to stiffen up, which would give him something else to worry about when he finally got home.

The railroad tracks were now his again, and they pulled him homeward. The steady rhythm began again.

He put one foot before the other, starting again another plodding mile, which was not really running and not really walking. Especially when he ran up hills in races, he often thought to himself that he was the only person who knew he was running. Plodding, like the Budweiser horses. But like Confucius said, “It matters not how slow you go, only that you do not stop.” Step after step, he built momentum.

Then he started to build a small bit of speed, as much as uneven railroad ties would permit. He ran past a package and looked down at it as he passed. For one moment, he thought about ignoring it since it would involve another stopping and more stiffening of his muscles.

But finally, curiosity got the better of him. He slowed, turned around and walked back to pick up the package, which was much too heavy to be a football.

The brown paper wrapping seemed ordinary enough. Secured with some twine, it was big enough to get the best of John’s curiosity. It hadn’t been here earlier in his run.

Picking it up, John wondered at the mass. It was heavy. Much heavier than it looked, and the substantial weight both surprised and intrigued him. Why would a large, heavy package be dropped on the tracks?

Untying it was too slow, and now John now was really curious. Carefully he grabbed the brown paper and pulled at a corner, hoping to expose enough of the package to get an idea of what it was.

Dense stacks of greenish-white paper were under the brown. A fragrance wafted up from the package and the sight and smell of the bills punched John like a right-left combination. This package was money! He tore at the corner a bit more, and then saw the paper wrapper encircling the top stack. They were one hundred dollar bills!

“This has to be thousands of dollars,” John thought to himself. He looked around the fields that surrounded him. There was no one to be seen, and even the dark horse was pre-occupied with the hay. John tucked the package under his arm, and like the halfback on the winning team, jogged triumphantly back home.

A thousand thoughts crowded his mind, but the image of the high school touchdown was the dominant thought that kept crowding out the others. He should have left the evidence in place. Cue the Rocky theme. He should have contacted the police immediately. Tuck the cash under his arm and protect it, and cross the goal line, ready to solve all the problems he had been contemplating earlier. Touchdown!!

John flipped through a small stack of $100 bills. There was the crisp smell of newly-minted money, and after checking, he decided that all of the numbers were consecutive. This bundle had to be the package the detectives wanted.

But it was $100,000 dollars! Enough to do whatever they wanted with lots left over to pay bills, buy cars, to go on vacations. Whatever Reba wanted, he would be able to give her. It was a powerful feeling, which was followed by some thoughts about the reality of the money.

“Stolen cash,” the detective had said. Consecutive numbers meant it was probably stolen from a bank. The big guy they had arrested was talking about the lady at the bank, so he was the one who took the cash. But like the detective had said, probably not the brains of the operation. Would there be a reward for its return? From a bank?

John shook his head silently to himself. It would be wrong to keep the money, and banks wouldn’t offer much but congratulations for being a good citizen. There had to be a way to keep some of this money, if only for a finder’s fee, that would let his conscience rest and still benefit his family somehow. But how?

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The Hand by Guy de Maupassant

This is another episode of "Literature Out Loud" from the weekly program "Abundance". As the host, Dane Allred reads selections from famous literature each week on www.k-talk.com from 7 to 8 pm Mountain Standard Time every Sunday.

The Hand

by Guy de Maupassant

All were crowding around M. Bermutier, the judge, who was giving his opinion about the Saint-Cloud mystery. For a month this inexplicable crime had been the talk of Paris. Nobody could make head or tail of it.

M. Bermutier, standing with his back to the fireplace, was talking, citing the evidence, discussing the various theories, but arriving at no conclusion.

Some women had risen, in order to get nearer to him, and were standing with their eyes fastened on the clean-shaven face of the judge, who was saying such weighty things. They, were shaking and trembling, moved by fear and curiosity, and by the eager and insatiable desire for the horrible, which haunts the soul of every woman. One of them, paler than the others, said during a pause:

"It's terrible. It verges on the supernatural. The truth will never be known."

The judge turned to her:

"True, madame, it is likely that the actual facts will never be discovered. As for the word 'supernatural' which you have just used, it has nothing to do with the matter. We are in the presence of a very cleverly conceived and executed crime, so well enshrouded in mystery that we cannot disentangle it from the involved circumstances which surround it. But once I had to take charge of an affair in which the uncanny seemed to play a part. In fact, the case became so confused that it had to be given up."

Several women exclaimed at once:

"Oh! Tell us about it!"

M. Bermutier smiled in a dignified manner, as a judge should, and went on:

"Do not think, however, that I, for one minute, ascribed anything in the case to supernatural influences. I believe only in normal causes. But if, instead of using the word 'supernatural' to express what we do not understand, we were simply to make use of the word 'inexplicable,' it would be much better. At any rate, in the affair of which I am about to tell you, it is especially the surrounding, preliminary circumstances which impressed me. Here are the facts:

I was, at that time, a judge at Ajaccio, a little white city on the edge of a bay which is surrounded by high mountains.

The majority of the cases which came up before me concerned vendettas. There are some that are superb, dramatic, ferocious, heroic. We find there the most beautiful causes for revenge of which one could dream, enmities hundreds of years old, quieted for a time but never extinguished; abominable stratagems, murders becoming massacres and almost deeds of glory. For two years I heard of nothing but the price of blood, of this terrible Corsican prejudice which compels revenge for insults meted out to the offending person and all his descendants and relatives. I had seen old men, children, cousins murdered; my head was full of these stories.

One day I learned that an Englishman had just hired a little villa at the end of the bay for several years. He had brought with him a French servant, whom he had engaged on the way at Marseilles.

Soon this peculiar person, living alone, only going out to hunt and fish, aroused a widespread interest. He never spoke to any one, never went to the town, and every morning he would practice for an hour or so with his revolver and rifle.

Legends were built up around him. It was said that he was some high personage, fleeing from his fatherland for political reasons; then it was affirmed that he was in hiding after having committed some abominable crime. Some particularly horrible circumstances were even mentioned.

In my judicial position I thought it necessary to get some information about this man, but it was impossible to learn anything. He called himself Sir John Rowell.

I therefore had to be satisfied with watching him as closely as I could, but I could see nothing suspicious about his actions.

However, as rumors about him were growing and becoming more widespread, I decided to try to see this stranger myself, and I began to hunt regularly in the neighborhood of his grounds.

For a long time I watched without finding an opportunity. At last it came to me in the shape of a partridge which I shot and killed right in front of the Englishman. My dog fetched it for me, but, taking the bird, I went at once to Sir John Rowell and, begging his pardon, asked him to accept it.

He was a big man, with red hair and beard, very tall, very broad, a kind of calm and polite Hercules. He had nothing of the so-called British stiffness, and in a broad English accent he thanked me warmly for my attention. At the end of a month we had had five or six conversations.

One night, at last, as I was passing before his door, I saw him in the garden, seated astride a chair, smoking his pipe. I bowed and he invited me to come in and have a glass of beer. I needed no urging.

He received me with the most punctilious English courtesy, sang the praises of France and of Corsica, and declared that he was quite in love with this country.

Then, with great caution and under the guise of a vivid interest, I asked him a few questions about his life and his plans. He answered without embarrassment, telling me that he had travelled a great deal in Africa, in the Indies, in America. He added, laughing:

'I have had many adventures.'

Then I turned the conversation on hunting, and he gave me the most curious details on hunting the hippopotamus, the tiger, the elephant and even the gorilla.

I said:

"Are all these animals dangerous?"

He smiled:

"Oh, no! Man is the worst."

And he laughed a good broad laugh, the wholesome laugh of a contented Englishman.

"I have also frequently been man-hunting.”

Then he began to talk about weapons, and he invited me to come in and see different makes of guns.

His parlor was draped in black, black silk embroidered in gold. Big yellow flowers, as brilliant as fire, were worked on the dark material.

He said: "It is a Japanese material."

But in the middle of the widest panel a strange thing attracted my attention. A black object stood out against a square of red velvet. I went up to it; it was a hand, a human hand. Not the clean white hand of a skeleton, but a dried black hand, with yellow nails, the muscles exposed and traces of old blood on the bones, which were cut off as clean as though it had been chopped off with an axe, near the middle of the forearm.

Around the wrist, an enormous iron chain, riveted and soldered to this unclean member, fastened it to the wall by a ring, strong enough to hold an elephant in leash.

I asked:"'What is that?'"

The Englishman answered quietly:

"'That is my best enemy. It comes from America, too. The bones were severed by a sword and the skin cut off with a sharp stone and dried in the sun for a week.'"

I touched these human remains, which must have belonged to a giant. The uncommonly long fingers were attached by enormous tendons which still had pieces of skin hanging to them in places. This hand was terrible to see; it made one think of some savage vengeance.

I said: "This man must have been very strong."

The Englishman answered quietly: "'Yes, but I was stronger than he. I put on this chain to hold him."

I thought that he was joking. I said: "This chain is useless now, the hand won't run away."

Sir John Rowell answered seriously: "It always wants to go away. This chain is needed."

I glanced at him quickly, questioning his face, and I asked myself: "Is he an insane man or a practical joker?"

But his face remained inscrutable, calm and friendly. I turned to other subjects, and admired his rifles.

However, I noticed that he kept three loaded revolvers in the room, as though constantly in fear of some attack. I paid him several calls. Then I did not go any more. People had become used to his presence; everybody had lost interest in him. A whole year rolled by. One morning, toward the end of November, my servant awoke me and announced that Sir John Rowell had been murdered during the night.

Half an hour later I entered the Englishman's house, together with the police commissioner and the captain of the gendarmes. The servant, bewildered and in despair, was crying before the door. At first I suspected this man, but he was innocent.

The guilty party could never be found.

On entering Sir John's parlor, I noticed the body, stretched out on its back, in the middle of the room.

His vest was torn, the sleeve of his jacket had been pulled off, everything pointed to, a violent struggle.

The Englishman had been strangled! His face was black, swollen and frightful, and seemed to express a terrible fear. He held something between his teeth, and his neck, pierced by five or six holes which looked as though they had been made by some iron instrument, was covered with blood.

A physician joined us. He examined the finger marks on the neck for a long time and then made this strange announcement:"It looks as though he had been strangled by a skeleton."

A cold chill seemed to run down my back, and I looked over to where I had formerly seen the terrible hand. It was no longer there. The chain was hanging down, broken.

I bent over the dead man and, in his contracted mouth, I found one of the fingers of this vanished hand, cut--or rather sawed off by the teeth down to the second knuckle.

Then the investigation began. Nothing could be discovered. No door, window or piece of furniture had been forced. The two watch dogs had not been aroused from their sleep.

Here, in a few words, is the testimony of the servant:

"For a month his master had seemed excited. He had received many letters, which he would immediately burn. Often, in a fit of passion which approached madness, he had taken a switch and struck wildly at this dried hand riveted to the wall, and which had disappeared, no one knows how, at the very hour of the crime. He would go to bed very late and carefully lock himself in. He always kept weapons within reach. Often at night he would talk loudly, as though he were quarrelling with some one.”

“That night, somehow, he had made no noise, and it was only on going to open the windows that the servant had found Sir John murdered. He suspected no one.”

I communicated what I knew of the dead man to the judges and public officials. Throughout the whole island a minute investigation was carried on. Nothing could be found out.

One night, about three months after the crime, I had a terrible nightmare. I seemed to see the horrible hand running over my curtains and walls like an immense scorpion or spider. Three times I awoke, three times I went to sleep again; three times I saw the hideous object galloping round my room and moving its fingers like legs.

The following day the hand was brought me, found in the cemetery, on the grave of Sir John Rowell, who had been buried there because we had been unable to find his family. The first finger was missing.

"Ladies, there is my story. I know nothing more."

The women, deeply stirred, were pale and trembling. One of them exclaimed:

"But that is neither a climax nor an explanation! We will be unable to sleep unless you give us your opinion of what had occurred."

The judge smiled severely:

"Oh! Ladies, I shall certainly spoil your terrible dreams. I simply believe that the legitimate owner of the hand was not dead, that he came to get it with his remaining one. But I don't know how. It was a kind of vendetta."

One of the women murmured: "No, it can't be that."

And the judge, still smiling, said: "Didn't I tell you that my explanation would not satisfy you?"

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Abundance Dichotomy April 4

Dane Allred expresses his thanks for the "Abundance" of this world every Sunday from 7 to 8 p.m. (Mountain Standard Time). This is the entire broadcast which includes two episodes of "Dane Allred's Partly-colored Dreamcoat" and two selections from "Literature Out Loud", plus the first chapter of “The Plodder’s Mile”. These short pieces are available here at podbean and are also available at 1001Thanks.blogspot.com. Watch for his upcoming book, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Dane Allred”.

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The Plodder's Mile -- Chapter One

The Plodder’s Mile

by Dane Allred

CHAPTER ONE

Tommy loomed over the bank teller; a giant compared to any other customer Judy had helped that day.

He was taller than anyone she had seen in a month or two, yet the innocent eyes and gentle demeanor softened the effect. Tommy looked like a big teddy bear, waiting for a hug, but today he stood filling the teller’s window with his massive frame. He held a note in his hand, and though he handed it to Judy without hesitation, the writing belied the intent of the transaction.

Judy had worked for the bank for several years now, putting her husband through college and waiting for the day when she could quit, follow him to his next chapter in life and… Do what? Probably get work at another bank, have children, build a home and settle into married life.

As she mechanically went through the motions of each day’s work, Judy didn’t really engage the mental powers of her business degree, and didn’t invest much emotion in the performance of her job. She wanted the paycheck, and wondered at times if this was all there really was to life. She read the note, and her life changed in an instant.

Tommy pushed back a shock of blond hair. He didn’t really understand what was going on, and had pushed the note to the teller under orders from Ray, his new best friend. Tommy usually did what other people told him to do, not thinking through the consequences. This gentle giant had been placed in state care early in his life by parents who couldn’t feed or care for someone with his needs. The state then placed him in several institutions trying to find the right fit for a massive man-child who wanted nothing more than to please. Ray had found the combination of trusting child-like passivity and Tommy’s massive frame irresistible as a partner in crime.

If Ray could only get Tommy to just pass the note without speaking.

Tommy spoke. “We’re going riding on a train.”

Judy looked up with fear in her eyes, never expecting this to happen to her, never expecting a man like Tommy to do something like this in a place so well protected with guards, cameras and secret alarms. She looked down at the note again. “Go to the vault and bring out one large package of 100 dollar bills. A gun is pointed at you to make sure you don’t cause no trouble.”

Judy looked at Tommy, and he looked blankly back.

She did a quick survey of the lobby, and there against the wall under one of the cameras was a short dirty looking man. He was looking directly into her eyes, and seemed to be poking the pocket of his jacket toward her. She glanced at the jacket, assumed there was a gun, and the man under the camera slowly shook his head up and down. Judy looked back at Tommy.

“We’re going on the train to Rockwood. Have you ever been to Rockwood?”

Judy was at once terrified and mystified. The giant in front of her was unaware of her agitation, but the man with the gun knew she faced a decision. One large package of 100 dollar bills meant the hundred thousand pack most banks receive from the federal reserve. She took a deep breath and tried to remember what she had been trained to do in this situation. She glanced once more at the pocketed gun and then slowly went to the safe.

Judy’s teller training had included several responses to just such an attempted robbery. She was to push the silent alarm button under her desk, or if prompted to go to the safe, to push the notification button in there. No alarms would sound, but the management would receive notification, and the guards would be put on alert.

Bank officials rarely lost any cash in robberies, and most companies worried about personal injury and the death of spectators, employees, or criminals more than the cash. The money that was lost was insured and could be replaced, but a life couldn’t be brought back. With the advanced technology available, robberies were usually a failure. Face recognition software, bank cameras, street cameras, and an alerted staff were usually all that was necessary for recovery of the cash.

But Judy was still unnerved. A threat had been made against her life, and the threat of the huge man at her window only drove the point home. She followed protocol and walked to the safe, pushed the button, grabbed the heavy package and walked back to the window.

Judy handed Tommy the money. She held it with both hands and placed it in his massive right hand. He palmed the package like a ball, and tossed it up in the air. A thousand one hundred dollar bills. The brown paper wrapping had official markings, but Tommy wasn’t impressed. He looked at Judy and only said one word.

“Football.”

One foot plodded after the other as the endless railroad ties passed under John Graham’s feet. The man whose breath cut a jagged path behind him as his feet thumped the ground liked to think of this type of running as plodding. Not really running, or even jogging, but more simply plodding along. He had even developed a name for this pace. He called it the plodder’s mile. One foot in front of the other. Plod on, mighty exercise king. Keep plodding and imagine that it is running, and tell everyone else it is jogging. But to yourself, never be ashamed to plod along this path. One foot, and then another.

Plodding along on the west side of town was always good for reducing stress, and John Graham liked the railroad tracks. He always thought back to the days of running through tires for the one year he played football, although the team probably didn’t really use tires, but was just a cultural imprint from all those football movies he had watched. Bill-paying stress was one of the usual causes of jogging on the tracks, and at least once a month out came the “plodding” shoes. He and his wife Reba had just finished the “you spend too much money” discussion which usually followed the monthly bill payment routine. Heated discussion. Argument. Battle. World War III. Funny how the person doing the accusing always said the other person spent too much, which was answered with, “No, you spend too much.”

Both of which were probably true. As a high school drama teacher, the money wasn’t bad now after 20 years, unless they had to live on only that money, which they didn’t. Reba was a high school administrator, and although they had spent the last 25 years wondering where all the money went, there was never enough even when they were making six figures between them. With part-time work, selling things on E-bay and extracurricular pay, they really didn’t have anything to complain about. But they both still complained. Loudly. Once a month.

It was probably a good thing they were only paid once at the end of the month, since this tended to limit the argument to the first few days of the next month. The rest of the time was spent in a truce where they both waited for the final days before payday, reconnoitering on just how to spend some of the money on an absolutely necessary item to which the other spouse could not possibly object. There were good days, and bad ones, and bad months, (especially August) but most of the other 365 days were spent monitoring each others borders like North and South Korea, waiting for an infraction.

“There’s no more money in the account,” had been one of his last salvos, which was followed by a broad shot by Reba, “Why do you keep writing checks when you say there is no money in the account?”

The strategy board after all these years now included five different checking or savings accounts – more places to hide money. They both had plenty, and there was no argument about the fact that there was plenty to go around. The war was only about “where does it all go”?

John crossed over the river and looked out at the fields which were white with the new snow. It had melted some as the afternoon snow had turned to rain, and the slush left in the fields looked like a freshly cut white alfalfa crop ready to winnow and then bale. The air was crisp and the temperature just right, cold enough to balance the heat created as he plodded along wondering why he felt so crummy. He really didn’t have anything to complain about, and if money was the biggest problem they faced this year, it would be a good year indeed. Breathing in the frosty air, John thought back ten years as he was sitting at Reba’s bedside in the hospital, where he had been telling her to keep breathing, to wake up, keep breathing and keep trying.

The cancer treatments and the pain medications had left her numb in the fingers and toes, but ten years out she was still “free and clear” of any recurring cancer. But those days back in the hospital had changed him forever, even to the point of welcoming her restless tossing and turning at night which kept him awake while she slept. Better to be kept awake by tossing and turning than sleeping alone. He was grateful to still have his wife and the mother of his children around.

So why the discontent? He looked at a perfectly contented horse eating out of a trough at the side of a field. As he jogged past, he noticed the light rain had again turned to snow. The back of the horse was steaming while the snow fell slowly. The horse’s dark coat contrasted with the light of the snow on its back helped him to summarize this train of thought — while there is life, there is opposition — and that’s what makes life worth living.

Even the exercise of jogging opposed the sensible idea of sitting in the house while the snow fell fed the thoughts of opposition. Gravity and weight versus the muscles, which would undoubtedly be sore tomorrow, would produce better health and flexibility. If the literature was to be believed, and John actually kept running during the year, and he completed a fourth marathon, his risks of heart attack would decrease over the next five years. But there was always the uncertainty. Jog on the railroad tracks, get lost in your thoughts, get hit by a train, and all that exercise was for nothing. He thought of a bumper sticker. “The light at the end of the tunnel is from the oncoming train.”

Which made John realize there was a train in the distance, and if he wanted the benefits of this particular cardio-vascular exercise, he would have to get off the tracks for a couple of minutes. He turned aside at another bridge and went under the tracks, jogging comfortably on a running trail which ran by the river. There was a water fountain at a park just half a mile ahead, and then, after a long cold drink, it would be time to jog back home.

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The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

By James Thurber

"We're going through!"

The Commander's voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye.

"We can't make it, sir. It's spoiling for a hurricane, if you ask me."

"I'm not asking you, Lieutenant Berg," said the Commander. "Throw on the power lights! Rev her up to 8500! We're going through!"

The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and twisted a row of complicated dials.

"Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" he shouted.

"Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!" repeated Lieutenant Berg.

"Full strength in No. 3 turret!" shouted the Commander.

"Full strength in No. 3 turret!"

The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each other and grinned.

"The Old Man'll get us through," they said to one another. "The Old Man ain't afraid of hell!" . . .

"Not so fast! You're driving too fast!" said Mrs. Mitty. "What are you driving so fast for?"

"Hmm?" said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. "You were up to fifty-five," she said. "You know I don't like to go more than forty. You were up to fifty-five." Walter Mitty drove on toward Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the SN202 through the worst storm in twenty years of Navy flying fading in the remote, intimate airways of his mind.

"You're tensed up again," said Mrs. Mitty. "It's one of your days. I wish you'd let Dr. Renshaw look you over."

Walter Mitty stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair done. "Remember to get those overshoes while I'm having my hair done," she said. "I don't need overshoes," said Mitty.

She put her mirror back into her bag. "We've been all through that," she said, getting out of the car. "You're not a young man any longer."

He raced the engine a little. "Why don't you wear your gloves? Have you lost your gloves?" Walter Mitty reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone into the building and he had driven on to a red light, he took them off again.

"Pick it up, brother!" snapped a cop as the light changed, and Mitty hastily pulled on his gloves and lurched ahead. He drove around the streets aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the parking lot.

. . . "It's the millionaire banker, Wellington McMillan," said the pretty nurse.

"Yes?" said Walter Mitty, removing his gloves slowly. "Who has the case?"

"Dr. Renshaw and Dr. Benbow, but there are two specialists here, Dr. Remington from New York and Dr. Pritchard-Mitford from London. He flew over."

A door opened down a long, cool corridor and Dr. Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard.

"Hello, Mitty," he said. `'We're having the devil's own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt. Obstreosis of the ductal tract. Tertiary. Wish you'd take a look at him."

"Glad to," said Mitty.

In the operating room there were whispered introductions: "Dr. Remington, Dr. Mitty. Dr. Pritchard-Mitford, Dr. Mitty."

"I've read your book on streptothricosis," said Pritchard-Mitford, shaking hands. "A brilliant performance, sir."

"Thank you," said Walter Mitty.

"Didn't know you were in the States, Mitty," grumbled Remington. "Coals to Newcastle, bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary."

"You are very kind," said Mitty. A huge, complicated machine, connected to the operating table, with many tubes and wires, began at this moment to go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.

"The new anesthetizer is giving away!" shouted an intern. "There is no one in the East who knows how to fix it!"

"Quiet, man!" said Mitty, in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep. He began fingering delicately a row of glistening dials.

"Give me a fountain pen!" he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place.

"That will hold for ten minutes," he said. "Get on with the operation. A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw, and Mitty saw the man turn pale.

"Coreopsis has set in," said Renshaw nervously. "If you would take over, Mitty?"

Mitty looked at him and at the craven figure of Benbow, who drank, and at the grave, uncertain faces of the two great specialists. "If you wish," he said. They slipped a white gown on him, he adjusted a mask and drew on thin gloves; nurses handed him shining . . .

"Back it up, Mac!! Look out for that Buick!" Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes.

"Wrong lane, Mac," said the parking-lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely.

"Gee. Yeh," muttered Mitty. He began cautiously to back out of the lane marked "Exit Only." "Leave her sit there," said the attendant. "I'll put her away." Mitty got out of the car.

"Hey, better leave the key."

"Oh," said Mitty, handing the man the ignition key. The attendant vaulted into the car, backed it up with insolent skill, and put it where it belonged.

They're so damn cocky, thought Walter Mitty, walking along Main Street; they think they know everything. Once he had tried to take his chains off, outside New Milford, and he had got them wound around the axles. A man had had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them, a young, grinning garage man. Since then Mrs. Mitty always made him drive to a garage to have the chains taken off. The next time, he thought, I'll wear my right arm in a sling; they won't grin at me then. I'll have my right arm in a sling and they'll see I couldn't possibly take the chains off myself. He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk.

"Overshoes," he said to himself, and he began looking for a shoe store.

When he came out into the street again, with the overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began to wonder what the other thing was his wife had told him to get. She had told him, twice before they set out from their house for Waterbury. In a way he hated these weekly trips to town -- he was always getting something wrong. Kleenex, he thought, Squibb's, razor blades? No. Tooth paste, toothbrush, bicarbonate, Carborundum, initiative and referendum? He gave it up. But she would remember it.

"Where's the what's-its- name?" she would ask. "Don't tell me you forgot the what's-its-name." A newsboy went by shouting something about the Waterbury trial.

. . . "Perhaps this will refresh your memory." The District Attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the quiet figure on the witness stand. "Have you ever seen this before?'' Walter Mitty took the gun and examined it expertly. "This is my Webley-Vickers 50.80," he said calmly.

An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The Judge rapped for order.

"You are a crack shot with any sort of firearms, I believe?" said the District Attorney, insinuatingly.

"Objection!" shouted Mitty's attorney. "We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the shot. We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the fourteenth of July." Walter Mitty raised his hand briefly and the bickering attorneys were stilled. "With any known make of gun," he said evenly, "I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand."

Pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom. A woman's scream rose above the bedlam and suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Walter Mitty's arms. The District Attorney struck at her savagely. Without rising from his chair, Mitty let the man have it on the point of the chin. "You miserable cur!" . . .

"Puppy biscuit," said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed.

"He said 'Puppy biscuit,'" she said to her companion. "That man said 'Puppy biscuit' to himself." Walter Mitty hurried on. He went into an A. & P., not the first one he came to but a smaller one farther up the street. "I want some biscuit for small, young dogs," he said to the clerk. "Any special brand, sir?" The greatest pistol shot in the world thought a moment. "It says 'Puppies Bark for It' on the box," said Walter Mitty.

His wife would be through at the hairdresser's in fifteen minutes' Mitty saw in looking at his watch, unless they had trouble drying it; sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn't like to get to the hotel first, she would want him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby, facing a window, and he put the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on the floor beside it. He picked up an old copy of Liberty and sank down into the chair. "Can Germany Conquer the World Through the Air?" Walter Mitty looked at the pictures of bombing planes and of ruined streets.

. . . "The cannonading has got the wind up in young Raleigh, sir," said the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked up at him through tousled hair.

"Get him to bed," he said wearily, "with the others. I'll fly alone."

"But you can't, sir," said the sergeant anxiously. "It takes two men to handle that bomber and the Archies are pounding hell out of the air. Von Richtman's circus is between here and Saulier." "Somebody's got to get that ammunition dump," said Mitty. "I'm going over. Spot of brandy?" He poured a drink for the sergeant and one for himself. War thundered and whined around the dugout and battered at the door. There was a rending of wood and splinters flew through the room.

"A bit of a near thing," said Captain Mitty carelessly.

“The box barrage is closing in," said the sergeant. "We only live once, Sergeant," said Mitty, with his faint, fleeting smile. "Or do we?"

He poured another brandy and tossed it off. "I never see a man could hold his brandy like you, sir," said the sergeant. "Begging your pardon, sir."

Captain Mitty stood up and strapped on his huge Webley-Vickers automatic. "It's forty kilometers through hell, sir," said the sergeant.

Mitty finished one last brandy. "After all," he said softly, "what isn't?" The pounding of the cannon increased; there was the rat-tat-tatting of machine guns, and from somewhere came the menacing pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the new flame-throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door of the dugout humming "Aupres de Ma Blonde." He turned and waved to the sergeant.

"Cheerio!" he said. . . .

Something struck his shoulder. "I've been looking all over this hotel for you," said Mrs. Mitty. "Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you?"

"Things close in," said Walter Mitty vaguely.

"What?" Mrs. Mitty said. "Did you get the what's-its-name? The puppy biscuit? What's in that box?"

"Overshoes," said Mitty. "Couldn't you have put them on in the store?"

“I was thinking," said Walter Mitty. "Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?" She looked at him. "I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home," she said.

They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you pushed them. It was two blocks to the parking lot.

At the drugstore on the corner she said, "Wait here for me. I forgot something. I won't be a minute." She was more than a minute.

Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking. . . .

He put his shoulders back and his heels together. "To hell with the handkerchief," said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away.

Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.

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United We Stand

United We Stand

Do you remember back to a time when you were young and carefree? The time when all seemed right with the world, and nothing threatened your sense of security and safety? As children, we seemed not to have a care and didn’t worry about what was happening anywhere else but right where we were. We didn’t know about problems around the world, about problems in our country, or even problems in the neighborhood.

As we grew older, we were gradually introduced to the evil which can exist in the world, and we may have lost that wonder and awe we had back then. We also want to protect our children so they can have that same feeling of protection; that cocoon which helps them feel safe in their world.

Our bridge to the future is the upcoming generations. We are all getting older even though we don’t want to admit it. This is one of the reasons I like working with younger people. It gives me the impression I am much younger than I am, but that’s not a bad thing. Until I look in the mirror and the wrinkles betray all of the life experience I have been blessed to have.

What does it all mean? I’m glad for the time I have left to prepare this world to be a better place in the future, but that also means there will be a time I have to leave. Those who are the next leaders, movers and shakers are slowly filling the ranks and gently pushing us out. As they gain their confidence and move forward to own their own future, we may be relegated to the dustbins of history. I already feel some of this when I try to comprehend the new technologies, the myriad of things I need to know how to do I never imagined I would be able to master, and those things I choose to let pass by me and don’t bother to learn.

I’m not a good at texting, but I do text at times. We’re talking a couple of texts a month, compared with those with the dancing thumbs who can text 20 or 30 thousand text messages a month. I don’t want to be sending a thousand text messages a month. I don’t have that interesting of a life, and I don’t know a thousand people who would be interested. I know these massive totals are texts to a lot of the same people, but why would I want to keep reading text messages from someone who isn’t standing there with me, ignoring the people who are standing there with me.

I also don’t want to become an online gaming addict. I’ve already been through enough of the time wasting on video games in my past, and when my kids got their first Nintendo, I will admit I spent enough time to master the Loony Tunes game where you meet Max at the end. Sadly, some of you will also know what I’m talking about.

As we cross the threshold together, there will come a time when we must let go and let those who will be running the world do it the way they want. Until that time comes, what can we do to help ensure a better tomorrow?

I believe it rests with our positive outlook, and on focusing on the abundance around us. We can’t inspire a new generation with negativity and pessimism. If all the younger generation hears from us in the older generation is how much better it was in the good old days, what kind of message do we send to those we want to trust with the future? Have you ever been given a task by someone who expected you to fail? It’s hard to be inspired when those who give you the job don’t think you can do it.

Think about it. The negativity and pessimism of the current generation could be our fault. If our attitude is things will never get better, but only worse, and we show our lack of faith in the younger generation by undermining their confidence, we may deserve what we get. It’s an interesting proposition. Can you continue in your complaining, and expect a better tomorrow?

Get on board and get positive. Those who want to make a difference in what tomorrow brings need to help the solutions appear by thinking solutions are possible. We need to encourage those who will follow us by telling them they can do it, not that they can’t. When we combine the energies of those who have seen better days with those who want a brighter future, the outcome will be amazing. We can do whatever we set our minds to do, and with positive expectations, we will get there together.

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