One of the things that happens to authors on tour—at least to THIS author on tour—is that I end up in a time zone warp where my bodily clock is a long way from where my body is.  That means I don’t want to sleep when I’m supposed to sleep and I also don’t want to wake up and be pleasant for early morning interviews.  But tonight was an entirely new experience.

We stopped for dinner on our way to University Bookstore in Mill Creek.  The Happy Hour menu in the restaurant advertised Taco Tuesdays and Wings Wednesdays.  A Wings Wednesday menu sounded like it would be just the ticket, except today wasn’t Wednesday.  It was Thursday—all day long.  That meant that the blog that SHOULD have been  written yesterday is being written in the car, parked outside the bookstore.  This time I wasn’t just clock-challenged, I was seriously calendar-challenged.

We’re doing Seattle area events right now.  That means we’re staying at our house but still living out of our suitcases.  We have minimal groceries available and hence a limited at-home menu.  Oh, and Jojo and Bella aren’t here, either.  They’re still in Tucson.  That makes for a not-exactly-homey homecoming.

But I love walking at home.  I went out this morning and got my ten, walking in my robe and jammies in the privacy of our own driveway.  And while I was walking, I was thinking about another walker.

He’s a neighbor of ours which is to say he lives somewhere nearby in the Cherry Crest neighborhood, but I can’t tell you his name because I don’t know it.  I noticed him a year and a half ago when we first started walking because he was walking, too.  More or less.  He was tall and thin and usually dressed from head to toe in bright yellow rain gear.  And he walked with a strange, stiff-legged gait that made him look like someone walking on a very ungainly pair of stilts.  I called him Stick Man.

When I saw him out trudging up hill and down (We do have some very steep hills around here!) I was always struck by his determination and by the fact that he was out there walking every single day no matter what.  His good example was an inspiration to me and a prod as well.  As in, if he can walk, I sure as hell can walk, too.

I’m a writer, so when I see something or someone of interest, I tell myself stories about them—creating a back story of sorts where none existed.  I imagined that he was a once-fit man who had been felled by some serious medical catastrophe or another.  It seemed to me that his having suffered a stroke would go a long way toward accounting for that ungainly gait.

This week, once we got home, the first thing I did was go down to the ponds in the back yard to check on the fish.  Thank God and Nerf Gun Whistling Bullets, the Big Guy still lives!  And so do all our other fish as well.  They’re thriving, in fact.  Then yesterday, while running an errand in the neighborhood, who should we see but Stick Man, except he wasn’t wearing his rain gear this time.  Nope, he was dressed in a white tee-shirt and a pair of red shorts doing a very good job of almost jogging.

I wanted to jump out of the car and hug him.  I wanted to tell him GREAT JOB!  I didn’t do either one, of course, but here’s a guy who has fought his way back from what should have been crippling circumstances and who deserves a huge pat on the back.  I don’t know him, but Stick Man is my hero.

I’ll bet he’s yours now, too.