The lights are on, but nobody’s home

In the dark night, you could barely see more than twenty or thirty yards in front of you. Oh, it gets better. When a car or truck came along with their bright lights, it would light up the night, but would temporarily blind you, so you still couldn’t see anything and had to be careful where you stepped.

When I was in my late 20s and early 30s, I used to run daily with one of my neighbors. We’d try to get out of the house and on the road by 8 each night, but unfortunately most nights, until we got the kids to bed and household chores taken care of, it was much later, usually around 10 or 11 p.m. We each had our favorite runs. I preferred one that stayed close to home, but avoided most of the bigger hills. My neighbor’s favorite was a five-mile circular route that took us out of town and along a dark road to a nursery where we’d turn around and run back. 

What was I thinking?

I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, but I file running this route as one of the crazier things I’ve done. I’m not sure how we didn’t get hit by a passing car. Besides the dark night, fog would often roll into the area making it especially dangerous. My wife would always tell me to wear a reflective vest or carry a light, but I rarely did.

I thought about saying something to my neighbor several times about how the route might might not be the safest, how we were too close to traffic, but my competitive nature got the best of me. If he wasn’t going to say anything, then I wasn’t going to speak up. I always rationalized it that we weren’t on the section of roadway for long and it was the only time we could really have a chance to run. Plus, our runs usually became a competitive strength of wills. We’d start out running at a leisurely pace, but over time we’d naturally push up the pace and the next thing you know, we would be running way too fast for a training run.

A close call

I’ve never claimed to be the brightest bulb on the Christmas Tree and my neighbor had a way of drawing out my competitive nature. I tend to push down on my ego, but I still have one. We were two immature kids singing the words to Irving Berlin’s song, “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better.” In short, we were idiots.

I have no idea how we were never in an accident. Once a driver took his eyes off the road and steered partially onto the berm. If he had kept going, I would have been a goner. Somehow I was able to jump out of his way and narrowly miss getting hit.

We all make mistakes

I eventually stopped running with my neighbor and have never run the route again. We all do some crazy things in life, but maybe that’s the good thing about being older, I’m able to look back and laugh at my younger self and learn from my mistakes. Oh, yea, I say a prayer thanking God for looking out for me. Here’s a few other things that I’ve done that I suspect others may be able to relate:

–The wrong decision. One summer when I was in my early 20s, I was walking with friends to another friend’s apartment and instead of walking around to the front of the building, we all decided to climb a fence in the back. I should probably note that when I say fence, I mean a real fence. It was chainlink fence about 12 feet tall and had serpentine-like wire at the top. I was wearing shorts and flimsy dock siders, better suited for the beach than climbing. Of course, the rest of group had no problems. They were up and over in no time. Me? I kept slipping and sliding and ended up cutting myself up with large bloody gashes on my shoulder and hand. Oh, I should’ve known better, I was a fool to even try to climb, but we all make mistakes, right? I’ve long ago chalked it up as a decision I should’ve put more thought into making.

–Where’d it go. I spent twenty minutes two weeks ago searching for my smartphone, wallet and car keys while I talked on my smartphone to my wife and had my wallet and keys in my pocket. D’uh.

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–Read the instructions. My wife and I were so excited. We had bought a new video camera to take videos of our first born, our baby girl. I forget how much we spent but it was a few hundred dollars. For a young couple just starting out, it was a king’s ransom. I couldn’t wait to use it. In my head, I envisioned all the great videos we would take of our precious baby girl. While my wife read the instructions, I started to pull the camera out of the box and tried to play with it. I tried to open the cassette door, but it wouldn’t budge. I tried again. I was determined to open the “darned” thing. I tried a third time, but this time the door broke off and into my hands. Oh, yea, brilliant move Ex-Lax! Of course, at that very moment, my wife got to the instructions explaining how to open the door. I was pushing when I should have been pulling. The store salesman gave my wife a dismissive look when she took it back, but allowed us to return the camera for a new one. We were fortunate, but my wife has never let me forget that one.

–Finding balance. When I was a college student learning my way, I discovered that I liked partying more than I liked studying and burning the midnight oil. Oh, I soon learned my lesson the hard way that I needed to make the most of my college opportunity (or I would find myself back home in the community where I grew up without a job or a future) and needed to straighten up, but I still had my moments. Reflecting on those days, I remember several college parties, especially an annual bash where we drank too much bad beer and swallowed goldfish, but that’s a story for another day.

There’s any number of ways to describe someone doing something unwise or stupid: not the sharpest tool in the shed; a few fries short of a Happy Meal; a few cards short of a full deck. I’ve had my moments, but hopefully most of them are in the past.

Oh, the crazy things we learn from our youth.