True story:
While running in a park near my home in Mt. View, I sustained a small cut on my big toe. This is a very clean park, and my major worry had actually been the bees that inhabit the patches of clover. But I taped up my toe, and thought about where I might have cut it. The next time I went there, I brought my rake, to brush out the area where I thought the offending object might have been. Well, when I got there, there was a park maintenance guy running one of those gas leaf blowers on the sidewalks; not that there was anything on the sidewalks. I didn't give it much thought, and started raking a three foot swath alongside a 25 yard stretch of sidewalk where I recalled some discomfort. After I had raked most of it, with a couple of handfuls of grass being deposited on the sidewalk, the maintenance man approached me and demanded I stop. I told him I was just cleaning the area to make it safe to go barefoot. He wanted to know why I ran barefoot, and told me he was going to call the police and have me arrested for littering. I told him he could do what he wanted, and he pulled out a cell phone and made a call. I finished raking my suspect area and deposited the accumulated three handfuls of grass clippings in a nearby wastebasket. I put away my rake and started my run, wondering if I should call the local newspaper to come and cover the arrest of the infamous Mountain View rakist.
A few minutes later the workers supervisor showed up, a very nice man who seemed to get the idea of what I was doing, and I spent a few minutes telling him about barefoot running and how there were many children in the park who rolled around in the grass. He apologized and spent the next thirty minutes discussing matters with the maintenance man.
Today I returned to the park for a run and the maintenance man was there, sans leaf blower, raking areas along the sidewalk.
While running in a park near my home in Mt. View, I sustained a small cut on my big toe. This is a very clean park, and my major worry had actually been the bees that inhabit the patches of clover. But I taped up my toe, and thought about where I might have cut it. The next time I went there, I brought my rake, to brush out the area where I thought the offending object might have been. Well, when I got there, there was a park maintenance guy running one of those gas leaf blowers on the sidewalks; not that there was anything on the sidewalks. I didn't give it much thought, and started raking a three foot swath alongside a 25 yard stretch of sidewalk where I recalled some discomfort. After I had raked most of it, with a couple of handfuls of grass being deposited on the sidewalk, the maintenance man approached me and demanded I stop. I told him I was just cleaning the area to make it safe to go barefoot. He wanted to know why I ran barefoot, and told me he was going to call the police and have me arrested for littering. I told him he could do what he wanted, and he pulled out a cell phone and made a call. I finished raking my suspect area and deposited the accumulated three handfuls of grass clippings in a nearby wastebasket. I put away my rake and started my run, wondering if I should call the local newspaper to come and cover the arrest of the infamous Mountain View rakist.
A few minutes later the workers supervisor showed up, a very nice man who seemed to get the idea of what I was doing, and I spent a few minutes telling him about barefoot running and how there were many children in the park who rolled around in the grass. He apologized and spent the next thirty minutes discussing matters with the maintenance man.
Today I returned to the park for a run and the maintenance man was there, sans leaf blower, raking areas along the sidewalk.
