Slow Down and Take a Walk with me.
Every morning our dog, Tucker, and I take a walk around our neighborhood and here’s what I experience.
Almost every morning around nine o’clock our dog, Tucker, springs to life the second he hears me touch his leash, no matter how quietly I do it and he comes running to the foyer wagging his tail. It’s amazing because he’s usually sleeping soundly when I do this. He’s a fourteen pound Shih-Tzu; yeah, he’s a bit of a foodie.
He walks in front of me the whole time, but he doesn’t pull. I’ve decided he’s just a born leader! As we near the end of the court he heads over to the other side where he wants to make his first stop. This will be a city light pole on the corner and he’ll sniff it thoroughly until he feels satisfied before he marks it. He marks everything.
As we walk along his attention is usually on the ground while mine is straight ahead as I want to take in everything. Today the sky is an azure blue with the sun shining brightly and no wind, which is very unusual here in Kansas. A lot of people who drive by wave at me and I wave or nod back. Tucker and I are a common sight in the mornings and I recognize their cars, but not them. We don’t know each other. It’s a friendly little town and here is some background for those of you who like this sort of thing.
We live in Andover which is a small town east of Wichita. The population is around thirteen thousand and it covers just over ten square miles. The median age here is thirty-four which means, based on age, we are among only three percent of the population. We have lived here since the mid nineties. We were thirty when we moved here and built our first home. That was forty years ago. We now have ten public schools, five are elementary.
People choose to live here because of the schools which rate as tenth out of all the public schools in the state. Andover is rated #1 for best suburbs to raise a family, in the Wichita area. The median income per family is ninety thousand and most of the homes sell in the $200–$800,000 range. Terradyne Golf course and clubhouse is here and it’s surrounded by high end houses, $400K plus, with another addition across from it named Belle Terre which tops those prices. Wichitans call Andover yuppieville, but everyone here scoffs at that.
Now back to our walk…
A half block from our cul de sac is a small neighborhood park complete with a modern jungle gym, sand box, benches and a small basketball court. It’s outlined in trees and it backs up to several backyards fenced with rot iron. It’s lovely and quaint, but Tucker only notices it for the fire hydrant close to the street. Marking… always marking. As we leave there we pass several homes of people we know and have occasionally socialized with. There’s James Pond, not James Bond, although we teasingly call him that. He’s a retired police officer and retired college professor at Butler Co. Junior College which is also located here. His wife is a retired nurse. Nikki and Chris and their three kids. She’s a personal trainer and he’s a big mucky muck at an oil company located in El Dorado which is twenty miles east of here. Then there’s Mrs. Smith, not her real name, who’s a retired teacher and long time volunteer for CASA. (Court appointed Special Advocates for children) Her landscape is the best as it’s obvious she has a green thumb and she loves flowers…Tuck is NOT allowed to mark anywhere in her lawn.
Then we reach the home of another older widow who has the most beautiful mature Willow tree, but her little dog is a barker who roams free inside an invisible fence which means we hurry by. Next we come to Mr. Thirty Something Friendly who is sometimes out working on restoring an old antique truck. I don’t know his name but we always greet each other.
The next half mile we’re on a sidewalk that passes homes that appear deserted. At work I’m guessing, or maybe they’re still inside working. It’s quiet here so I hear the chatter of birds in the trees and an occasional caw caw from crows… A sure sign that Fall’ is coming. We pass the community swimming pool that’s also closed now and another small park. On one side of the streets the homes back up to a public golf course. Tucker knows this area for the trees that line the streets and the fire hydrants and lamp post on each corner.
When we walk here on weekends the air is scented by dryer sheets that waif out from open garages. It’s common for the houses to be built with the dryers venting into the garages and I smile as I mentally try to guess the scents… ‘There’s Bounce and, oh yeah, that’s Gain.’ A little game to liven our walk. Tucker is oblivious to all of this as he’s still reading the Doggy News in the grass that his friends have kindly left for him.
Speaking of grass, we were hit by Army worms this Summer so many of the lawns are at least partly bare now. Some home owners have verti-cut and reseeded while others have aerated their lawns. My husband figures he has more time than money so he is patch seeding the bare spots in our lawn…It’s always something.
I always, always smile when we’re walking and I hear the church bells chime. There’s a large Catholic Church a few blocks away and they chime every quarter hour and I recognize it as the Westminster Chime. If we hit it right on the hour we get to hear it GONG. It gives me the feeling that I live in a small quaint little valley. Just quiet mornings, bird song and church bells…. ahhh
Our walk is just over a mile and when we get a few blocks from my house Tucker slows down. Not so much because he’s tired, but because he starts looking for his pals. Several houses along here have dogs fenced out in the backyards and our once quiet walk is over when they begin to greet each other. These dogs run to where they can see us and then follow us along their fences as we pass by, barking and whining and Tucker always has to talk back. It’s all friendly though as it’s tail wags like they’re saying, “hey dude, how’s it hanging?”
Everyone here has a mailbox on a wooden post out by the curb in front of their house and Tucker has to sniff each of them which keeps us on slow roll to home. I’ve come to think of this as our cool down as it’s only the last block or so. The newer area we just left all have their mail boxes located together in locked slots that are grouped together and stationed every couple of blocks. I watch them pull their cars up and then get out and unlock them to get their mail. It is safer I guess, but it’s also less convenient.
I hope you have enjoyed walking with me and Tuck through our neighborhood. I feel very blessed to live here and to have so many simple pleasures that I’m free to enjoy now in my retirement. I count these simple walks everyday as a special kind of blessing that I don’t ever want to take for granted. After all, who knows if I’ll be able to do this tomorrow? There is no guarantee I will even be here tomorrow and if I’m not, Tuck and I will miss this a lot.
Do you have a simple blessing you look forward to and enjoy everyday? If so, I’d love to hear about it here in your comments.