You know that deal that you do when walking in say, a hallway, down a sidewalk or wherever when you just about run into someone? Yeah, the ole, half-shuffle to the left, lean right, grin/nod, juke left & turn right, say, "thank you for the dance" and mosey on your way- all movements, of course, mirror-imaged by the other person?

I about did that while running this morning, with a van... sort of.


So there I was, running at my usual easy pace of a five minute mile, only a 20lb pack on my back, invigorated by the fresh air and exercise, breezing along for the adoring ladies- aw heck, who'm I kidding...


I was gamely trying for the wheezy-shuffle that would only somewhat disgust my sense of pt proprietary while praying for a stroke, compound fracture in a non-painful area, or good-sized meteor that would give me a reasonable excuse to slow down, stop, pass-out, or die - when I noticed the van. I was 'running' on the pavement towards the occasional oncoming traffic of my subdivision, the van was parked on my side of the road and would have been facing me had I not been looking down the ground wondering how bad it really would hurt to take a swan dive from a standing elevation. Ok, not so much concerned with pain (already had that, I was 'running'), but whether or not it would knock my ass out...

As the community is still fairly new, there's quite a few houses that are always being built at any time. Lots of electrician vans, cable-co. vehicles, workers in their personal trucks, flat-beds, and whatnot. The van facing me pulled away from the curb. Now, instead of doing the sensible thing and say, taking two steps to the left and getting my butt up on the curb (too high, what the hell, obstacle course), I did the whole crazy-assed lurch to the right / *pant* / lean left while moving even more right / *wheeze* / realize you're getting close to center-of-the-road-with-no-idea-who's-behind-you (Bad Idea) / all while continuing my 'run'. Finally, I more or less resigned / celebrated the idea of getting squished by the van and came to a stop, in the dead center of the road.


Turns out the driver of the cable-van was an old Marine buddy of mine.


We both paused for the 'squint, tilt-head, slight point, and mutter an expletive' thing...


I've run into buddies on different bases here in the States, a couple of guys in Iraq, one on the strip in Vegas, and one in a hotel lobby in Austin. It was pretty cool, catching up on who was still in, who where & doing what. Trips me out to hear about crazy Lance Criminals that are not the senior Sergeants running the show.


Best part about it? Got to stop and chat w/o totally killing the runner's high I had going on...