You Gonna Walk All That Way

Safeguard Your Health: Become an Oddball

Version [1.0]

26/03/21

One day the bar-owner's son said to me: 'I saw you walkin' back from Kroger's - you're crazy, man!' Nineteen years old, but already somewhat spherical. His father's silhouette was different; it resembled the third trimester. Neither of them had tackled the gruelling 15-minute trek to the supermarket very recently.

The regulars were puzzled by a certain woman in the neighbourhood who strode briskly from shop to shop. They awarded her an appropriate soubriquet: 'the walking woman'. 'Hey, it's the walking woman!', someone would exclaim; and everyone turned to gape; for this woman went about on foot. She was the walking woman because she walked.

I'd eat locally, reaching the eatery by putting one foot forward, then the other, in a repetitive manner. One time a car came alongside and the window descended. 'D'ya need a ride?' asked a public-spirited driver. I thanked him but declined, pointing to the Waffle House down the road, about two football pitches away. 'You gonna walk all that way?' came the response. He drove off. Perhaps he thought I was an Olympic athlete. But more probably, he doubted my sanity. I could've sat in my comfy chair, and just let an internal-combustion engine get me there. But I preferred Shanks's pony: and this made me an oddball.

In the US I experienced this attitude quite frequently: I refer to oddballs who own cars, but instead prefer to stretch their legs. Homo americanus dislikes walking, this is well-known; but there's more here than just laziness. No-one with self-respect walks; for pedestrianism is demeaning. What would our friends think, if they saw us rummaging in the public litter? For similar reasons, Americans don’t walk. They expect a comfy chair, pulled around by a spark-ignition engine. Walking is undignified.

There's a subtle distinction here, though. Utilitarian walking (to the supermarket, say) is for oddballs like me. Recreational walking (just for exercise), on the other hand, is okay - and with no oddball aspersions. Our local park had a sports track, around which recreational walkers completed circuits. But how did they get to the park? Well, they drove. Recreational walking also subtracts time from your already-busy schedule. Why not get that loaf of bread, and some exercise to boot? Two birds and one stone.

I used to live up this hill. While ascending, on foot that is, a kindly neighbour stopped to offer me a lift. I do not impugn his neighbourliness; but the notion that I ascended by choice, appeared flatly inconceivable to him. Similarly, a visit to the Rose and Crown is not just about the beer: it is also about the walk. There is that well-known golfing quip: 'a good walk wasted'. Only an oddball walks the course, when golfing carts are provided.

When I bought my first house, I made sure it lay within walking distance of my workplace. What distance is practical? Well, a commute is also about time: hence I figured about two miles. Half an hour to work; half an hour back. Twenty miles per week meant five hours per week. Plenty of exercise; and all as a useful by-product, insofar as I went to work anyway - two birds and one stone, as it were. My colleagues asked why on earth I did not drive; would this not cut my journey to just five minutes? But what should I do with the twenty-five minutes? Get some exercise?

'A car gives you freedom to live wherever you like', I was kindly advised. Freedom? Every week my colleagues threw away twenty or more hours - and with no exercise as fringe benefit. I listened to the muddled argument: 'I must have a car, as otherwise I couldn't possibly get to work'. 'I don't like sleeping with my shoes on, as the next day it gives me a headache'. There was the continual belly-aching about fuel prices. I have news for you: in real terms, fuel is cheaper than in the 1960s. The reason why no-one complained in the 1960s, is because no-one lived forty miles from their workplace! We go to work five days a week, but shop one day a week. Should we live closer to our workplace or to shops? Here am I, thinking logically again.

I was warned about . . . rain. (Many motorists appear to suffer from some mysterious dissolving disease). By pure coincidence, I heard a radio program in which rain was considered from a statistical standpoint. I learned that, if a man walks two miles to work, and two miles back, five days a week, then he'll be rained on, probably, twice a year. And this fits entirely with my experience.

Cold weather was another angle. In winter I'd arrive at work, to find my colleagues getting out of their cars, stamping their feet and hugging themselves, exhaling visible clouds. 'Aren't you cold?' 'Aren't you cold?' 'Aren't you cold?' 'Aren't you cold?' Well, no, not really - I'd just walked two miles. No machine can perform work, without also producing heat - and that includes the human body. Some folks just don't know the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

'You'll wear out your joints', was another comment. (Oddly this came from a sporty type.) Again, I look at this logically: I'll give priority to the muscle that pushes the blood around, thank you. That's because I'd rather it just kept on pumping, to be honest. If you give it an easy time, then eventually you'll place a load on it that it's not used to, and it'll object. Besides, given an even choice between a replacement heart and a replacement hip, I wouldn't have to think about it for too long. Anyway, joints are poorly plumbed: they get nutrients when used. In other words you maintain joints by using them.

I've long noted not just the laziness of the motorist over parking places, but also the easily-inflamed indignation whenever those places are not immediately outside the building. One workplace was constructed in the 1950s, with a carpark sized accordingly: it accommodated just ten per cent of the staff. Parking places were deeply coveted, and allotted strictly on length of service. Staff were forced to park fifty or more yards away - a great indignity. I listened with quiet amusement: here was I, walking two miles to work, while others bitched about fifty yards. One day construction work began, as a result of which employees were, temporarily that is, required to walk one hundred yards - an intolerable exertion. At a staff meeting there was righteous indignation, 'You can't expect us to walk all that way'; to which I interjected: 'Perhaps we can install a conveyor belt'. One employee began using an unofficial parking place that partially obstructed emergency access. The boss stormed into the lab, and said: 'If I see you using that place again, then I'll deny you a parking permit for the entire site'. Denying a parking permit to an employee, is akin to threatening a child with abandonment.

I feel this inclination to walk, just for walking's sake. I've no idea how common this is; perhaps I'm an oddball? When I suggested to a friend that we 'go for a walk', he asked me where we were going. To the supermarket, perhaps? I said no; I had no purpose in mind, other than just walking. He found my suggestion fatuous. Should we put our shoes and coats on, walk around the neighbourhood, then just come back and take our shoes and coats off? Well, nature designed our bodies around three directives: searching for food, running from predators, and chasing mates. We're not designed for sitting in recliners, sitting at a desks, or sitting behind internal-combustion engines. The sedentary lifestyle is a dangerous enemy. And we left Africa on foot, not in automobiles.

Regular walking is strongly associated with healthfulness and longevity: and the medical profession bewails the 'public health crisis' - yet Shanks's pony is everywhere obstructed. One workplace I was almost unable to reach by foot. If I lived north of the dual carriageway, then there was no pedestrian access at all. If I lived south of it, then I could choose: one mile along the grass verge of another dual carriageway, or a couple of hundred yards through an unlit park. All hard-line walkers have experienced these problems. Sidewalks that disappear. Unlit, graffitoed underpasses. Communities dismembered by busy roads.

While I've always worked in offices, at the same time I've held responsibilities for labs or other test facilities. As I may choose when to visit these other facilities, then I get a little walk - and at my own volition. Now there was this factory floor, in which the office lay at one side, and the lab at the other. I'd take the shortest route from office to lab, but to return, I'd enjoy a perambulation around the factory floor. To the workers this behaviour made me an oddball; more readily excused, would be to walk the shorter route on my hands. I will explain my behaviour: perambulations are useful head-clearing exercises; and insofar as I'm paid to think, then surely I may do so while walking. Solivtur ambulando - you solve problems by walking (which I did many times as a student). Outside the main building, incidentally, there were smoking shelters. Thus one employee walks around voluntarily, and is branded an oddball; another inhales lethal toxins voluntarily, in shelters provided for the purpose.

Although we're warned repeatedly that we rarely take sufficient exercise, the eradication of manual labour via technological innovation is rigorous and unrelenting. I may no longer, for example, indulge my eccentricity in the garden: I refer to mowing the lawn. At the store I discovered a vast range of mowers, both electric and petrol. Only at the far, far end, was there the Luddite's favourite, a manual-mower - an egregiously inferior one, judged by the mowers of my childhood. I purchased this mower nonetheless, and thus obtained the benefit of exercise, while mowing the lawn - two birds and one stone, as I say. The neighbours' curtains probably twitched, at the sight of a man preferring to mow with effort, what he might mow with technological assist. After a couple of years the mower fell to bits, unsurprisingly; and my Luddite gardening came to an end.

A certain department store, I found, stocked a wide range of old-fashioned alarm clocks, the type in which a small hammer whacks back-and-forth between two bells. All models, however, were battery operated - so fearful is the burden of manual labour in the winding mechanism. Engineers, I gather, are studying the computer-brain interface, with a view to eradicating manual labour at the desk: I refer to pushing a mouse around, and the physical exhaustion it entails.

Returning to cars: if you can jump into a car whenever you like, to go wherever you like, then this fosters a lazy attitude to planning. Dear motorist: if all your recent trips are considered together, have you used your time efficiently? You went out first thing for a newspaper; only later discovering that you're out of bread. You drove all the way to Homebase yesterday: today you drive to a restaurant on the same block, and in which you could've eaten yesterday. Are you really saving any time? I suspect you're kidding yourself.

Now obviously there are practical constraints. I've had a good go at Americans, who live with a regrettable infrastructure wedded to mass car ownership. This is why cities lack distinctiveness, unless that is they pre-date the car. Numbing familiarity; identikit shops; anywhere is everywhere. No-one proceeds on foot: a police car stops; the cop asks what you're up to. I'd drive to Office Depot, park, shop; get back into the car, drive to Wallmart, park shop, get back into the car . . . It is an illusion that cars save time, because everything is now so much further apart. The same trends are evident here: we used to walk to the corner shop; but now drive to the supermarket. Lord, give me a high street and my leg-stretch.

Bibliography

Road Transport and Health, British Medical Association (1997).

(c) cufwulf

cufwulf@aol.com