I remember the days when I could say that and people would say:
“Oh yea, where?”
I’d say: “Nowhere, I just decided to walk.”

I miss those days a lot lately, but I was watching a movie about a young man who goes to Alaska and lives off of the land, and it reminded me of a walk I took in northern california in the late eighties.
Back then I lived in a high crime area, but I felt this urge to walk.
Dressed in a pair of sweats, three dollars and a hoodie, I walked out of my house. My first point of intrest was a small park by my house. It was a small little league T-Ball field, and a small swing set.
I remember seeing the swing sway from the light breeze that blew that day. I couldn’t resist, I walked to the swing and began to swing. I felt like a little kid, the wind blowing in my face as I’d swing foward, and the pull of the earth’s gravity as I went backwards. I’d kick my legs foward on my way up and pull them back on the way down, after swinging for a few minutes, the daredevil in me cheered for me to go faster and higher. I went as high as I could go and at the peak of height I jumped out of the swing, it threw me about yen or fifteen feet, I landed on the concrete path with a loud smack!
I turned around and saw the swing still moving, and remembered being little.
I also thought about my first college paper that was due by Friday, and I hadn’t even begun to write iit, and it was Tuesday.
I walked onward through the “Quiet” part of my neighborhood. It was quiet because it was across the street from the park, the police patrolled there at random intervals. If they had come by at that moment, they would have asked me what I was doing out walking at 2:30 in the morning.
I walked as fast as I could, but not to cause suspicion, my next stop would be the local seven eleven, which was about eight blocks away. I have to admit I was a little scared to go there, because once after I had went inside to say hello to my friend Ernie, it got robbed ten minutes after I lleft. If I had spoke to Ernie just a little longer, I would have been held up too.
I remember looking at the darkened houses and wondered if they felt at ease living so close to a high crime area, in the “Quiet” area, the houses were nicer than they were on my block, which was only four blocks North, it’s amazing how in just a short distance statistics could change. Low Crime to high crime, sad and amazing.
Once I got to seven eleven, Ernie wasn’t there, instead there was a young lady. I decided to go in, she greeted me when I walked in and I greeted back. I went to the freezer and pulled out a small pint of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. I walked to the counter, the young lady smiled, and rang up my
ice cream. Back then it was only a dollar ninety five.
I asked her for a wooden spoon and she gave me a hard plastic one, I walked out and headed down the main strip of the city, it was quiet and dark, no cars passing by, no one at all.
I walked and walked, and walked, I even passed by the police department, police passed me, but didn’t stop me, they just drove on by.
I miss taking those walks, because the one I described was one of many. I was either stupid or lucky.
Maybe the criminals who saw me thought I was some nut, but either way I learned a lot about who I was, but mostly where I was going in life.
Walks can do that for me, if you can take a long walk maybe it’ll take you somewhere you want to go.

Just make sure that it’s safe to go out, I took risks, and got lucky.

Be safe, take care.

JF

Rosie: “Is that a members only Jacket?”
Maurice: “Yes, Yes it is.”
Rosie: “So are like the last member?”

-Shallow Hal

It’s movie revue time, and some of you know I tend to watch odd movies. I am reluctant to talk about this movie, because is may sound a lot like my other post “Relationships and the Spotless Mind”

This Movie is called “Time”. An asian film about a women whose boyfriend, has “wandering eyes”, so to speak. In other words a women walks by and he looks at her. The main character a women named See-heh, finally gets fed up with her boyfrien Ji-woo, and goes to a plastic surgeon.
He warns her (The Surgeon, Ji Woo doesn’t know yet) over and over that it’s a bad idea, she agrees anyway and gets a whole new face.
She then moves out of her aprtment and just leaves Ji-woo.
He putters around town, goes on a few dates, and months later he meets a women, they hit it off, real well, but when the women asks him about See-heh, he says he still loves her. Turns out the new woman is See-Heh, and just renames her self See-Hee. She loses him, and he goes away.

Of course thats not the whole movie, just wanted to give you an idea of it, I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m happy with the face I got, and if I weren’t(believe me I sometimes wish I had a different face) I wouldn’t change it. My parents gave me that face and I’m proud of it.
NO women outside of my family is worth me changing the way I look, it’s crazy, it’s insane to think
that someone would do that.

I’ve mentioned to family and friends that I would be happy to get a tattoo of my children’s names on me, but a women’s? HELL NO!

All in all the movie makes a good point, that sometimes what you want, and what you need are two entirely different things. If you get the chance and like subtittled movies(It’s english subtittle, but voice is in Korean) check it out, it’ll make you think twice about how much you really love how you look.

Thanks again.

JF