Beaten to the draw by the fastest grump in the west

While taking a quiet walk around Wildflower Park the other morning, I bumped into a grump.

The sun was shining, the temperature was balmy, the breeze was soft, and I greeted him as I greet most fellow walkers — with a smile and a “Good morning! Beautiful day today!”

He nodded, but his grumpitude quickly kicked in.

“Won’t be able to do this much longer,” he said.

His comment stopped me short. I worried that he might be facing some major knee surgery that would keep him from hitting the path for a good long time. Or maybe there was some construction plan afoot that would tear up the walking path that I loved so much.

“No?” I asked him with genuine concern. “Why not?”

“This weather won’t hold for long,” he said.

I guess that’s as close as some folks can come to admitting that it’s a nice day — to remind everybody that we should get a jump on feeling depressed because it will soon be gone.

But it was too nice a day to start worrying about what tomorrow might bring, I thought.

Well, I said to him, a changing season is no reason to stop walking. Every day is beautiful in its own way. If it gets breezy, put on a windbreaker. Showers? Slip on some raingear. Get out the boots when it starts snowing.

“Oh? Do they plow the snow on this path in the winter?” he asked.

Well, no, I told him, but a brisk walk through the snow on a winter’s day is…

That’s as far as I got, because he was already firing his ire at a new target.

“As much as we pay in taxes here, you’d think they could plow the snow on this path. I can live in South Carolina and pay less than a thousand a year in taxes,” he said.

OK. Forget the weather. Let’s chat about taxes.

True, I agreed. Taxes are quite a bit higher here. Of course, if you lived in South Carolina…

Too late. Politicians and the economy were next up in his shooting gallery.

“Daley is going to Indiana to help them with their economy. What did he do for our economy? If he thinks he can fix the economy, why not stay here and fix ours?”

I said nothing. Sometimes you have to acknowledge when you’ve met a grump-slinger who is faster on the draw than you are.

It turned out to be a good choice, because by now he was taking aim at teachers.

“This new mayor backed down and gave the teachers whatever they want. What makes them think they’re worth so much money?” he grumped.

As a retired teacher of more than 30 years, that shot gave me a flesh wound. After all, how much did he think a person should earn after spending all that time and money for four jobless years chasing a Bachelor of Arts degree, a couple more for a Master’s degree, and maybe even few more stalking a PhD? How much do doctors and lawyers earn for the same amount of formal schooling?

But he was already reloading before I could clear my holster.

“Besides, all they do in school these days is play with computers. I don’t own a computer. Why should we spend our tax dollars teaching kids how to use every new gadget that comes down the pike?”

Wow, this guy was good. Now he was fanning his pistol, hitting teachers, taxes and technology all with a single shot.

“It’s like this damn cell phone,” he said, pulling one from his pocket. “I never wanted this thing. My kids got it for me. They want to be able to talk to me any time they want.”

Hard to imagine why, I thought.

Just then, in a master stroke of blessed irony — or maybe even divine intervention — the cell phone in my own pocket started to ring.

As I pulled the phone from my pocket with an apologetic shrug and a wave goodbye, he said, “See what I mean? Some people can’t just let you enjoy taking a walk on a nice day.”

No argument there.

Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. If you can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth, then get TR’s book, “Revenge Of The Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.

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