Dad stubbed his fourth toe against the couch at three in the morning.  The toe pained him badly and turned black and purple.  “I think I’ve broken my toe,” he announced to me the following day.  Poor guy, I thought, there’s always one more thing.  Fortunately, his regularly-scheduled podiatry appointment was only three days away.  The podiatrist was so considerate as he clipped and ground, bandaged and lotioned, stockinged and shod.  Childhood polio and 20 years of marathon running have taken their toll, eliminating ligaments and mashing bones.  Was all that jogging and marathoning worth it?  As a teenager, I saw Dad taking his pulse one evening.  “Twenty-eight!” he cheered.  His resting heart rate was about 30 beats per minute for two decades.  I wondered how many heartbeats his exercise had saved him over those years, and if he were getting good use of them now at 85.  His own father died of a heart attack at 59, before I was born.  One Saturday morning in New Jersey, Dad did not come home from his 20-mile training run.  I knew roughly his route, and Mom sent me in the station wagon to find him.  That long run on that hot humid day had been too much, and I found him walking on Cranberry Road miles from home.  I gave him a thermos of cool water, and we stopped at Claire’s market for fresh sweet corn on the cob, Jersey tomatoes, juicy peaches, and the most delicious crenshaw.