She kept smiling at me

—“If it’s fun, it’s sin,” is how I was brought up.
My parents were hyper-religious and overly judgmental, although my mother mellowed as I got older.
Next door was the infamous Hilda Q. Walton, my Bible-beating Sunday-school Superintendent who told me “NO PRETTY LADY WILL ASSOCIATE WITH/TALK TO/SMILE AT/BE INTERESTED IN YOU!”
Tell that to a five-year-old little boy, and have your parents agree, and you’re marked-for-life. Frightened of women = “I can’t talk to her.”
Today I walked Lehigh Valley RailTrail alone, without Killian. I did the distance Killian and I walked — maybe 2.8 miles.
“Where’s Killian?” a jogger who knew us asked.
“GONE,” I said.
He tapped my shoulder as he passed. “I’m really sorry,” he said. “I feel your pain.”
A lady on bicycle was resting on a rock where I turn around. She wasn’t gorgeous, but she kept smiling at me.
That’s all it takes: some lady smile at me and I’m done.
We jabbered at least 25 minutes: various topics = I drove city bus, she attended Catholic school, what Smartphones we used, I had a stroke, but mainly we no longer watched the TV-news.
“If I am correct a really bad hurricane devastated Louisiana. But I’m not sure since I gave up watching the news.”
She kept smiling at me. Every time that happens, Faire Hilda spins in her grave.
“DO NOT PASS ‘GO,’ DO NOT COLLECT $200; GO DIRECTLY TO HELL, BOBBY!”
“So here we are sinning, and it sure is fun.”
She laughed — we couldn’t break away from each other.
She kept smiling at me!
One thing I learned since my wife died eight years ago is strike up the conversation, especially with a female. If I crash in flames, it’s their loss.
No charm for them!

• My most recent dog was “Killian,” a “rescue Irish-Setter.” He made age-eleven, and was my seventh Irish-Setter, an extremely lively dog. A “rescue Irish-Setter” is usually an Irish-Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill. Or perhaps its owner died. (Killian was a divorce victim.) By getting a rescue-dog I avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Killian was fine. He was my fifth rescue, and was recently put down because of bone-cancer.