Jack Peterson

I met a man this morning
I had finished my run
And walked in quietly to sit in the hot tub
In the pool beside me there was a single old man
Standing alone with floaties on either side
He spoke out to me as I let my legs rest

‘I just gotta tell you this one thing real quick’
This was his favorite line
He repeated it often after every last second tale
His hair was slicked back but his words shot forward
‘Its all about desire’ he said with regard to his son
‘Phillip was a great athlete, he could compete’
His son was something else to watch
‘You need to want to beat people’ he remarked

As he floated and bobbed about I saw something
His face looked like Thomas Monson’s
His words weren’t as elegant as his but his spirit the same

Jack Peterson may have been floating with an old body
But he believed his spirit was soaring
‘Its nice to look back’ he said more than once
‘But you gotta look forward’ came just as often
‘If you can learn from the past that’s the trick’
Life’s lessons from an old man floating about

We were in two pools, his large and mine small
I asked him where he was from he said Arizona
‘Gotta get out of the heat for the summer’
This was his reasoning for travelling up
When asked where I was from I told him Spokane
He had some family up there once, they went lived and died there
Jack had never been to Spokane, ‘pretty cool up there?’
‘Yeah I guess’
My water was hot, his was cold
I was young and he was old
I had come to the frying pan and he had left it

He guessed my age at twenty four
I told him it was twenty two
He said he began loosing his hair at the same age
At his reunions he couldn’t recognize anyone because of the ageing process
‘You gotta take care of yourself, listen to your body’
Wisdom from a man floating about, ‘things change’ he said
‘Some people have high pain thresholds
That saying, no pain no gain is a bunch of garbage
You gotta respect what you’re feeling.’
I nodded and agreed with a smile
‘Last thing, you gotta have fire in the belly.’

Silence ensued, he floated and bobbed about
I touched my soar knees and decided it was time to stop sweating
I had much to do and little time to do it
My body may have been saying one thing
My mind another
My heart as well had some input
And it was time for me to leave Jack
We said goodbye and I hobbled back to my apartment