Another smiler

—“Here she comes, Bobby,” I thought to myself as a pretty jogger walked toward me on Lehigh Valley RailTrail.
“Say hello,” I thought to myself. “You’ve done it hundreds of times since your wife died. If that bombs, they lose! I coulda charmed ‘em.”
“Seems you were running when you passed earlier,” I said.
“I was,” she smiled.
There you have it, readers. “No pretty lady will smile at you,” versus one just did.
We stopped to talk.
“I run part-way, then walk part-way,” she said.
Yada-yada-yada-yada. At least five minutes.
But yes, “I thought you were worth trying to strike up a conversation, and here you are smiling at me!”
I’m not used to this = convinced in childhood no pretty lady would ever hang out with me.
“I used to run myself. That was 50 pounds ago.”
“So why did you quit?”
“Well, my wife died eight years ago, I had a stroke 27 years ago, and now this left knee is no longer the one I was born with.”
“Gotta say hello to my silly dog, who I just lost. His ashes are up by that mile-marker.
We hiked this trail hundreds of times, and he loved it. He’d sniff everything, and bark off into the woods.”
As always, it was me ending our conversation. “No pretty lady will talk to you,” yet they wanna keep talking.
And she was smiling at me, eyes flashing! Strike up a conversation, especially with a lady. Make ‘em feel good!
Sorry I keep celebrating this.

• Currently dogless, I try to walk as many times per week as I woulda when I had a dog. I prefer Lehigh Valley RailTrail because I always encounter some pretty lady smiling at me.