My Conversation WIth John

As I was riding the Pinellas trail bike path near Waterboard, I noticed this gentleman sitting on the bench reading, two days in a row, Somewhat intrigued, I stopped on the pretense of needing to rest. This is, more or less, the conversation we had.

Me: Mind if I have a seat and rest?

John: (moving his cellphone closer to him) No.

Me: What are you reading?

John: (without saying anything showed me the book. It was The Air That I Breathe, an autobiographical book about a neurosurgeon dying of cancer.

Me: Ah. I read it. It's pretty heavy.

Me. (Thinking I'd recommend A Gentleman In Moscow) Do you read fiction?

John: No, not often. (At this point I thought he had some kind of speech disorder, but discovered he had an English accent.) I've been reading Eastern Theology lately. Mysticism, Bhagavad-Gita, Eastern Spiritualism. The Hierarchy of Heaven. It is all so simple and easy, you know? Not at all like Western theology.

Me: No, Christianity has a lot of inconsistencies.

John: Do that! Don't do that! That's how you train a dog!

Me: (Laughing) I've seen you sitting here reading. It's a nice place to read. Nice and quiet.

John: I live over there at Pinecrest. It's a nice place and the staff are friendly. But the people! They are like the Walking Dead. They stopped learning when they were 60. I take a book with me to the dining room.

Me: It serves as a wall?

John: Yes.

Me: Very effective.

John: It's like they stopped wanting to know things, they got old and stopped being curious. I'm 96.
Me: How long have you been here in the U.S.?

John: 26 years. I lived for a while in Tennessee. The people there were more curious than here.

Me: Oh, that wouldn't be my impression. (I said it low so he couldn't hear me.)

Me: You look good. Was it the genes or did you exercise?

John: I played a lot of tennis and football (soccer). I played it in my eighties. I tried to keep fit.

Me: Well, keep reading John and hope to see you again.

John: Humph. ( The humph was kind of dismissive like I'd wasted enough of his time. No further looks, just back to the book. I wonder if he thought I was more Floridian or Tennessean? I'm going to try to find him again when I go back. Then again he may try to find a different, more quiet bench.)

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Flashback Friday

Class, Or Lack Thereof The Dwight Vice gravestone in Oquawka, Illinois. I bring this old chestnut out every so often just to remind me that class is classless. Dwight Vice was killed in his home near Oquawka in 2001. It was one of those things that can generate crime: two guys thought Dwight had a lot of money stashed at home because of his pot-selling sideline to supplement his fishing job. Not really one of those big drug deals gone-bad things. Marijuana was, according to the trial, about the only stuff Dwight sold. But these two guys barge into the house and killed Dwight and attempted to kill his 11 year old kid, Darryl, before they took off with what money they could find. His son, now 23, was stabbed in the back and left for dead. He survived and is wheelchair bound and has undergone several surgeries to repair his wounds. He will be paralyzed for life. None of this is pleasant. Reading the facts of the murder and attempted murder are most unpleasant

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Existing In BFE

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