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Wooden shoes — The word “sabotage” derives from “sabot,” the wooden shoe favored long ago by traditionalists who refused to wear shoes made of leather. This made them inefficient at best, and destructive at worst, as legend has it they sometimes threw their shoes into the gears of the machinery they’d been hired to run.

So much gusto-grabbing among people my age, have you noticed? Adrenaline junkies all of a sudden, gnawing at the windblown teat of high adventure.

For the first time in our lives, we’re jumping out of planes.

We’re extreme sporting underwater and way high up on hard vertical services.

Mr. Mole, though, he doesn’t relate to such things. He doesn’t relate to the skin-tight togs or the low-drag helmets. He doesn’t wear specialized shoes.

No, as Mr. Mole putters toward the sunset at his usual leisurely pace, the high velocity set buffets him left and right.

Poor Mr. Mole.