Predawn Roads

BY WAYNE WOOD

I have a complicated relationship with the predawn. Sure, during the winter I have to get up before the sun, but I am not a morning person. I awake slowly, trending ever so slowly from coma to stupor to HEY THAT’S A BEAGLE PAW IN MY MOUTH.
But when I can manage the twin achievements of being up early and being conscious, there are some things I appreciate about the time before sunup. One is that getting up before dawn feels like you’re getting a jump on the day. You walk outside to get the paper and the stars are still shining bright. Sometimes a crescent moon hangs in the west. Extremely early morning coffee drinking feels virtuous somehow.
Sharon is a morning person and a regular morning walker. Usually this walk is after sunup, but if she’s got a lot to do on a particular day sometimes she wants to get her walk in extra early, and if it’s still dark, sometimes she asks me to come along. Here’s the odd thing I’ve noticed on these early walks: there are more people out on foot moving around on the streets at 5:30 in the morning than there are at 5:30 in the evening.
There are regular morning walkers and runners in our neighborhood who are reliably out in about the same place every day. They call out jaunty greetings from the shadowy penumbras of orangey sodium vapor streetlights. They all seem to be happy members of the Early Morning People Club, vigorously exercising in unspoken condemnation of the darkened windows of the houses of their slothful, sleeping neighbors.
By contrast, some days I’m out with Jake the beagle for an after-work walk at 5:30 p.m. (I mean after my work. Jake doesn’t have a job, unless you count leaving little black hairs all over the bedspread). In the early evening there are cars going by as people head home from work, in winter, lights are ablaze in most houses, and an occasional almost-empty bus passes by. (Shouldn’t buses have somebody in them during evening rush hour? This one doesn’t.) But Jake and I can go for several blocks and not encounter another person on foot. Weird.
One reason that being up really
early can feel kind of cool is that it is a reminder of other times that I’ve been up early, like to leave on a long road trip. A couple of times when we were young and foolish Sharon and I drove from Nashville to Amelia Island, Fla., in one day. This requires crossing the state of Georgia diagonally (Amelia Island is on the east coast of Florida near Jacksonville), and is a hellish
drive, especially in an unairconditioned Volkswagen. But when we were packing up and leaving way before dawn I remember being in a great mood. There’s something about knowing that before the day is done you will be walking on the beach and feeling the waves lap your feet that makes getting up early feel like an adventure. (It’s later, somewhere around Tifton, Ga., that the adventure wears off. Big time.)
The first time I have a distinct memory of getting up before dawn was when I was 10 or so and my dad took me to work with him. Dad worked for the 7UP company then, and had to be at work at 5:30 or 6 in the morning. I was on summer vacation from school and kept bugging him to take me with him. And one day he relented—I’m sure after talking it over with Mom—and said I could go the next day.
I was so sleepy, and so excited. Dad drove a truck and his route covered, among other places, Gatlinburg and Townsend near the Great Smoky Mountians National Park. So he went to the company offices and garage to pick up his truck and introduced me around to the other guys he worked with. Noting my sleepy face, one of them told Dad he should be ashamed to have me out so early.
“He said he wanted to come,” Dad said with a grin.
Another driver told me that my momma must sure be pretty for such an ugly daddy to have such a good looking boy. Dad laughed a lot a this—I think everybody gathered around did—and I somehow knew this was a high compliment to the whole family.
This was my introduction to the world of work. There was smoking. There was cussing. One guy had a naked lady calendar on his wall. Dad and I spent the whole day together on his trucks making deliveries, and I don’t think I stopped talking about it for about a month.
So I guess somewhere in my mind I know that sometimes great days begin before dawn, whether it’s headed for the beach with the woman I love or headed to Gatlinburg at Dad’s side with a truckload of 7UP and feeling so cool and grown up.
But I’m just as happy saving that for special occasions. Tomorrow—just let me sleep in.

(Wood is editor of House Organ, Director of Publications for VUMC, and author of Watching the Wheels: Cheap Irony, Righetous Indignation, and Semi-Enlighted Opinion, which is a collection of past columns.)

Employees “Go for the Gold”
in record numbers

Officials at Health Plus, the faculty and staff wellness program, are celebrating that 12,590 employees participated in year three of Go For The Gold. This represents 73 percent of those eligible and exceeded participation goals.
Go For The Gold is a three-tier program that offers incentives for staff and faculty to first complete a yearly Health Risk Assessment to learn about any health risks; second, choose specific wellness actions to maintain or improve health; and in the third step, watch videos to learn how to be an active participant in your health care decisions.
Employees who complete all three steps, or reach the Gold Level, earn a $20 monthly “wellness credit” on their paychecks. Employees also have the option to complete only step one, the Health Risk Assessment, for $10 per month, or steps one and two, the Health Risk Assessment and the Wellness Actions, for $15 per month.
Getting three-quarters of Vanderbilt employees to agree to do anything seems like a daunting achievement, but Health Plus manager Marilyn Holmes says she is looking to the future.
“We’re looking for participation to go up again this year,” she said. “We want all of Vanderbilt to participate and spread this culture of wellness.
“We’re excited about the change we are seeing in people participating in Go For The Gold. Everywhere we go on campus, we learn about health changes individuals and departments are making as a result of Go For The Gold.
“Our data support this positive change in our population. The overall wellness score continues to rise. This score is obtained from the Health Risk Assessment and is a barometer for measuring health status change in a population. And even more exciting, is the fact that aggregate data from those participating in both years show that the overall wellness score has increased even more.”
Changes in participants included:
• high levels of stress decreased
• smoking decreased
• weight declined
• those taking up exercising rose dramatically

In the past, Health Plus has become known for its creative and aggressive promotion of Go For The Gold. Program representatives conduct dozens of help sessions to include employees who may not be familiar with computer use or need any other help with the program.
“We have worked nights and weekends to assist those working all shifts; and we are appreciative to so many others involved in helping get the word out or assisting others such as all other Health and Wellness departments, Vanderbilt media, the many individuals….,” said Holmes. Health Plus staffers are also fixtures at University events such as Employee Celebration and the annual Benefits Fair.
“Now it’s possible for people to see from one year to the next what changes they’ve made by comparing their Health Risk Assessments over time. That’s what the program is all about,” said Stacey Kendrick, coordinator of health promotion at Health Plus. “We encourage people to study their Health Risk Assessment report, set a wellness goal, and print out the report to review with their health care provider.”