Walking Tall

When my wife Robin and I go for a walk, we are doing two separate and very distinct activities.

She is power walking and I am strolling.

It is similar to the notion that I can swim laps and an Olympic swimmer can swim laps, and we will each be doing two completely different sports.

Robin’s legs move like Road Runner when being pursued by Wile E. Coyote.

I have two speeds. Slow and reverse.

On crowded city streets, Robin will hit an open hole like Saquon Barkley (perhaps leaving unwary citizens flattened in her wake), which hole quickly closes leaving me even further behind.

All I ever see is “smoke and heels.”

This is Robin working her way up a Fifth Avenue sidewalk.

I have tried holding her hand, which is quite nice and can apply some brakes, although sometimes I simply get pulled along with the momentum leading to uncomfortable results.

I would say that she is always two steps ahead of me but she would be a mile or two ahead of me if she did not slow down on occasion for my benefit.

Robin could be an Olympic race walker.

According to the USA Track and Field website, race walking requires each competitor “to maintain contact with the ground at all times and requires the leading leg to be straightened as the foot makes contact with the ground and must remain straightened until the leg passes under the body.”

Judges evaluate the technique of race walkers and report fouls which may lead to disqualification, but that would never work with Robin since her feet move so fast her legs are blurs that may actually never make contact with the ground.

That being said, my only course of action has been to use my limited “futball” knowledge obtained from many years as a youth soccer parent to call her for being “offsides.”

This shames her just enough for me to stay even for a few more yards.

Let’s be clear that, notwithstanding countless hours on the youth soccer sideline, neither Robin nor I have any idea what offsides really means.

We are not even really sure why the players cannot use their hands (which would clearly be much more efficient).

According to the Olympics.com website, “Simply put, the offside rule mandates that during a move, an attacking player, when in the opposition half, must have at least two opposition players, including the goalkeeper, between him and the opposition goal when a pass is being played to him.”

To prove this explanation is simple, the website “for clarity” gives an example involving Players A, B, C and D, teams X and Y, and something about the position of the players’ arms, legs and heads.

It is an established fact that the offsides rule is not a real rule at all and was created by the rest of the world to humiliate clueless Americans which, at this point in history, we seem quite capable by doing all by ourselves.

Getting back to Robin’s walking, what Chuck Norris is to self-defense and being an all-around action hero, Robin is to perambulating.

Sadly, we learned that Chuck, star in the television series “Walker, Texas Ranger”, and countless classic romcom films, such as “Good Guys Wear Black,” “Lone Wolf McQuade,” and “The Delta Force,” and who always beat up all the bad guys, passed away in March.

He won the world middleweight karate championship for five straight years starting in 1967, and was the first westerner to earn an eighth-degree black belt in tae-kwon-do, as well as black belts in jiu-jitsu and judo.

Why did he have so many fans? It certainly was not because of his acting.

Maybe it was because he was not a typical beefcake, topping off at a fairly ordinary 5 foot 10 inches and 165 pounds.

Chuck Norris was also so cool that the world had to create Chuck Norris memes.

When Chuck Norris swam in the Ocean, he did not get wet; the ocean got Chuck Norris-ed.

Chuck Norris made onions cry.

And my favorite: Chuck Norris didn’t do push-ups; he did Earth-downs.

A final meme in his honor: Chuck Norris died because the good Lord needed a sparring partner.

What does this have to do with Robin’s walking? Well, nothing, except that Robin walks so fast, with all due respect to Chuck, she should have her own memes.

Robin does not walk, she does Earth spins.

When Robin walks west, she slows down the Earth’s rotation.

Recently, Allan Ripp wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled “A Good Husband Walks,” in which he explained that his wife scolds him for walking ahead of her.

Apparently, as with most everything else, this is a social media thing.

In this case it is about men (you know who you are!) walking ahead of their partners.

As one trauma-recovery expert (is this really trauma requiring recovery?) explained on TikTok “It all comes down to . . . control, power, making you feel disregarded” and is “a symptom of narcissism.”

Who knew that there was a “gender walking gap.” Yet another 21st Century problem to worry about.

At least in this case, Robin is closing the gender walking gap, but one does not stay married for 35 years by accusing one’s spouse of narcissism.

Besides, that would certainly not at all be accurate in Robin’s case (who reads this newsletter so let’s not even go there).

And it cannot be a matter of control.

An older traditional Japanese couple lived next door to us when we moved into our first house over thirty years ago. They regularly took walks with the man at all times literally ten feet ahead of his spouse who dutifully walked behind.

But a Jewish marriage is quite different and operates as a matriarchy. Robin KNOWS she is already in control!

Mr. Ripp claims that he has mended his ways and now let’s his wife lead on crowded sidewalks or when working around a puddle, and sometimes stays in the rear for a few blocks to show his “protective side.”

Big deal. What he views as a gallant gesture sounds like wussy sucking up to me.

I could not ask Robin to stoop so low as to let this sloth set the pace.

Besides, Robin does not just walk faster than me. She has always been one or two steps ahead leaving me in her dust in most regards.

But I would never call her a narcissist.

Not if I want to continue trying to keep up the pace for the next 35 years!

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