Thursday's Exercise

Kudzu landscape

This morning I walked 62 minutes and ran 26 minutes. If one was watching me exercise they might say I made a feeble attempt to walk 88 minutes.

There is a teenager that lives two blocks from here that rides the bus. He is a tall gawky kid. I think he is probably 16 or 17 years of age and well over 6 ft tall. I have walked by him a number of times and he has yet looked up at me. He is always looking down. I think that is his regular demeanor – like he feels constantly intimidated. I would not be surprised to learn that he is picked on in high school.

In fact, maybe Willow would like to join the gang and pick on him too. We walked by him and Willow growled, which is very unlike her to growl at any being, animal or human. Even, when we got by him she looked back and gave a kind of under her breath bark, like a disapproving sound.

I think it is possible that Willow picked up something very negative about the guy.

We didn’t see him this morning because he were going by his stop earlier than usual to beat the heat.

However, a mile or so way, was a another bully target waiting on the bus. He was a scrawny little guy that looked very nerdy and studious. He was blankly looking into space, while, across the street was a heavy-set egomaniac teenage boy pacing back and forth with a sneer on his face looking at the kid, like he could not wait to get his hands on him and bully him some more. He reminded me of Mike Fink, the Keel Boat Captain and/or the bully-guy in the movie “Back To The Future”. I hate to profile, but big bullies with ego problems just act too much alike.

Then an unusual thing happened. An Indian teenager (Far Eastern) walked up to the bully and laughed about something and talked smoothly to each other. Apparently the Indian kid and the bully had some things in common and seemed to appreciate each other.

Wait! This goes against my profiling rules. The Indian (Far Eastern) kid is suppose to be standing, non-smiling, across the street by the nerdy kid, looking into space.

Is the whole world going mad?

I remember our biology teach in college telling us the sequence of events of when England declared Australia their colony and had British troops stationed there an Officer’s wife brought a cactus to plant in her new back yard. There was not natural enemy of the cactus, so it grew too much. To halt its growth, the British brought in rabbits to eat the cacti. Guess what, the rabbits had no natural enemy in Australia so the rabbit population got out of hand. So, then the Brits imported a certain kind of snakes that loved to eat rabbits… and guess what? You know.

Which brings me to mind my walk and run this morning. Not long ago, on long roads much of the countryside was overtaken by the running vine plant Kudzu. I think I read that Kudzu can grow a over a foot a day in the summer. Sometimes it is not unusual to see trees and deserted lost in Kudzu – it has sort of a surrealist look… piles of kudzu in shapes of houses, barns, and trees.

Kudzu was imported from Japan. It was imported to help prevent soil erosion. Guess what, it has no natural enemy. It overtook the south.

Now, a natural enemy to Kudzu has arrived. Unfortunately, it also the natural enemy to other natural forms of wildlife: The McMansion.