It was about a year and a half ago. I was on a treadmill in the Burdette Tomlin cardiopulmonary rehab center, slogging along, gently swinging my arms at my side.
An aide came by, paused, watched my form, then commented, “Used to be a walker huh?”
“Used to be?”
Used to be. It burned into my brain, and has never left.
Then newly diagnosed with a lung disease, my lifelong brisk walk might never be the same, but it was far from used to be.
If God gives you lemons, you find a support group.
Burdette’s pulmonary support group meets monthly for lunch. Its members are jolly, uplifting, courageous, inspiring, fun to be around. And hungry.
Since my diagnosis, my walk has slowed, the 20 steps to my Herald office sometimes loom like Mount Everest, and, five weeks ago, a case of pneumonia gave me a double whammy from which I slowly recover.
When you move to the shore, as I did 25 years ago, you walk the beach. In the 15 years prior to that, I lived in Delaware County, Pa., and my preferred walk was in the side-by-side Ridley Creek State Park and Tyler Arboretum.
The beach has been a busy, noisy, morning walk. Sand pipers scurrying ahead of me. Laughing gulls mocking me. The crash of the surf. And occasionally the sight of dolphins, sometimes intent on a destination, other times frolicking.
Afternoon was my favorite time at Ridley and Tyler, in the late winter-early spring. Enough ice and snow for my boots to crunch. The snow was melting into little rivulets that widened and became tiny streams I could jump across, sometimes stepping on a log.
Who ever thought of the perfect word, gurgle? As the clear water flowed, it picked up leaves, brown or golden, that bobbed along, this way and that.
Birds chirped, a friendlier sound than the gulls. Squirrels shot up and down the trees.
It was cold, but I was never cold in those days.
A frequent goal was to emerge from Ridley Creek State Park onto Route 352 just across from the Locust Crest Tavern where chili, cheeseburgers, and draught beer would fortify me for the return to the park. Aaah, good.
This new illness socked me just before my Jan. 28 birthday, spoiling plans to get together with my two oldest daughters, and a chance to see my grandson Matthew play in a basketball tournament.
Missing work is practically unheard of in my history. Once, when I worked for the Daily Times in Chester, Pa., I bent to pick up what I thought was a spare tire, forgetting it was still on the rim. That threw out my back and me out of the office for some time.
To put a positive spin on pneumonia, I decided to consider this a dry run at retirement, the difference being my illness.
Will this answer the age-old question: Can a column be written in pajamas?
I wake at 4 or 5 a.m. and unsuccessfully try various methods to fall back asleep. Counting backwards used to do it. No more. I intentionally try for recurrent pleasant dreams. There is one where I am in an old city — Chester? — and looking in stores for baked goods. Sticky buns preferably.
But usually the red numbers on the digital clock stare me down and I arise predawn, at 6 a.m., head to the living room sofa, and spend the next three hours going back and forth between Don Imus, the Today Show, the mute button, and NPR.
Who says I can’t multitask?
As the “Best of Imus” fades, my wife brings in the three newspapers we have delivered (I do not venture outside into the cold.)
The quality of cable news and the daily newspapers I read is so sad as to cause depression. I wonder how many Herald readers realize how lucky they are?
After 9 a.m. the TV is off until The Lehrer Report at 6. Until then, I read and ponder while following the sun: the kitchen at noon, the living room at 3ish, the bedroom at 4ish.
And eat. I am always hungry; the steroids presumably.
This retirement dry run followed a Christmas in which my family members, all on their own, flooded me with books on retirement. We laughed uproariously as I opened present after present to find still another jammed with how to enjoy retirement.
The problem is, much of the advice assumed activities dependent upon good health.
The biggest laugh — not cruel — was for the book “The Wisdom of the World’s Oldest People.” My wrinkles, but not my years, matched many of the portraits of those oldest, mostly women of course. I laughed at Christmas. I am reading it now.
So here I am, following the sun and recovering. Walking slowly, but not “used to be” yet.
