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The year was 2020. My family had just gotten a new puppy, a mini Aussie Doodle named Jemma. Aussies have tons of energy, and when Jemma didn’t get enough exercise, she tended to become destructive.
So, my dad and I started taking her on daily walks, almost always on the same path. 2.5 miles, to be exact.
My mom never understood why we took the same path.
“Don’t you get bored?” she asked.
But that was the appeal. It was routine. It was thoughtless. It was the consistency in a messy time.
Pug People
The pug people live at the end of our street. When we first moved in, my grandfather was chatting and learning the dogs’ names. Just the dogs’ names. The pugs are Nina and Pinto. Six years later, we still don’t know the names of the people. At Christmas, my mom makes candy for the whole street, and we put ‘Pug People’ on a Post-it and take it off before we give it to them. It would be weird to ask their names at this point.
Nina and Pinto are getting pretty old. Their owners used to take them on slow, short walks, and she would often stop and chat so the dogs could rest.
In the last couple of months, she has been putting them in a double stroller and pushing them around so that she can get a real walk in. I can’t say that I blame her.
All Hail the Queen
My mom hates that my father and I call the woman who walks her dog ‘the Queen.’
“She stands tall and proper like a queen!” we argue.
She rolls her eyes. “She just has correct posture.”
It isn’t just that, though. The queen is so dignified, almost as if she doesn’t notice anything around her.
When we mentioned her in a conversation with our neighbor, he knew exactly who we were talking about.
Disappearing Building
Standing right on the corner of Roxburg and Cindy Blair, it is possible to see an office building far off in the distance. But move a few feet in either direction, and it disappears entirely.
The next day, we made it our mission to figure out exactly when it disappeared and why.
Though we passed that point hundreds of times, we never could figure out exactly where the building went. Our best guess is that it goes behind a hill.
We think it must be on Harrodsburg Road and have looked for it, but it is too hard to find any identifying details from so far away.
Dog Lady
The dog lady appeared to be in her mid-fifties. At first, we just saw her walking around the neighborhood. She would always smile and wave. She always had a different dog. Over the years, I saw at least six. She never walked more than one at once but rather took each dog on its own walk, ensuring that we saw her no matter what time of day we went.
One day, we saw her in her yard, raking the leaves from her two big trees, and we stopped to chat.
Jemma would run and jump on her, but she loved it.
We found out she used to be a teacher. She asked where I was going to college.
It was almost a year before we learned her name was Karen in a conversation with her neighbor. I remembered it because she was so very much not a Karen.
This year, we found out she had been diagnosed with ALS and had only weeks to live.
How Not to Build a Fence
Fence-building materials appeared in the yard one day. Which in itself was not noteworthy. Except that this was the side yard, and the back yard was already fenced in.
Except that the fence materials sat there for months untouched.
Except that when the holes were dug, the posts went in, but the fence wasn’t finished for several more months after that.
Except that, when the fence finally seemed complete, they started taking it down again only a day later.
Except that it again sat yet again unfinished for several more months.
Except that it was finally finished so long after it was started.
for months untouched.
Except that when the holes were dug, the posts went in, but the fence wasn’t finished for several more months after that.
Except that, when the fence finally seemed complete, they started taking it down again only a day later.
Except that it again sat yet again unfinished for several more months.
Except that it was finally finished so long after it was started.
Escape Artists
Every so often, walking around the corner, we would come upon two tiny dogs on the road, a terrier and a chihuahua. Several times, we tried to get them out of the road, but we were never quite sure where they lived. Jemma did not like them.
The dog lady came upon us one time and showed us their home. Their owner did not seem very concerned that they were out on the road.
Hanging Branch
Mid-winter, there was an ice storm. Ice covered all the sidewalks and roads. My brothers and I sledded down the middle of our cul-de-sac. On walks, my dad and I would run and slide down the sidewalk. My dog didn’t come. The ground was too cold for her.
The ice was heavy, and branches fell down all over the neighborhood. This branch, though, cracked and was hanging on just barely over the sidewalk for weeks and weeks, long after the ice melted. For a while, we walked into the grass so we didn’t have to walk under it, but after some time, we just walked under it.
We wrote a little rhyme about it that I added on to every so often when we walked under the branch. I don’t remember how it went, but it started off something like:
There’s a branch overhead
It will fall on my head
And I will be dead.
Moving Tree
Not walking was not an option. Even when it was 10 degrees outside and snowing. Walking was our only escape, so we bundled up and headed out. It was slow going. The snow was dry, which made each step take a lot of effort.
We took a break halfway through the walk, leaning against a fence by the sidewalk. There were pine trees hanging over the fence, and I touched the ice crystals covering the needles.
A couple of months later, we noticed that the trees were at least ten feet away from the fence, but that day in the snow, we both distinctly remembered the trees hanging over the fence.
We have several theories: ice weighing the tree down, the owners moving the fence or the trees, etc. None of them really make sense, though.
Bear Hunt
Bears are not a common occurrence in a city like Lexington. There isn’t anywhere for them to go.
So, when the news broke that a bear was making his way up from the Smokey Mountains through Kentucky, I never thought that he would come anywhere near us.
Overnight, however, a ring camera caught a video of him not just in my city but also in my neighborhood.
This was during the brief period when my dad and I were going on two walks a day. One was in the morning before it got too hot, and the other was at sunset. School was online, so I had a pretty flexible schedule.
The next morning, my dad and I set off on our daily walk. My mom had left to go get donuts, so she didn’t hear of any of this until afterward, which is probably for the best.
On Cindy Blair, a car rolled to a stop next to us and rolled its window down. There were two men in the car. I don’t remember what they looked like or even how old they were, but I do remember what they said.
“About ten minutes ago, we saw the bear on Lanette.
Keep an eye out and be careful.”
After that, the walk was a bear hunt.
Despite the warning, we were not terribly careful. But rather went places where we thought a bear might like to hide.
“Look in the trees,” my dad said. “He could be hiding up there.”
We dragged the walk until my mom got home and called to ask why we had been gone so long.
We didn’t see the bear.
He had been caught on another camera a couple hours away before we even started our walk.
We’re not quite sure what those men saw.
Sunsets
For some reason, sunsets are almost always much prettier than sunrises, which is just as well because I don’t want to be awake for sunrises anyway.
During the warm months, we timed our walks about 20 minutes before sunset. First, because it was cooler, but also because that meant we would get back to the hill at the top of Bravington when the sunset was its prettiest.
We could see the sky through the houses on the rest of the walk, but at the top of that hill, we could see it clearly.
CIA Agent
There was a period of six months where we would often see a man in his late 20s with long black hair, a baseball cap, sunglasses, and a baby stroller. The baby was always covered with a blanket, and we never saw her move.
On a cloudy day, when the man was still wearing his cap and sunglasses, my dad theorized that these were merely to protect his identity. It was obviously the only reason he would wear them, despite the complete lack of sun. The stroller then was empty, a ploy to keep us from suspicion. So, we named him CIA Agent.
The next time we saw Mr. CIA Agent, a baby leg was kicked out from under a blanket.
When he passed, my dad said, “He must have heard us talking and knew we were getting suspicious. It’s probably a robot leg he got to kick, so we would think he really had a baby.”
Sometimes, when nothing interesting is happening, you have to pretend that there is. we would often see a man in his late 20s with long black hair, a baseball cap, sunglasses, and a baby stroller. The baby was always covered with a blanket, and we never saw her move.
On a cloudy day, when the man was still wearing his cap and sunglasses, my dad theorized that these were merely to protect his identity. It was obviously the only reason he would wear them, despite the complete lack of sun. The stroller then was empty, a ploy to keep us from suspicion. So, we named him CIA Agent.
The next time we saw Mr. CIA Agent, a baby leg was kicked out from under a blanket.
When he passed, my dad said, “He must have heard us talking and knew we were getting suspicious. It’s probably a robot leg he got to kick, so we would think he really had a baby.”
Sometimes, when nothing interesting is happening, you have to pretend that there is.
Home Again
The walk took 30 minutes, and then we went back again. Unless we got distracted talking or Jemma felt like running in circles and tangling us up in her leash. Both happened pretty frequently.
The walks held on strong until mid-2022, when I headed back to school. We still walked some, but less frequently, until I moved away to college in 2023.
That was one of the hardest years of my life, but I do miss those walks and the time I got to spend with my dad.
It’s nice to remember the good moments instead of the bad ones. ◆
Hannah is a sophomore at University of the Cumberlands majoring in English and Communications. When not at school, she lives in Lexington, Kentucky. Hannah has won several awards from the Scholastic Young Writers Association and KET.
Pensworth 