Once upon a time I did a whole bunch of research on my hometown, Cooperstown, which is also the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Tourists come here in droves in the summer for baseball stuff — but the village is so much more than baseball.

Years ago, when I was taking care of my father, the home health aide came and shoo me out of the house. “Go do something for yourself,” she would say.

So I would go to the research library. I mean, isn’t that where everyone would want to go?

I researched the town, the old homes, the founders, etc. I made up a walking tour of the village and walked it a gazillion times with one of my daughter. She knew the tour better than I did, I think.

Then I was talking with one of my sons and asked what he would call a non-baseball tour of Cooperstown. He thought about it, and then said, “An Intentional Walk.”

I loved it.

(For those who don’t know, an intentional walk IS a baseball term for when the pitcher decides to throw four balls and intentionally walk the batter because he would rather face the next guy in the line-up. These days, the pitcher doesn’t even have to throw the four balls. They can just declare it. Where’s the fun in that?)

But life happened.

My father died.

We had a pandemic.

I took a full-time job.

The Intentional Walk fell by the wayside. Maybe I should resurrect it.

This post is brought to you by the JusJoJan prompt: Intentional

Philomena Cunk’s thoughts are always priceless:

The whole bear vs bare debacle (leaving the arms out) is further complicated by Fuzzy Wuzzy.

You remember the poem, right?

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy
Was he?

Clearly Fuzzy Wuzzy was bare. A bare bear.

But did he have arms?

This bit of nonsense is brought to you by the JusJoJan prompt: arms.

Every Monday, a group of people gather at Connections for “Mindfulness Monday.”

What’s Connections, you ask? Connections is the part of my job I love most. It’s a program for people who are actively aging well, a.k.a. seniors.

Let me take a step back to explain. I work at a gym-sports facility-community center. It’s hard to define what it is. It includes

• a “gym” with cardio equipment, weight machines, free weights, etc.
• 4 studios for classes such as yoga, zumba, fitness, and cycling
• a gym floor, where people play basketball, futsal, volleyball, pickleball (in the winter), and more
• an indoor track
• three swimming pools: an 8 lane 25-yd lap pool, a diving well, and a warm shallow pool that we use for teaching lessons and share with physical therapy where they do aqua-therapy
• an 8 lane bowling alley
• a golf simulator
• a high climbing wall
• racquetball and squash courts
• 2 ping-pong tables
• meeting rooms that can be used by community groups
• Outside tennis courts, soccer fields, a little league field, and a high ropes course.

Also, in the building the local medical center has their out-patient physical therapy department so they can share the gym equipment and the pools.

This facility now hosts Connections, a senior program, and I get to be involved.

Two days a week Connections offers studio fitness classes, aqua classes, Tai Chi, games such pitch, cribbage, and Mah Jongg, lunch, community talks, two different supports groups (grief and Alzheimer’s), book groups, and Mindfulness.

Yes, at Connections, we have Mindfulness Monday.

Like many of the programs that have grown in Connections, it’s because a few people asked about trying it and someone volunteered to lead.

The mindfulness group, however, has taken root and grown. They expanded from 45 minutes to an hour to an hour and a half. They wanted time just to talk. They encourage each other.

Honestly, I’m not a 100% sure what they do during the mindfulness time, but I know they have readings and a singing bowl.

I apologize. This is so much more than a Just-Jot-It (JusJoJan) which I’m going to attempt to do for January (a blog challenge sponsored by Linda Hill), but today’s word was “mindfulness.”

Mindfulness Monday makes me happy and I don’t even go to it. Seeing people come together and find commonality not based in anger is nice. Really nice.