You meet a lot people along the way when you walk regularly, as I do.  People like myself, stretching the legs and trying to keep Grandfather Time at bay, people out for the fresh air, people shuffling off to work or shuffling back from it, people out hoping to clear their heads from the weighty matters of life, and people walking their dogs.  The common denominator, of course, is people.

These people come in all shapes and sizes, colours and hues, and are all carrying their individual backgrounds with them as they walk, some in the same direction as yourself, others coming towards you and passing by in the opposite direction.  Some even on the other side of the road.

In the vast majority of cases, an interaction, albeit brief, takes place, often in the form of a wave, wishes for a good morning, a simple “hi, how are you,” Nothing too crazy.  Nothing too involved.  Just the kind of stuff you’d see in an old Norman Rockwell painting of a time seemingly gone by — and I appreciate many of you would have no idea who Norman Rockwell might be — but a time that, in that sense never really left us, that basic interaction with strangers along the way, something small towns are supposed to be noted for.

One such stranger is a man with two dogs, a regular along my route for a few weeks, although I’ve not seen him recently.  I first interacted with him when he was walking his dogs on a path perpendicular to mine.  Owing to the size differential of the two dogs, and owing to the angle upon which I was viewing them, the two dogs actually appeared to me to be one dog.  A dog that seemingly had more legs to it than God might have intended.  Legs that moved in a way that defied my ability to make sense of the whole thing.  Obviously, as we got closer to one another, it became apparent that I was just viewing the two dogs at an angle that made them appear as one, some hydra-legged beast from an ancient Greek tragedy.  But no, two dogs, one owner, and everything was as it should be in the world again.