Even an activity as seemingly innocuous as a neighborhood walk can turn into an exercise bracketed by buffoonery.
Allow me to explain.
The wife was back from her walk Sunday. The granddaughters were planning on watching a Christmas movie with their daddy. I needed to get in a few miles myself.
So, I left my house at about 4:43 p.m. and couldn’t even get off the block before encountering the first bit of annoyance. A group of late-teen boys (at least I think they were boys, but I apologize in advance if some of them were gender-confused girls) turned onto the street and dispersed in the kind of spread-across-the-sidewalk pattern favored by would-be toughs.
Think of it as a game of pedestrian chicken, to see who will veer out of the way and avoid contact.
All were at least as tall as me, but also considerably thinner. Visions of bowling pins filled my brain as I kept walking. When they realized I wasn’t deferring to them and shuffling onto the grass, two of them yielded to their right, falling in behind the others.
Just before I got to them, one uttered “Good evening,” to which I replied, “Hello.”
They continued walking, as did I. But, while still within earshot, one offered, likely for my benefit, “We oughta rob that guy.”
Replied I: “Go for it, baby!”
No takers.
And so it goes.
The years have taught me attitude is important. If you act scared, you embolden people to press you.
Allow me to share one incident.
I was new to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in November 1994 when I covered a Steelers game with the Los Angeles Raiders in the L.A. Coliseum.
After the game, I had ridden down the press box elevator and begun walking to meet a cab that I had called when two security guys in yellow windbreakers said they would walk me to my car.
“It’s going to be a long walk,” I told them. “My car is parked at the Pittsburgh airport.”
They decided they’d guard me while I awaited the cab. But, when we got to the street separating the Coliseum from the LA Sports Arena (a basketball arena since torn down) there was a California Highway Patrol car parked in front of the arena with its motor idling.
The security guys felt I’d be OK as long as he was there, but they left with the warning “If someone jumps you, try to make a lot of noise, knock over garbage cans or something, so we’ll hear you.”
Within minutes, a guy hit me up for $5 for a deposit to borrow jumper cables from a garage.
I told him no way, and shortly thereafter another guy wanted to borrow $5 to make a long distance phone call. Remember, this was 1994 so there still were phone booths and the like. He would return my money once his ride arrived following the call.
Feeling a bit mischievous, I told him that I’d called a cab and didn’t know from which direction it would come. I asked him if he was a betting kind of guy, then offered to give him first pick. If he was right, I’d give him the $5. If I was right, he’d owe me $5.
I still recalled the baffled look on his face, which remained until the cab driver pulled up (from my right for those of you keeping score at home) with his driver’s door in front of me, reached behind to open the rear door and ordered me in — immediately if not sooner.
As we sped away, he scolded me. He said I was an idiot to be standing around in that neighborhood when I clearly didn’t belong.
I told him something along the line of I didn’t suspect he could get his cab up the elevator, so I didn’t have much choice
There are other walking/standing tales in my memory banks, but we’re running long here so I’ll save them for another time.
The punctuation on tonight was more more typical neighborhood fare. As I bent over on my front steps to unlace my shoes at walk’s end, one of the youthful neighbors arrived home and perhaps spotted me lingering. In the past he has been an annoyance due to he and his friends mistakenly thinking they have fast vehicles simply because they can deposit a bit of rubber on the street.
Perhaps for my benefit, he power-braked his pickup truck to a pathetically brief driveway burnout before giving up on it all.
I kind of felt sorry for the guy.
Sam Ross Jr's site 