| 10/16/2006 |
WALKING IN MEMPHIS
|
I am on the mailing list for events sponsored by the Nebraska AIDS Project. A couple of weeks ago I received an email talking about their annual charity walk. The walk was this past Sunday.
Not only is it a worthwhile charity, but it also is being counted as #9 on my list of 101 things to accomplish. Look at those two birds just lying there on the ground. And it only took one stone!
Since "CT" was out of town, I invited my cohort in crime, Jay to participate with me. Always the faithful photog, Jay documented the event.
 As I was looking up information about the walk I mentioned to a co-worker that I hoped the weather would be nice on Sunday. I didn't want to catch a cold. People are living with AIDS, and I'm worried about a cold?! Realizing a moment to late the insensitivity of such a comment, the karmic laws that govern the universe set into a motion a plan to rain on my parade. Literally.
I wasn't sure what to expect with any of this. Would there be a lot of people? Where would we be walking? How Far? All the basic sort of questions. The actual event was scheduled from 11AM to 2PM. I figured there would be some talking with the walking. But three hours seemed like a pretty sizeable walk.
We arrived a little before 11AM and noticed there were more volunteers than walkers. Uh-oh. But as the time went on more people showed up. There was a mariachi band and representation from the local Latino radio station, Radio Lobo. I wasn't sure the connection, but I knew one of the event organizers was prominent in both the Latino and gay communities. So, I was pretty sure he had a hand in it.
There was local news coverage. The amusing part was that in order to get footage of the event in a timely matter they asked us to 'mock walk' a couple of times for filming. So if you are local and you caught it on the news... You've been duped. That wasn't the actual work.
The actual walk didn't take place for another 45 minutes after the reporters left. In the meantime we were treated to a some salsa dancing (I want to learn! Zaida?! Help?!)
After Salsa 101, we were asked to 'warm up' by participating in a jazzercise aerobic workout. Ok... Now for those of you who may not know me. I am not a joiner. I am not one to do something because everyone else is. At least not without some liquid courage. So, they are asking us to aerobicize or cold walking asses... before we start walking. There people were really into their aerobics. I... was not. You could tell the people that weren't into it, because as they asked us to spread out and give each other room to move all the other Non-Joiners (NJs) moved as far away from the stage as possible.
At this point my karmic retribution was kicking in. The sky was completely gray and the misty rain was picking up. I kept looking at the time, wondering when the actual walking was going to happen.
The first running joke of the day involved a man running for political office. A few supporters were there wearing his shirts. Jay and I commented that we didn't know what he was running for, or even what he looked like. Consider one of us a very informed voter and the other is not... So much for name recognition.
The second running joke was more of a walking one. Ba da bing! As the actual walking finally began the path took us on a trek that was maybe a mile if even that. I don't know if it was cut short because of the weather. As we looked at the time we figured that the aerobic warm up actually took more time than the walk itself. Nice... Which was fine with me because... You remember? The Rain. And the wetness.
In the end, it was a good time. A nicely done event that I'm sure would've been better had the weather cooperated more. I do plan on participating in more such activities. Hopefully next time I'll let you know ahead of time and maybe drum up some support.
Photos by Jay
|
|
I posted this @ 10/16/2006 09:26:00 AM.............Need a link?..........
|
|
|
|
|
|
