When I arrived for today’s mall walking I sat outside with Chuck, waiting for his brother Len to show, when the sisters, Dorothy and Rose, came up to tell jokes. “Why did the spider cross the road? To get to his web-site!” “Why did the bald man put lipstick on his head? To make-up his mind!” Then they tried to get Chuck to join their Thursday morning exercise routine in front of Macy’s, but he wasn’t interested. They tried to entice his participation in the “official” mall walker group with tales of their meetings on Hagen Ranch Road (“You know where that is, Chuck?” “Of course I do! I might forget things but I know where that is!”), and told him about the upcoming meeting: “We’re going to have the new voting machines out there, so we can all practice!” Chuck chided, “I’ve been voting for 50 years now!”

Len finally showed up, and we start walking. We pass one group of about five people, men and women both, and Len raises his arm for the usual ‘hello’ and nasty remark. One guy out of the group says, “Hey Len, it’s the first of the month – a great time to start being nice!” Len begins, “But…” and this guy counters, “It’s the first of the month!” Then Chuck, in front of all of the other mall walkers, says, “So what, first of the month, you on your period?” 



Kenny was there today, and out of the pocket of his wheelchair he pulled a piece of paper with jokes on it. Kenny’s humor is innocent, very self-depreciating, very kind and quiet. Len (and so I’ve learned, Chuck too) are something else, very brash and wise and quite nasty. After Ken is done with his jokes, Miss Jane has one, something about a stove. No one understood it, everyone just looked at each other puzzled when she exclaimed with pride, “My aunt told me that one when I was 10 years old!” Chuck looks at me and says, “Hear that? 10 years old.” 



Len has been walking around the Boynton Beach Mall for about twenty years. This morning, as we walked together, he told me about how Miss Jane and her husband, Clifford used to walk around the mall, but now just come in for coffee and to sit, because one day Clifford collapsed after walking in the door. Len said “I walked up to him and said ‘Get up, ya drunken somebitch!’ I say some stupid damned things sometimes, get myself in lots of trouble.” He also told me about how Miss Jane talks too much, and when I asked why that was bad he said to me, “She tells stories about when she was 4 years old! Can you remember anything from when you were 4 years old? I can’t!” He said that he and the other guys jockey for position, that no one really wants to sit next to her because all she does is talk in your ear the whole time. He said she’s a sweetheart, but that she just talks too much.