One small jog for man

I was driving along the Ottawa River Parkway one morning when I saw a jogger, in the already sweltering morning heat, stopping to wipe his face on his T-Shirt and stretch his leg against a fence post.

Here I am sitting in the comfort of my air conditioned gas guzzling car, driving my wife to work, and here’s this guy making me feel guilty about it.

To quote Yosemite Sam in the Warner Brother cartoons ‘Aw hates joggers!’*

Thinking about the jogger later on, , my mind harkened back to the Appolo 11 mission to the moon.

I had a vision of Neil Armstrong, having just set foot on the moon, standing near the shuttle stairs after the Eagle had landed, one extended protective spacesuit arm holding an American flag** planted in the lunar soil , uttering the famous line - That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind - when all of a sudden a jogger wearing shorts and a T-Shirt stops right next to Armstrong, puts one foot on the stairs to tie his shoelaces, then proceeds to dry his face on the flag before jogging on. Armstrong stands there dumfounded.

That about sums up my feeling about joggers.

____________________________________________

* I don't really hate joggers. It's just the guilt thing.

** Actually at that very moment there was no flag. Armstrong spoke the words when his foot touched the surface of the moon. However as this is inconvenient to my story I had to alter the facts.

To quote Bugs Bunny, ‘Oh! Well.’