Nine Mysterious Items My Dog and I Found On Our Morning Runs…
Daddy! Time to stop reading and take me for my walk!
Maura begins lobbying earlier each morning. Our two-and-a-half year-old Siberian Husky does not care how much I’m enjoying Dennis Prager’s Happiness is a Serious Problem. She’s a dog. She does not understand that I would like to reach a good stopping point. Come on, Maura. The chapters are real short in this book. Just a minute and I’ll change from pajamas to running pants.
The Sun is rising; it’s time for me to finish my reading-stretching multitasking and take her for our run. Who knows what we’ll find today?
The easiest time to snap Maura's pictures is when she's transfixed with a squirrel taunting her from a tree.
My favorite part of each morning with Maura is the randomness. I’ve started letting her decide which direction we’ll go, when we’ll start a sprint, and which turns we’ll take. When we’ve gone a reasonable distance (usually a little bit further each day) then I’ll finally direct her to start leading us toward home. Sometimes I’ll nudge her in one direction over another or hold her back from an item that really has no business going into her mouth.
The surprising side effect of our routine is the phenomenon I reveal in this week’s article: we keep finding interesting stuff! And every time I acquire some new book or handwritten note the unanswerable questions sprout up like toadstools. I wonder who owns these items. Did they abandon them intentionally or are they frantically looking for something they’ve lost? We’re not likely to ever find out. And that’s OK.
For my original acquisition: three books that are probably alright but I doubt I’ll ever read…
Well, let’s see. I found a hard hat on the beach a couple weeks back. Picked that one up carefully since I was worried that it might still have a head inside, but it didn’t. Finally picked up that bike lock next to the trail sign that I’d been walking past for a month. No key to open it, but I’m sure my hubby can find a use for it. I pick up beach glass nearly everyday on my walks. Some days I find more than others, depending on what the wind and waves have been doing. Haven’t found any books yet, though.
Words of wisdom.
I speak fluent Hebrew… It’s “buy mom the book” (Lit. “buy to mom the book”) and “bring [the] laundary” — “kvisa” [כביסה].
Did you find any urinals?
Is this a reference to the Hemingway home in Key West? That is a great story.
While I don’t exactly go for random choices in my life, I do make a habit of trying things other than my usual from time to time, on the principle that, while I like my favorites, I may very well discover a new, even more favorite item, but not if I never try anything different. Somewhat along the same lines, years ago I made a decision to intentionally introduce more “risks” into my life. Nothing harrowing or dangerous, mind you, just a decision to now and then try things outside of my comfort zone. It has enhanced my life tremendously.
Noteworthy items I have found on my runs(both with and without my dog along):
1. A WWII field radio, missing the tubes but otherwise in fine shape.
2. A $10 bill
3. Two cellphones, one of which had not been run over by a car.
4. Two cordless phones
5. A nice new commuter cup with lid, which I use every day.
6. A couple of nice 6 ft long by 6 inch wide oak boards.
7. A garage door remote control (for which I took a guess and placed on the porch of the likely owner).
8. A car key with remote, which I returned to the owner by walking down the street after dark and repeatedly hitting the Panic button until a car parked in a garage erupted.
9 A nice large and very serviceable scissors.
10. A Polaroid camera
11. Vietnam era US Army manuals on marksmanship with the M-16 and repair of artillery pieces.
12. Two baby raccoons (and me with no camera!) that were hiding inffectively by sitting atop each other. We left them alone – and for 2 weeks thereafter, until it rained, my Black Lab took me to the spot where the raccoons were and reminded me that she was not allowed to take them home.
What a list!
My best find was my neighbor’s business ledger and checkbook (he’d set it on top of the car and drove off. Much the same mechanism by which you got the commuter coffee mug, I’d imagine). I scored major neighborly goodwill points for that recovery!
Hey! Talking about setting things atop a car and driving off!
One day 20 years ago I was walking back to the Pentagon from a contractor’s offices in Crystal City and just after I crossed one of the side streets I heard a “Kerthump.”
I turned around to see a box of what appeared to be file folders in the street. I picked it up and took it with me, figuring the USAF could always use some free file folders.
Back at the office I opened the box and found there were file folders in it, all right. They were full file folders, loaded with correspondence from the USN on the F-14′s radar system.
I sorted through them stuff until I found a phone number and called it. The astonished Navy guy on the other end asked if it was classified data. I said no, not that I could tell. It was late on a Friday afternoon; they said they would pick the stuff up on Monday.
I was not there at the time, but one of our secretaries said that a confused looking USN Lt. Commander came and got the material on Monday.
You don’t suppose the USN is responsible for the neat stuff I have found since then? Maybe a form of payback?
David Swindle has produced a superb essay on the unexpected pleasures of daily life when he lets Maura, his gorgeous Siberian Husky, take the lead on their morning walks together. He’s alert to the cultural messages he finds along the way, and his own intellectual curiosity and clear writing are a pleasure to enjoy on PJM. Kudos to the author.
You’re a trash picker, aren’t you? Go on, admit it…
Seriously, though. I go on walks by myself every afternoon. I recently found a Nintendo DSL by the side of the road. It worked fine. I tried to use the pictures to deduce the name of the owner, but I finally wound up turning it into the police in hopes they knew whose it was.
The other thing I found (about a year ago) was a hardcore porno DVD. I didn’t keep it, but I had fun imagining how it got there. An outraged girlfriend or wife? An outraged mother? Either way, it’s probably better that I found it than a young child.
Honestly, I would be if I ever actually saw anything worth picking. But whenever I glance inside the dumpsters there’s never anything worth diving for.
Hilarious David, very enjoyable!
Fun column! Thanks for sharing life’s little joys. You’re lucky-all MY dog seems to find (and often eat) are hidden mounds of cat poop.
So far we’ve been very lucky — don’t think I’ve ever seen Maura eat other animals’ crap.
I wanna know where in LA you live, that you find such interesting stuff on your runs with your dog. I walk mine every day (sometimes in the evening; running is a young man’s sport, and I’m no longer young) and we *never* find any of this interesting stuff like you do. I live in Van Nuys…
Then again, if I start bringing books home, my wife is going to go ballistic. She claims we already have too many (what with several bookshelves full in the living room, and one whole wall of the family room covered with a built-in that’s more or less full, and boxes of stuff out on our covered patio, in the garage, and a storage unit) so maybe it’s good we live in a neighborhood where I don’t find stuff the way you do…
We mostly run through Sherman Oaks and Studio City. We usually don’t make it far enough north to Van Nuys but will regularly run to Van Nuys blvd.
The ironic thing: since writing this article we’ve found ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It’s as though the universe is annoyed at us for revealing this secret.
I walk Halsey up to Sherman way and along it, most days, and we never find *anything* other than the occasional used condom (don’t ask!) and the other day I saw a pair of broken sunglasses. I do meet interesting people, though…
I hope our paths cross someday.
When I used to go for long wandering walks in Eugene, Oregon, I *always* found money. Always. Not bills, but nickels and dimes and quarters. Frequently several different times in different amounts and places on the same walk.
In over ten years of going for walks in Los Angeles, I have found money about five times in total, and one of those was a bill and once a Mexican peso.
I’ve wondered about this — why people leave money laying around on the ground in Oregon but not in California. Or maybe as time passes, no one carries change (or bills) any more to have it fall out of their pocket.
Or maybe my karma has changed.
Loved the article, especially the advice on the benefits of random choices. I discovered something similar when I bought a “lot” of costume jewelry on Ebay because my daughter wanted a single item that was in it, and the price was right. Well, we had a blast going over what was there and now I wear items I would NEVER have picked for myself in the first place. For minor things like this, why not? It makes life more interesting.
I used to leave those indestructible Little Tikes plastic kids toys and playhouses by the road on trash day. Now I leave outgrown ski equipment out there because the charity stores won’t take it due to liability. I just set out a box of helmets and boots last night. These things are always gone well before the trash man shows up.
But books? No way. I once had the privilege of inheriting some books after a mentor/friend passed away. Maybe someday my books will be distributed in a like fashion. I could never throw out a book.
Thanks for the lovely Maura.
One of my college classmates mounted a gallery exhibit of “Found Gloves” in 1973.
I always think of that whenever I see a one lost glove.
When ever I see one lost shoe, I always wonder if some tragedy had preceded that lost shoe.
Seems LA needs a proper recycling program. In NYC, everything is wrapped in plastic bags – black for garbage, blue for recyclables, and clear for paper/corrugated. In my 2nd hovel, we have three options for books:
1) a village transfer station, which includes a free library for all books, mostly those that no one will ever read again, although it was the perfect place for me to exorcise my hovel of all back issues of the New York Review of Books – which were gone in one day.
2) annual village library book sale, and all those unsold are then sent to another local library for their book sale, and
3) the last known area for an extensive network of used book stores. This is the Valley of the Literate.
But, I still wish there was a place to send all other books ready for a new home. And an easier way to make some money off that signed first edition of the last book Paul Krugman wrote before he went insane.
I used to wonder about the whole ‘one lone shoe lying in the road’ thing. One day the mystery was solved ( or so I think) : Seems that people who move with pick up trucks will sometimes shove shoes that for whatever reason didn’t get packed in boxes or bags , down into the stack of boxes on the truck bed. If they don’t shove the shoes in deep enough-a single shoe, lying on the side of the road. I’m guessing it’s mainly people without a whole lot to move (eg college students) that borrow someone’s pick up who do this.
I lived in Israel for a long time and am fluent in Hebrew. As a check I had my husband (in Israel from age 7)look at the note indepedently. 1) shower (the noun) 2) order (noun) in the house 3) to burn disc of pictures 4) to go out to develop (open is another declension of the same verb root) pictures 5) to bring laundry 6)to buy the book for Mom (for him would not be לאותו but לו)
7)to take (in the sense of move from one place to another) pictures (to photograph is said in one word–le-tsalem 8) to pack–to weigh (i.e., the suitcases)
Delightful article. My mother-in-law would do this too.