The community is whole again

I’ll cut right to the chase: his name is Chris.

And he’s fine, and so is his dog, Badger.

I recently wrote about an area waterfront park and my penchant for hanging out there fairly often. I wrote of the anonymous community we build with other people who happen to frequent the same places as each other, at roughly the same times on the same days.

These “communities” can exist during our commute times, in local stores and other establishments and, as in this case, my favorite county park.

I shared with you that I hadn’t really defined my park group of peeps as a community until I realized a regular — and his dog — were missing in action.

The man and his beloved cocker spaniel walked the park just about every day between 4 and 5 p.m., so I found it alarming when I realized I hadn’t seen them in a couple of days. And when those couple of days stretched in to a couple of weeks, I was genuinely saddened.

So I am happy to report that Chris and Badger are back in their park routine. Out of respect for the anonymity for the community, I didn’t pry but Chris offered that he is simply walking Badger later in the day than usual. Maybe his work hours changed, maybe it’s simply a summer routine. In any case, it was a great relief to spot them.

As promised, I introduced myself and let him know I was happy to see the duo again and was glad everything was ok with both human and canine. I was worried and let him know that.

Also as promised, here’s the rest of the story. And thanks for caring about the guys as much as I did.