In the world of 5k athletics, there are cheetahs, wounded gazelles, and then me; the manatee

I was supposed to run a 5k race this past Sunday. Well, not actually the 5k part, and not actually run. I signed up to participate in the one mile walk. After a long winter of beer and burritos even that seemed daunting, but I was determined to do my part to help raise money for the Greenville Education Foundation.

My best turned out to be showing up late and missing the run entirely. No, that's not entirely true; I showed up with 20 minutes to spare, but spent that whole time looking around for the sign-in booth. By the time the starter's pistol fired, I still hadn't found it.

The Foundation still got my money, so I don't have to feel guilty about it. I'm a little bummed over missing the after-party with friends, but I'll live.

I still had a good time people watching. People watching is one of my favorite sports. If I had my way, Topps would sell bubble gum trading cards with regular people on them; you know — "One-tooth Guy from the County Fair", "Fat Lady with Red Hair and Seven Kids Under Age Five", "ZZ Top Beard Guy" — that sort of thing.

Strolling through the surprisingly large crowd of runners, joggers and walkers, I felt like anthropologist Jane Goodall, stealthily skirting the perimeter of a chimp-filled clearing, observing behavior, making mental notes on primate mores. Except in my opinion, humans make for far more interesting specimens than do chimpanzees. Unlike chimps, we not only talk, we usually refrain from throwing feces at each other (with the possible exception of politicians during election years).

And while all chimps look alike (at least to me and I hope that doesn't make me a species-ist) people are wildly diverse in both appearance and behavior. Nowhere is this more apparent than at the starting line of a 5k run. Observing these differences was made easier by the fact that event organizers had already segregated participants into their component groups. As I walked among them, I began to realize the group to which I had previously assigned myself — the one-mile walkers — was never going to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, no, not even the Swimsuit Issue. In fact, especially not the Swimsuit Issue.

Leading the pack were the serious runners, those who planned to pour 100-percent of their considerable physical prowess into out-running every other runner in attendance. These folks were the amped-up cheetahs of the pack; lean, mean running machines, taut muscle flexing sinuously beneath lightweight running shorts and high-tech T-shirts designed to wick away moisture. Most of them sported sneakers that cost more than my car.

There was a time, long ago, when I might have fit in with this group. Not anymore. Now I felt like an old manatee waddling among young greyhounds.

Next in line were the 5k runners who planned to trot the whole course but didn't really give a hoot where they placed. These were the soccer moms who had recently taken up jogging to lose those extra winter pounds before the arrival of swimsuit season, the ex-high school jocks working a desk job for the past ten years who figured they still had one race left in them, the old guys with one too many Clint Eastwood movies under their belts and the feeling they had something to prove.

Five years ago, this would have been my crowd.

Not anymore. My crowd was farther back from the starting line. Much farther. But we'll get to them soon enough.

Next up were the walkers who planned to do the whole 5k course. Though there were still a few nice sneakers and water-wicking T-shirts in evidence, these folks were for the most part dressed in comfortable street clothes.

They looked reasonably fit, though lacking the muscular definition of runners closer to the starting line. A few were having second thoughts about tackling the whole course, but on the whole they appeared to be a confident, comfortable lot, the neighborly sort who would offer you a frosty front porch beer on a warm summer's evening. I felt at home in their company.

But their company, alas, was not my own. My place was in the back of the pack, with the one-mile walkers. With a few exceptions, this group was comprised of the very young, the moms tending the young, and those — like myself — who are a little older and going soft around the edges. If we were gazelles, the lions would have been trying to separate us from the rest of the pack.

These, I realized, were my people. In the past four decades, I've somehow gone from sleek cheetah to limping gazelle.

But that's OK. I've seen Disney movies. I know about the circle of life and I'm comfortable with my place in it. I don't have to be the fastest or the fittest; all I've got to do is make sure there's at least one limping gazelle behind me. Keeping the lions company.

Mike Taylor's book, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available in paperback from mtrealitycheck.blogspot.com or in eBook format from Amazon.com. Email Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.

I’m just tryin’ to keep the customer satisfied, one word at a time

I’m worried about an email I received from a reader the other day. I get a lot of mail, most of it complimentary. It’s complimentary not because I’m the next James Thurber, but because I rarely write about anything of consequence and do my best to avoid controversial topics.

When it comes to reproductive rights, gun control, religion, politics and parenting, I’d just like to state emphatically and for the record that I agree wholly and completely with you.

Well, no, I probably don’t. I have strong opinions about all these things; it’s just that I don’t care whether you agree with me. I’ve never felt the need to convert anyone to my way of thinking. I’m an old hippie with a live and let live philosophy. Different strokes for different folks. All that love-bead, peace-sign, bell-bottom, Volkswagen Mini-Van, flowers-in-your-hair hooey.

So when it comes to this column, I write for the most part about things that amuse me; things I think are funny and things I hope others also will find amusing. Sometimes I hit my mark, sometimes I don’t. In the long years I’ve been writing, I’ve learned to accept that every word tumbling from my laptop is not Shakespeare. I’m trying to make a buck here, not build a legacy.

Which is why the recent reader letter worries me. For starters, the writer – for legal reasons I’ll call him Elroy, though his real name is Henry – does not have a high opinion of many of my fellow columnists; none of them, in fact. As to my own columnistic prowess, he – for the time being, at least – reserves judgment. (And yes, the word “columnistic” is one I just made up. Please file your complaints with Merriam-Webster.)

But the thing that worries me is Elroy (real name: Henry) finds odious several writers whom I, personally, like a lot. And he dislikes them for the same reasons I do like them.

Like me, several of these columnists write about nothing in particular; just the everyday minutiae that comprise our little lives here on this big planet. Home improvement projects gone horribly awry; diets that leave us 10 pounds heavier; teenage sons and daughters who routinely shave years from our lives … things that, in the words of the Immortal Bard of Stratford on Avon (some guy named Bill), are “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

We’re like Facebook, only with better grammar and less profanity.

Elroy (OK, let’s just call him Henry and be done with it) hates columns like these. According to Henry (that guy we were until recently calling Elroy), he dislikes columns about “upper crust” citizens, big butts and other weight-loss concerns, money worries, and name-dropping. Over the years, I myself have written essays about all these things along with topics even more mundane.

I have a bad feeling Henry isn’t going to like my column, either, once he reads a few of ‘em. (This one, for example.)

But that’s OK. I can live with that. In this age of spoon-fed televised media, where most folks ingest all their information, pabulum-like, through one video screen or another, Henry is still reading a newspaper, dammit, and that makes him all right in my book. If he hates me, at least he’s reading me!

And come to think of it, I’ve hated a few columnists in my life and yet read them every week, just so I could remind myself of why I hated them. (Former Grand Rapids Press writer John Douglas leaps to mind.) But, like Henry (formerly Elroy), I read them anyway, and then complained bitterly to anyone who would listen.

So, go ahead, Henry. Do your worst. Write me anytime to let me know what an idiot I am. I have ex-wives who have called me far worse. I can take it. Hopefully, we’ll have a long and adversarial relationship.

Mike Taylor’s book, Looking at the Pint Half Full, is available in eBook format from Amazon.com.  Email Taylor at mtaylor325@gmail.com.