I am always looking for things along the way as I run that might be of value. Over the miles I have done more than my share of picking up a variety of things. Now it needs to be remembered that at the non-speed that I run I have: A. A longer time to observe my route and B. No reason to hurry. There is little time difference in my running and when I am stopped to pick something up. Anyway, do you stop for a penny? (I do) A nickel? How about a quarter? Would it take a dollar bill to get you stop?.....Exactly WHAT would you stop to pick up? On a similar theme......What is the strangest thing you have picked up? What is the strangest sight you have seen on your many runs? This should be fun. As I said......."I do stop for pennies".......but then, I also stop for nails (to prevent them getting in tires) and sometimes for broken glass. By the way, I have found out that a broken beer bottle stuffed into the pocket of running shorts is not smart. It might be called....."glass in the (ahem) ......rear"

I'll stop to examine just about anything, and if you remember I picked up a Gu and actually ate it later that day. I saw a very nice pair of ladies sandals on the sidewalk one day, and also a CD. I think the CD was a plant and it was a marketing gimmick for myspace or something like that. I would not stop to pick up a penny, but a dime or more, yes.

I stop to pick up any form and denomination of $$$. It all fits quite nicely in my RoadID pocket on my shoe. I figure in 2 years, I've made about a buck. I also remove any nails/screws I happen upon. I don't carry them with me, but throw them in a safer, no tire zone. Also picked up a dead cat one morning and moved him to a nearby yard. He wasn't there when I'd gone by merely 20 minutes before. I couldn't leave him in the street like so much garbage to be run over yet again. He was gone about an hour or so later when I drove by on my way to work. Hopefully, he was given a burial. The strangest thing I've ever seen - has to have been this young woman just the other morning. The skirt of her dress was an extreme color of purple, very shiny, and style-wise looked like something you'd wear square dancing, crinoline (right word?) underskirt and all, black, sort of fishnet stockings, a pair of not-quite-Frankenstein black boots, a weird little black shoulder shrug/sweater that looked like moths had attacked it, black T-shirt, black horn-rimmed glasses, very black hair, and an iridescent hair band with some kind of fake diamond on top. Mind you, this was at about 6:15 in the a.m. We said a pleasant good morning and kept going our separate ways, but I couldn't help myself and had to turn back for a second look-see. Kids these days . . .

I have stopped to view things before - a baby goat, a new foal, smell a very fragrant blooming tree of some sort, etc. I doubt I would stop to pick up change - I'd let a kid find it. I loved finding change as a kid and a quarter or a few dimes was a big deal to find when I was a kid. Now if it was money of the paper persuasion . . . I would likely stop and pick it up . . . never been that lucky though.

I'm digging deep to try to remember ever picking up anything while I was running. I still find that I have to focus completely on picking up my feet, one after the other, until I'm finished! Interesting timing, though, Vista, since I did actually run past a dollar bill on Sunday - the last time I ran. It was all crumpled up in the parking lot near my house; there were other people around from a party at the clubhouse, and I guess I thought maybe it was a kind of "Candid Camera" thing. But then again, I was pretty focused on the pick up one foot after another thing. I wonder if maybe I don't pick things up because of a game these older family friends used to play at the beach. One brother would stand below the boardwalk and put a dollar bill between two of the slats; the other would stand at the edge of the boardwalk so he could see when someone would bend down to pick up the dollar. The lookout would signal just in time for the brother under the boardwalk to pull the dollar away. I'm starting to think I run in really boring places. I haven't even seen that much that's been out of the ordinary. A garden snake that I almost stepped on about a week ago - that would have been gross! And now there's one spot where I have to play hopscotch over the fuzzy caterpillars. It's completely another story when I'm kayaking, though. The back of the sit-on-top kayak is almost always filled with empty water bottles, plastic bags, soda cans, etc. I've rescued floating 2 by 4's and too many coffee cups to count. I tried to rescue a plastic lawn chair from the edges of a marsh once but couldn't get it to balance on the back of the boat! A friend once dug a disposable camera out of the marsh when we were kayaking - it still had some pics left on it, so we took a few and had photos of ourselves and of complete strangers developed. Eliz

Oh please tell me you didn't... Strangest thing was a bunch of neon-colored conoms in clear cellophane wrappers, about a dozen or so. I did not pick them up.

Hey, it wasn't even near the horse manure. Conoms, that took me awhile to figure out. So far CNYrunner's music box playing is the weirdest.

I would pick up paper money if I ever found it but probably not coins because I wouldn't want to carry it around. I found a wallet once, opened it up to check for ID and it belonged to someone in the house I was standing in front of so I gave it back right there. My favorite thing that I found and keep with me a lot (or in my desk drawer next to me) is a stainless steel, swiss army knife that says "Winchester" on the side. It's the best pocket knife I've ever owned. I found it in the middle of the road.

Like CNYrunner, I don't wear my glasses when I run. So when I'm out on the road I don't see or find much. However, when I am running at the local high school track I can't believe the things I find. I could make a small fortune from the shoes that kids leave at the track! Same goes for shirts, shorts and sweats. Don't these kids parents ever ask where these things went? They are usually gone the next day, so they are either put in the lost and found or a parent says "I paid $120 for those shoes, I don't care what time of night it is go back and get them!" Bruce