Let Me Tell Y’all A Story is a weekly column that’s usually not focused on sports. It’s brought to you by our partners at Chuck Owens, Alfa Insurance.

I can’t remember who wrote the status on Facebook that I saw a few months ago, but it went something like this.

“Someone tell the guy that pushes the baby stroller on the boulevard to keep it up.”

So that’s what I did last week when I saw Elton Cosper pushing his son in a stroller in front of the movie theater in Brookhaven.

Elton sticks to the sidewalk that runs along the north side of Brookway Boulevard.

If you are someone that pays attention to their surroundings over the past few months, then you’ve likely seen him out there too.

When I caught up with him, he was just turning around at a light pole across from Donut Palace. From there, he walks back up the sidewalk until it ends near the intersection of Highway 51, near Mike Whatley Honda.

Pushing his son Lennox in the stroller, Elton goes back and forth down the sidewalk.

He often gets out around 6 a.m. for a walk and then does another one in the evening around 5 p.m.

I tell him his routine hasn’t gone unnoticed and mention seeing someone shouting him out on social media.

He smiles and says he gets familiar honks and waves, but he didn’t realize that people were clocking his workouts.

He’s cutting his caloric intake back to around 2,000 a day.

“I still eat what I want, I just don’t eat too much of it,” said Elton. “And I exercise every day.”

I’ve noticed your routine, I tell him. I was once an avid walker myself before launching this website on Aug. 2.

How many pounds are you down, I ask.

“I’m down about 150 pounds so far,” he says with a big grin.

Dude has lost a whole other person in pounds. Elton is tall and you would never guess he even had that much weight to lose.

He listens to an audiobook, usually something by Brandon Sandersons, to occupy his mind as he goes back and forth down the main thoroughfare of Brookhaven.

Elton is from Texas but found love with a girl from Southwest Mississippi in his wife, the former Taylor Sanford.

He doesn’t start out with a set number of miles in mind but usually shoots for at least three a day. Sometimes he might walk five and he’s even had 15-mile days.

“If he gets fussy and is ready to go home, then we go home,” said Elton.

Lennox is with him every step of the day. When I caught up with them, he was working on a piece of long-lasting candy, content as his dad made the turn to head in the opposite direction.

Elton has a gym membership, but he says the daily walks were the key to unlocking his fitness journey.

“It just fits my brain, going back and forth down the same route,” he said. “I go to the gym, but my walk takes precedence.”

Cold. Rainy. Late. Early. Hot. Sunny.

Elton Cosper and his boy have seen it all together over the past few months.

Always together, Elton doesn’t walk without Lennox in the stroller.

Taylor sent me a picture the day after I talked with Elton. It was from February, 29, 2024, the day after Lennox was born.

She thanked me for recognizing his hard work and I told her I wasn’t the only one.

You can be an inspiration to people who don’t even know you as Elton and his walks are a good reminder of that.

I told Elton that I noticed him walking back around May or June. His hair was shorter, his son was smaller, and he looked like a completely different person now.

He said he sees that when he looks in the mirror, and more importantly, he feels it inside of himself.

Do you feel better now, I ask.

“Absolutely,” he replies. “Both physically and mentally.”

Keep going, Elton. One day Lennox is going to look back at that picture of you holding him in your arms and he’s going to look at you in person and be confused.

Then you can tell him the story about how you two traveled a half-mile piece of sidewalk alongside the busiest road in Brookhaven in an innumerable circuit of walks that changed your life.

And you did it together.