"How much weight have you lost?" are the first words I hear. Surprised, I look to my left at a woman who has pulled up beside me in her car as I walk my bike down an alley toward the bike trail. Thinking I must know her, I smile and say, "25 pounds." Rethinking, I correct myself, "No, 30."

She smiles and replies, "Good, you are a handsome man. You did not need those pounds."

Now, I am in a quandary for I realize that I do not know this woman, though I smile inwardly appreciating the compliment. "How does she know about my weight loss?" As we continue our lighthearted conversation, her car now stopped, she speaks of her appreciation of the men who had been part of her life. She laughs at the fact that her friends tell her not to speak to strangers but that she pays them no heed because she loves people. My nameless admirer informs me that she is eighty-four and can tell a youngster what she thinks. (It has been decades since I was referred to in those terms.) She explains that she still does home nursing and had just left a patient, hence the clutter in her car. She parts with the comments that we all have a better life to look forward to and that I should have a fine day.

Somehow, after that brief visit of several minutes with a total stranger, I was walking taller with a broad smile on my face and the feeling that this day would be a good one.