My parents are serial walkers. They don’t just take simple strolls around the block. They take WALKS. LONG WALKS. I appreciate that they do this and that they made me take LONG WALKS with them.

Yesterday morning, I received the following in an email from my dad. It made me smile. I hope it makes you smile, too.

Julia and I attempt to take a fairly long walk almost everyday. Most of the time we just walk around the neighborhood. Sometimes, we drive to O’Hara and walk around the beautiful little park and sometimes we go to North Park and sometimes go to Hartwood Acres. We often go the Highland Park water reservoir and do the one mile walk around the lake. We use to walk the two miles from the apartment there and back which makes the total walk 5 miles long. Now, we don’t do that since we are older. We drive and park on the hill behind the lake. This day we had our walk around the lake and were walking up the lane to the car. We approached a new black Chevy and a beautiful young smiling girl, maybe 25 years old, was sitting in the driver’s seat. As we got closer she said, “When I grow up I want to be exactly like you two!” I said, “My goodness, you want to be old and ugly?” She said, “No, I want to be old and beautiful!” So, what could I say? I said, “Thank you. You are already half way there. You are very beautiful and, I think, being old is a long way in the future for you.” Julia and I got into our car and drove away feeling much better about ourselves and a lot better about all people in general.

I can not forget that encounter at the lake and it confirms what Tom Hanks said in the movie, Forrest Gump: “My momma always said, Life was like a box of chocolates. You, never know what your gonna get.”  I say most of the time the candy is good and sometimes, judging from some of the great people Julia and I have met just by chance, the candy is delicious.