It’s a rare occasion that I see a good-looking man on my morning walk.

They typically don’t show up until later in the morning, when the millennial boys show up to play disc golf at the park. But once ever so often I will run across a fine, strapping young man out for a morning jog or taking the family pooch for a walk.

They sometimes regard me with suspicion, as if they can hear my impure thoughts. And those thoughts are impure as I’m stripping them with my eyes, admiring those fine, flat stomachs, firm pecs, glistening glutes and massive clubs swinging between their legs. In my mind’s eye I beg them to stop and take off their clothes, then I fall to my knees and devour them right there, in front of God and country.

I suppose it’s a good thing I keep those thoughts to myself.

One such morning I had just arrived at the park and was steeling myself for a long, three-mile walk. I say “steeling” because summers are hot and humid where I live. Getting out of the air-conditioned car to enter the steam bath of an August morning is almost unbearable. But I did it, and after a few minutes my lungs had adjusted to breathing 90 percent water, heh heh.

The park where I walk is more of a nature park than the grassy greenspaces you think of when you hear the word “park.” It offers patches of woodlands and small watercourses, all transected by a wide “fitness path” used by walkers, joggers, skaters and bicyclists. The path is a mile and a half long and I usually do two laps.

Only a few minutes into my walk I noticed a jogger on the other side of the park heading in my direction. It was a he/him. Judging by the color of his hair – rather the lack of gray – I decided he was a younger man. His body was not athletic; in fact, he had a bit of girth around his waist – too many craft brews watching the game on Saturdays, I surmised. But as he drew closer I realized he was damn fine. He had that boy-next-door look with close-cropped, dark brown hair, a bit of acne scarring one cheek, but a friendly, smiling face. He was wearing an Air Force T-shirt and I surmised he was an airman, maybe a year or two from becoming a tech sergeant.

As he passed I checked out his ass and I was not disappointed. I’m not one of those guys who falls for the perfect, workout-shaped ass. I like the imperfections of real men, and this guy’s ass was ... oh, what’s the word? ... dumpy. Big, sloppy glutes that I just knew were covered in hair and at this moment, due to the condition of the rest of his body, soaked with sweat. All of it was revealed by his shimmery nylon basketball shorts, almost down to his knees. They rode the contours of his meaty ass and even worked their way into his crack, giving me more than just a snapshot of what lay underneath.

Air Force man jogged past me two more times that morning and then he disappeared. I was disappointed but I didn’t think much of it – often, people show up for their morning runs and then walk or ride a bike back home. I continued on my way, having completed a big chunk of my second lap around the trail.

I was approaching a spot on the trail I call “the grotto” when my luck for the day turned from average to excellent.

The grotto is a tree-lined patch of trail that runs along one of the watercourses. This segment of the park had once been a swamp populated by a dense forest of cypress trees. Flooding problems compelled the city to create the watercourses so the swamps would drain and nearby houses wouldn’t flood during a persistent rain. The cypress trees were gone but now pine trees, oaks and Chinese tallow had taken their place and were growing in thick profusion. Little sunlight penetrated the canopy, making for a cool, dark respite along the trail that, for the most part, was sunny and dry. Because the ground could be mucky, work crews didn’t bring their mowers into this location and much of the underbrush remained. It reminded me of locales in the “Lord of the Rings” movies, which is why I called it “the grotto.”

As I was traversing the grotto and enjoying the cool dark of the shade, I began to notice a peculiar silence. Usually the place is alive with the sound of birds chirping and squirrels fussing at passersby, but today it was quiet and that piqued my curiosity. I stopped and scanned the woods for anything out of place, but nothing seemed awry. Sometimes the presence of a larger animal could scare away the birds and send the squirrels into the high branches.

Just as I had decided it was all in my imagination, I caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of my eye.

I turned back and stared hard. At first I didn’t notice anything, but then I saw it – a darker shape against the underbrush, and a hint of motion, a kind of repetitive, up and down movement. What was that? It was large, whatever it was, and squatting on the ground. Could it be a bear? We do have bears in these parts, though I had never seen one in the park.