This morning I volunteered at my local Depot Parkrun, held each Saturday morning at Gainesville's Depot Park, just south of downtown. My role was to be the Tail Walker, which is the person who follows everyone else in the race/run/walk and makes sure that all have either finished or dropped out. It was a pleasant 3.1 miles...four laps around the park...with temperatures in the low-to-mid forties and many birds, chiefly red-winged blackbirds, grackles and mourning doves, contributing their songs. When you're a Tail Walker you still get credit for a race...so tally up my 34th Parkrun for myself: click HERE for today's results. It's also my 4th volunteer gig...Melissa was signed up and wanted to go but was recovering from a bad cold. With the good folks running the show, I...may I be a little blunt...got mixed signals. On the surface, they seemed so altruistic and goody-goody for leading at this event, but anytime I wanted to reach out and engage one of them in conversation, or, more to the point, ask a pertinent question, they were pretty damned dismissive. For an introvert with misanthropic leanings, I find it more than a little disconcerting to be confronted with "good" people who see me as little more than a distraction or annoyance to be flicked away. In any event, I'm really not offended but rather just file it all away with my other experiences. As the recent Depeche Mode song People Are Good goes...
Keep reminding myself
That people are good
And when they do bad things
They're just hurting inside
Keep fooling myself
That everyone cares
And they're all full of love
It's just their patience gets tried
Heaven help me, heaven help me
Heaven help us, heaven help us
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