These Shoes Were Made For …

As reported else where, the AIDS Walk happened Saturday. I was there to sing (the national anthem and You'll Never Walk Alone) and walk with the Chorus team; I had the chance to spot a few co-workers in the team-from-work and had a walk-by sighting of the Bunch O' Bloggers. Of the Bunch, I had a moment to chat with .ALT>Mike, who had his own solution to a pulled-in-three-directions dilemma like my own. He had three shirts with him: one for each team he was affiliated with; one for each lap around the pond lake.

Since the Chorus was singing, we had to be there pretty early. Originally, our call time was 8 so we could prep for our mini-gig; with the surge in registrations this year, there was a concern that parking and wait times to check in might be challenging, so we were asked to arrive at 7:30. Of course, I live about 45 minutes away, placing my get-out-the-door time in the barely-light hours. Add into this the fact that I've developed this nasty habit as of late: managing to hit the "snooze" bar on my alarm at least once or twice without it even registering. I really didn't want to risk oversleeping Saturday, so I set the alarm on the little analog clock I have in the bathroom. Seemed like a foolproof plan; most likely I'd be up before it went off, and if not, it was my last chance to be on time.

Except I set it on the wrong side of 6. Instead of going off a little after 6:15, it went off a little before 5:45.

At least I arrived very, very early.

By the way, while I think we were in pretty good form for 8:30 on a brisk April morning, there's only so much volume 40 unamplified voices can put out when staged outdoors under trees. Thanks to all who stopped by to listen a spell.

I do have to say I was really disappointed that I didn't see a single TV camera. Not that I wanted to be on the tube, mind you. But it seems like the local stations are desperate to get out-of-studio footage, and the local 24-hour news station seems to be on-scene if a dog sneezes in Baldwin Park. I would have thought the AIDS Walk was at least as newsworthy as anything they usually "report" on — and they could've even used the same camera crew to cover the ACS Relay For Life that started a bit later, a few blocks away. Ah, well.

This year's walk carried an extra element of poignancy for me. The Chorus member who coordinated our singing and walking (neither of these are small tasks) has become a friend these past couple of years, and he's really been fighting AIDS-related issues big time this past year. Well, due to the resurgence of a health issue this week, he was only able to sing — the walking was out of the picture this time. As a vocal ensemble, we are at our best when every voice is present and heard, contributing their part to the whole sound. Any voice left out or left behind diminishes us. That he was unable to join the Walk after all the effort he'd put in, made walking carry just that more meaning to me. Here's looking forward to him rejoining us for the '08 walk.