Off Page Mill Road in Palo Alto is a radio telescope pointing up toward the firmament. It is a landmark that multitudes of people jog around. It is especially popular at lunchtime as streams of lunch-takers revel in the pristine environment.
The crowd is usually fit, about thirty years old and sporting headbands or other such paraphernalia popular with the young crowd today. They are always in stride and ardent as they run up the grassy slope to the tower, and then around the back where you can see the 280 freeway, the Portola Valley and beyond.
I first noticed him because he wasn’t like the others. He had his shirt off, was perspiring copiously, and looked like he was about to collapse from the mid-day, summer heat. His eyes were blurred, focused on the ground. He was balding and his skin was a weather-beaten football waiting to be pressed into retirement.
He kept it up despite his age, which I surmised to be about eighty years old. I saw him every day struggling through the countryside near corporate Hewlett Packard. I couldn’t understand why an old man would continually put himself through this much obvious agony.
But, running through the woods today, for the first time in several years, and eight weeks after my heart surgery, the image of the old man came back to me.
I think I understand why he runs.