Walk Like a Man

Researchers speculate there might be a connection between a person's gait and the possibility of dementia at some point in his life. The shorter the gait, the greater the possibility of dementia. So naturally, being the hypochondriac that I am, I took notice of my gait on this morning's walk. I concluded that my gait was normal, if not better than it has been, following a few months of strolling around the neighbourhood at 5 in the morning. No dementia for me! I should have known, as I can still perform fairly complicated math in my head and crosswords are not particularly challenging; however, when I speak, my mouth can't keep up with my brain and I sometimes think I sound like I am not playing with a full deck. Can't be helped and anyway, the noise level, in any group in which I am a participant, is seriously lessened by my silence. That must be a good thing, right?

Speaking of gait, I was downtown yesterday at about 1pm to go to the Land Titles Office. This can be a real adventure as there are some fairly exotic(?) people who lurk in the shadows of the office buildings. I have been accosted many times and have survived. My technique is to keep my eyes wide open, look straight ahead, don't respond to the ravings of these denizens and above all, increase my stride and the speed of my walk. Perhaps fear is what is causing my gait to exceed normalcy!?

{At this point in my writing I was interrupted by the Fed Ex guy with a Blackberry Playbook I got off ebay}

Excuse me. Where was I? OK.....Right.....I was talking about going downtown yesterday.

All right then, to continue with the story. It was midday and cool enough that I wished that I had worn gloves, so I was hurrying along (good gait, nice pace). I came out of the parking lot and there in front of me was a drunk, weaving down the side walk. Great! Now what? I slowed down, stayed behind him and watched as he staggered along, but I knew that I would have to pass him at some point. I took a deep breath, eyes straight ahead, determined not to answer if he said anything, increased my gait and hence, my speed, and passed him without incident. My gait was great, well above my usual and relative to the drunk, I was moving at light speed. I was the Flash in plain clothes, my speed blindingly fast and hiding my PD. No dementia here!

On the other hand, the drunk may have had more brain power than I thought. You see he was staggering in a perfect sine curve. I guess he must have been practising his trigonometry. At least, I hope that was the case because nobody should be that close to unconsciousness at 1 o'clock in the afternoon, or maybe, looking at his gait, he may have been entering the mindlessness of dementia. Who knows and coldly, who cares?

On my return he was still there, stumbling along with another street creature, not nearly so drunk, who said to him, "C'mon. Hurry up. Walk like a man."

I prefer to think he knew he as marching in a Sine curve with visions of trig functions in his addled brain!

Just another little chapter in the saga of our downtown jungle.