Random reminder

Press, 15 June 1978, Page 28

Random reminder

DEMO The ski-ing season, now in full swing, means much to many. Enthusiasm for the sport can lead to breaking more than legs and arms: habits come into the danger area too. It was enthusiasm for ski-ing which persuaded a 40-year-old Rangiora man and his wife that they should prepare 1 for the snow slopes by jogging. They j included the family dog in the planning of the exercise. So one evening just before the season began, they set off, the strength of the party being increased to four by the inclusion of their daughter. All of them, except the dog, were dressed in tattered old shorts, T shirts and somewhat crummy sandshoes. The dog was on a lead. Darkness had just fallen when they came upon a shingle road, which might well have had hidden hazards. So they opted for an alternative route round the local racecourse. It was a comforting grass track. So off they went, daughter in front, the dog straining on the leash held by

mother, and the man about the hiuse panting along behind, a clear victirt. of his years of smoking. But they mide it, and returned home in reasonaby good order. Next morning, the man’s business partner began talking about how he ' had been out shooting in the river-bed i the night before and had seen some : most peculiar people on the racecourse. “You’d never catch me doing : anything silly like that” he said with’ an odious superiority. “Did you see who they were?” the , woman asked, “Too dark for that” he replied “But it was a woman a kid, and a dog, and a fat old joker jogging along behind like this. . .” at which he gave a delightful and quite hilarious demonstration of something on the move which, looked rather like the i progress of an elderly and diseased duck. Their expressions were enough for the scales to fall from his eyes. . .