I met a man yesterday. I was running dirt laps up on the dirt track when I came across a weathered leathery chap packing up a quiver of yoga mats and jump ropes into an old black Jansport. After a couple tentative laps I approached the guy who had an aura of transient godliness, a quiet knowledge radiated from him like the slightly stale smell I kept detecting every lap upon passing him. The first thing I noticed about the man was the statuesque chisels of his upper body which looked something like if Bruce Lee arm wrestled Chuck Norris and their appendages somehow fused into this mans forearms. Eventually I worked up the courage to approach this Kung Fu Buddha. I said something stupid like “Hey, how’d THAT happen”, pointing to his arms and realizing how my own looked pathetically thin, like they might fly away if the wind picked up.
The man seemed confused.
After I stuttered some more articulate explanation he seemed to understand and he bellowed a great easy laugh (try to imagine Japhy Ryder’s chuckle). Initially it was impossible to tell how old the dude was; he later told me he was 57. His hair was the golden mane of the guy from Hadalgo, and I can’t remember if that was his name or the horse’s, but frankly who cares. He fastened his locks up with a great royal purple ribbon of a headband and his clothes were nothing more than a grease-lighting white T with cut off sleaves and those orange workout pants that Goku wears. You didn’t have to be a genius to see the man on the grass was a badass. We became engulfed in conversation about his various workout regimens, which segued into Thanksgiving, which transformed into cooking, dogs and after sometime an abridged version of his life story. It went something like this:
The man reigned from Oakland but had lived for many years with a Vietnamese family. For this reason he seemed very excited to season his thanksgiving “chicken” with curries, lemons and stuffed with steamed spiced vegetables. He attributed some of his great strength to many years of working in his brother’s automotive shop, in which he hauled whole engines. After taking up jogging when he was younger, he began doing copious reps of pushups, pull ups, sit-ups, and other body weight strengthening coupled with light weight lifting for toning.
His giant oaf of a rottweiler roamed around as we talked. Seeming to notice the dog for the first time, he told me that just days ago when high with a friend, he decided to pickup the dog by her legs and do reps with it’s 180 pound mass. Although I saw no logic or likely possibility to this performance I nodded my head as if I did, eager to please this man who obviously had so many answers. He told me that he’s worked for his brother for years, although they’re opposites; big brother hit the bottle hard but described himself as “new-age”.
He said intensive yoga and meditation was an essential and frequent part of his regimen. He told me he had just finished a deep and enlightening meditation before we began our conversation. He started taking kung fu years ago and worked his way up to a high level under the apprenticeship of several old masters. He still practiced, although never for competition, rather for personal discipline.
It could have been minutes, hours or days that I sat listening to the man on the grass.
I really hoped he enjoyed his curry chicken come Thursday.
naturesalute 
Well writ Johnny keep it up!