Humor
They Only Come Out At Noon
A peculiar army is on the march on weekdays
Now that going to the office is a thing of the past, I’ve been enjoying middle-of-the-day walks, driven outdoors by the beautiful weather of early June. I had been oblivious to a peculiar group of beings that roam the sidewalks of my upscale urban neighborhood on weekdays. After about 10 days of repeated sightings, I became attuned to these heretofore undetected specimens: an army of graying men, who take to the streets with just their thoughts. They seemed to have gotten the memo that walking is good for your health.
They’re easy to identify. They’re solo and there’s something cavalier in their stride that says, no subway for me today, while hinting at a pending migration to the summer beach house. They’re an irregular army with many uniforms. Most wear baseball caps — usually company caps, rarely one for the local teams. The caps are functional, they hide the graying hair or protect shiny crowns from the sun. They march to different drummers. Some look around, like lost tourists but without backpacks and water bottles; some ambulate with their hands clasped behind their back; some keep their hands warm in their jacket pockets; some swing their arms in a modified power walk; and some still wear their cold weather gear.
Speaking of gear, these men take to comfortable footwear, usually gray New Balance, Mephistos, or HOKA sneakers, whose marketing department must be given praise for getting so many hip elders to wear their colorful uppers.
But not all the men in this gray army are out for an invigorating walk. Some prefer a nice easy stroll. I’m not talking about the very elderly, the infirm, or those pushing a walker with a nurse aide at their side. Those are the waddlers and a grim reminder of what’s in store for me, for all of us. Neither should we confuse these strollers with the mechanized unit of nannies pushing prams. A legion, for sure, that covets sidewalk width, riding stocked with the GoGo Squeez green pouches for their little astronauts.
The men who choose to walk in a more gentle fashion seem to choose different footwear. Some lean toward loafers, worn sockless to better accentuate varicose calves, others prefer their toes au naturel in hiking sandals or flip-flops. The latter tends to favor t-shirts from rock bands and their tours from the last century. Fading away is not part of this generation. (I should note that the sandals and socks combo is rare in the city. I hear it is more common in the suburbs.)
The loafer-wearing crowd has two options, leather or velvet. When I’m trailing one of those in leather, I wonder why that sensitive area behind the ankles isn’t blistered and torn up. Must be the really soft leather or the no-show socks — yes, such a thing exists. Those in velvet are in navy blue to black. Red is as rare as a cardinal on the street, but they’re around. With gold embroidered insignias over the toe box, a velvet pair can set you back a grand, unless you go for the forty-dollar knock-offs.
Those out on a casual stroll are the hardest to differentiate from the work-from-home crowd goofing off in the middle of the day. Obviously, age is a tip-off, but more and more you hear people say 65 is the new 50, which means some are supposed to be in their home office at their Bloomberg terminal.
It took me longer to spot the women of this peculiar army, mostly because they rarely perambulate alone, preferring to walk in pairs or groups of three. The women also threw me off because they seem much younger and healthier than their male counterparts. Few of them carry the stern faces of the men, and none go out without a check in the mirror.
The women seem more susceptible to one group dynamic that intrigues me, the sudden stop for emphasis. This occurs when the woman doing all the talking suddenly stops moving forward as if she hit a speed bump or an impassable dog turd on the sidewalk. She reaches out with her arms like a crossing guard, forcing the group to put on the brakes and half-turn to continue listening. I have a hunch that this sudden stop may be a means to catch one’s breath. It’s hard to keep oxygen flowing in when one is talking a mile a minute. Another possibility is that wisdom can’t be delivered on the go. See the moped and e-bike set going the wrong way.
The HOKAs are also a hit for the women, but it’s the Allbirds that have made the most impact, those with laces made from recycled bottles, and especially the mesh slip-on. Heels have been spurned. Comfort wins the day.
I grew up in Queens where I remember the old guys hanging out at the coffee shops or in the park, always in shirts and polyester slacks and not moving very much. Old guys hanging out is not something I have seen in my neighborhood, but after checking out areas less chi-chi than the Upper East Side, I now realize the grampas do still sit around chatting, smoking cigarettes, and on Friday afternoons, drinking Coronas on folding chairs, that on some blocks, they chain to the nearest tree overnight. They seem more jolly than my local stern-faced army. Perhaps there is an adage to be defined here: the more doormen per square block, the less hanging out, especially when so many of the public plazas below fancy buildings are frequently closed for repairs.
As a newbie, I’ve been learning the protocols, such as rarely acknowledging another walker, except very early in the morning when few are about — a reveille salute is fine. Or, if you’re both walking a dog, it’s acceptable to pause for their benefit, but only if the two dogs are approximately the same size. Because Benji is over 80 pounds, I skip right past the men with fluffy curly-haired pups whose eyes are barely visible. It’s usually the small dogs that bark and lunge at Benji. Fortunately, he ignores them. When I jokingly remind Benji that the barking dog wants to eat him, he looks up at me with a disgusted look that howls, “That dog joke is getting old, just like you.”
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