today feels like a good day for a (rather silly) story.

has anyone ever told you the story of the invention of parkour? i don’t know if you’ve ever heard of parkour, but if you’re younger than i am, you are probably an expert at it already.

years and years ago, there was a group of children that spent every afternoon playing in a park near their houses, running and sliding and jumping.

the park was like their second home. they spent so much time there that they knew the very best ways to get around it.

for instance, the fastest and most efficient way to get from the fountain to the big hill was to jump over the fence, run up and down the see-saw, and swing through the branches of the big oak tree to the left.

the fastest and most efficient way to get from the entrance to the fountain was to vault the railing, jump from swing to swing, and then run across the bricks to the fountain.

these might not sound like the quickest paths to you, but trust me, they had timed them. one of the children had received a stopwatch one birthday; timing things became his new favorite hobby. he timed everything. and i do mean everything.

whenever someone new would visit the park, the children would take him or her under their wing. they would show the new person all of their routes, and they would also encourage that person to create their own routes and to share them with everyone.

the actual name of the park was the marsha and bob grady provincial park. the children thought that was a long and boring and unsatisfying name, so they renamed the park, as children generally do.

their name for the park was our park.

eventually, they decided that their routes and ways of getting around the park needed a name. after much discussion and more than a few votes, they decided to name them after their beloved park and call them parkour.

the end.