The Power of Anyway

My day at the office was a “grinderoo.” Three different docket control deadlines all converged in a complex commercial case that is set for trial on October 15th. There is an old saying in the entertainment business that it is dangerous to “work with children or animals” because of all of the things that can go wrong. The corollary to that saying in the legal profession should probably be that it is dangerous to work with a client who takes a very active part in his own representation, because of all of the things that can go wrong. That’s what happened today. The client’s piece of the puzzle that was due in my office by noon, arrived at 3:45 p.m. Add to that a copier jam and an understandable yet potentially dangerous support staff error, and you’ve got the makings for chugging Maalox in the car on the way home from the office (I wonder what the calories are in a "chug of Maalox.").

Happily, despite the last minute flurry of activity, everything got filed, served, and catalogued as it should have, when it should have, in the manner it should have.

After a wonderful and healthful dinner of oven roasted scallops and baked potato with chipotle garlic salsa, I felt a sudden case of the woozy sleepies coming on. My bellyful of high quality protein, combined with my daylong aggravation at the office was causing my eyes to roll ever so slowly back in my head.

In that last split second before my head sagged back on the couch and my eyelids closed, I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t power walked today. I rationalized that my stressful day entitled me to skip a night of walking. I rationalized that the day’s rainy weather had left the streets where I walk dangerously slippery, and this, too, entitled me to skip the walk. I rationalized that it was “only one night,” it was “no big deal,” and I had “earned the night off.”

Just then, the telephone rang. It was my nephew. I’ll call him Joe. Joe had been a stud football player in high school. He attended college a few years ago. For one year. He majored in all night poker, alcohol and hot women. And he flunked out. Joe decided that he wanted to prove to himself and to the world that he had learned his lesson. So he joined the United States Army with the intention of making it into the Special Forces. Anyone who knows anything about the Special Forces knows that the failure rate of soldiers making it in is very, very high. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, Joe did exactly what he set out to do.

Within two weeks of landing in Afghanistan, his commander recommended him for a medal for heroism in a live combat situation. That’s just the kind of young man that Joe is. My telephone conversation with Joe reminded me of his harrowing stories about the conditions over in Afghanistan. I asked him how he survived. He said that no matter what obstacles were in his way, he was going to “do it anyway.” He just kept telling himself that over and over. I suddenly realized that I had a lot to learn from my nephew who was half my age.

When our conversation ended I knew exactly what *I* had to do. I got up from the couch, walked into my bedroom, and dressed for my nightly power walk. Mrs. Third saw what I was doing and immediately followed suit.

Some of you have asked me why it says that I am “VERY HAPPILY MARRIED” in capital letters in my online profile. I’ll give you an example. I am sorry to say that I outweigh Mrs. Third by almost 300 pounds. Despite that, when I began my nightly walking, she insisted on three things. First, she would always walk with me (in case something happened, presumably she could call for help or do CPR or something). Second, she always walks a few steps behind me. Not as a sign of deference, but rather, so that she could immediately help me if it looked like I was in trouble. Third, she always lets me set the pace, even though she could jog circles around me if she wanted to (and come to think of it, jogging around me WOULD be a great workout given my current circumference).

Anyone with half a brain would know that a woman like that is a real keeper. And since I have been accused of having half a brain some days, I have managed to keep Mrs. Third interested in hanging around with me for the past 24 years, 10 months and 26 days since our wedding day.

Given the day’s unsettled weather, I asked whether she had looked at the radar. “Yep. All of the bad stuff is north of us moving north.” And she was correct. But what she didn’t know, and couldn't know (as I do because of my meteorology classes in college) is that when one is under an unstable air mass with cold front approaching, showers can, and do, pop up almost any time, almost any place. We put in our headphones, turned on our music, started our timers, and began our walk.

The first quarter of our walk was uneventful. Cooler than most evenings due to the day’s precipitation, with just a hint of moisture near the curbs. A perfect night to walk. At least for the next ten or so minutes, anyway.

At the half way point in our walk, I felt the plink, plink of a few drops on the top of my balding head. Was it residual moisture from a tree? Random drops of rain from the sky? Who cares. I felt too good to give it a second thought.

As we approached the three-quarters mark of our walk, the rain began to fall pretty steadily. Mrs. Third caught up to me and offered me a plastic bag for my electronics. It was just like her to think ahead and bring two ziplock bags, “just in case.” “I don’t need no steenkin’ bag,” I replied playfully. And I didn’t. At least for about another 45 seconds or so.

At the 7/8ths point in our walk, all hell broke loose. The rain came down in sheets and torrents. I turned to Mrs. Third and got the bag from her. I stopped just long enough to stuff my electronics into the bag and seal the zip strip on it. As we came down the back stretch, only four or five blocks from our house, the sheets of rain began falling so hard that I could barely see her. The street was flooded with inches of standing water near the curb, with standing water even making it to the crown of the road.

That’s when I heard the sound. Mixed in with the hot sizzle of the sheets of rain slamming into the ground was the sound of laughter coming from my wife behind me. And the harder it rained, the harder she laughed. I was trying so hard to concentrate on finishing our walk. However, her laughter was so pure, so honest, and so heartfelt that all I could do was join in. So there we were, two laughing, panting, sweating, dripping idiots, sloshing down the middle of Mullins Street in Southwest Houston, trying desperately to get home where we could step out of our saturated walking shoes and strip out of our drenched clothes.

I don’t know what came over me. For reasons that even I don’t understand, I wheeled around, reached up to my wife’s still laughing face, held it in my dripping hands, looked into her eyes, and kissed her tenderly on the lips. It was the most passionate of kisses in the most absurd of situations. Soaking wet in the middle of a residential street, at night, with standing rainwater soaking our feet to the ankles. It was also a moment that I will never, ever forget.

We rounded the corner and finally made it to our front porch. Mrs. Third went in the house to get out of her wet clothes and into a hot shower. I sat on the porch and thought about the night. How I had every reason NOT to walk, but I did it anyway. How I found the motivation to do so by remembering the sacrifice, dedication and heroism of my brother’s son who is half my age. How, if I hadn’t gotten off my rear and put on those walking shoes, I would have missed out on what may well end up being the funnest, most absurd moment of our almost quarter century as husband and wife. How, in the future, no matter what obstacles are in my path-- in weight loss, in business, and in life– rather than sit back and take the easy way, I will know that I can and will “do it anyway.” I laughed, I loved, and I learned the Power of “Anyway.” It has been a good night.