Five years ago this month we went in for our annual physicals where are doctor gave us a real talking to. He had told us for years that we needed to get moving, but this time there was an additional element added to the pep talk. He told Bill, “If you don’t start walking, you’ll be riding around in a cart within a year.”

I don’t know what went through Bill’s head when he heard those words, but I know what went through mine. I understood full well that being sentenced to riding around in an electric would amount to a death sentence for him, so we came home and started walking. At first I could only walk 250 steps or so at a time without sitting down to rest, and it took weeks to build up to that magic-sounding goal of 10,000 steps a day, a total that turns out to be right at five miles. At the time I weighed 265 pounds and was wearing a size 26 pants.

As I walked that spring and summer, I remember watching my shadow and wondering if my hips would ever get smaller. Well, guess what? They did. The combination of changing our eating habits and doing our walking worked. I lost 65 pounds, and went from a size 26 to a size 16.

It’s five years later, and I’m still walking. According to the pedometer on my phone, as of Friday of last week, I’ve walked 7,000,000 steps since I started keeping score. Yes, there are six zeros on that number. According to the app, that means I’ve walked more than 3,000 miles—far enough to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Hey, maybe I could be a pioneer when I grow up.

But speaking of growing up—that’s what I did in Bisbee, Arizona—I grew UP! People who meet me in person are always surprised by how tall I am, which is to say, 6′-1″. Several times fans have told me, “You don’t look this tall on book covers.” That’s because book cover photos are usually taken with the subject seated.

But I am tall, as tall as my Grandma Busk and her mother, Grandma Hansen. I was six feet tall by the time I was in seventh grade, and that was not a barrel of laughs. I towered over most of the girls, many of the boys, and some of the teachers.

For someone who was that tall in junior high and high school, shopping was an absolute misery. My friend Pat could walk into J.C.Penneys and come out wearing pants that went all the way to her ankles. We once went in and tried to buy matching outfits. Her pants came out just fine. Mine ended up looking like pedal-pushers. When my mother relented and took me to visit the Tall Shop in Tucson, the clothing there was aimed at people much older than I was. And shopping for shoes wasn’t much better. It took years to overcome the ego damage from a shoe-salesman at Ortega’s Shoes who told me my feet were like “gunboats.” (He didn’t last long, by the way. Mr. Ortega gave the guy his walking papers shortly thereafter. I doubt I was the only customer he insulted.)

So now we’re going to move the timeline of this blog forward some sixty or so years. Almost a year ago, we sold our Tucson house. We had owned it for close to twenty years, and as my clothing sizes changed, the items I’d “outgrown” moved to the far end of the closet—and stayed there. I hated shopping for clothing so much, that I just couldn’t bear to part with pants that were long enough for me even though I could no longer wear them. When it was time to move out, I went through the closet and unloaded the clothing that was way too big. What I found in the far back corner were the size-sixteens that I was able to wear briefly in 2002 and 2003 when we were following Dr. Atkins’s advice almost religiously. And it wasn’t just pants, either. I found the lovely blue cocktail dress that I bought from Cele Peterson’s dress shop in 2003 in honor of my daughter and son-in-law’s renewal of vows celebration. (I can still wear that one, by the way. It’s now my go-to dress for formal dinners on cruise ships.)

After we dragged all our freshly-curated clothing home from Tucson, it was time to re-do the closet at this end of the road. We put all our clothing on racks in the garage while California Closets came to call.

This week, I went into the closet and grabbed a pair of black jeans. When I tried to zip them up, I had trouble. Surprised, I looked a the label—Tall Shop Size 14. I remember buying them in 2003 when Seattle’s Tall Shop was still in business. How they managed to hide out in a back corner of a closet for that long, I have no idea. It probably has something to do with having two closets at opposite ends of the road.

So what did I do when I encountered that size 14 label? I did what any right-thinking girl from the sixties would do—I went out to the bedroom, laid down flat on my bed, zipped them right up, and wore them.

And there you have the two milestones for the week—7,000,000 steps and size fourteen pants.

Not bad for someone who’s verging on her 76th birthday—not bad at all.

PS: I have a problem with that tacky fashion statement where ladies pants feature threadbare thighs and legs. For one thing, my long closeted pants are indeed beginning to wear out, but they’re not wearing out on the front of the legs. They’re wearing out on the inseams. Why? Because they are OLD! They don’t consist of new material that has been deliberately “distressed.” If you read Sins of the Fathers and notice J.P. Beaumont grumbling about those phonily-ragged pants worn by one of the characters, you’d better believe that Beau and I are on the same page on that score!

PPS: Have a lovely Covid-free day!