WorldGuy's Walk for Diabetes Awareness -

The bike path to Monmouth from Rickreall was a welcome sight with only two joggers , seven cyclists and one on roller-blades were all I had to contend with. The wheat fields and wild rose pouring onto the path that runs along beside the highway were the hardest obstacles to avoid. Only one person stopped to talk from the thousand cars and trucks. A woman about my age who, after I told her I was walking to help show walking can help control, prevent or turn around diabetes, enthusiastically agreed. She was walking two miles during the weekdays and getting seven to nine miles in on the weekends saying it makes a world of difference for her. She said you can diet but nothing gets those toxins out like exercise to keep her diabetes in control. As I reached town I had to stop to pour the wheat harvest from my shoes. I stopped at J's 99 Grill, it looked like the place in town that serves everybody who is anybody in town. I like to find the place where the patrons come to eat while solving the difficult questions facing the World. For the first time since I was given my "Gen-you-wine ruff and Tuff big Texas" cowboy hat I swung through a set of cafe' doors to the grill. Blame it on those "spaghetti westerns". The air inside smelled like a grandmothers' kitchen cabinet sour with the oils of a thousand meals. There I was given a phone number to call for a man I met yesterday as I walked by his job sight on the pipeline. I made my way down the old 99's route for a few more miles to a small state park. While I walked along I came upon two men fishing over a small bridge with just a guardrail spanning the creek. One was walking back a forth tending his poles, the other at first looked from a distance like he was sick. He was a very large man bent over the rail laboring to even breath. His large shirt hardly covered the underside of his belly. His shorts had no chance of covering his "plumbers" crack. His exposed calves rippled with cellulite and were larger than my own fat thighs. He never raised up or did more than turn his head my way and looked as if he was weary from standing. I left it alone and walked by. The man who gave me a ride brought his son who , during the ride back to Rickreal said he had seen a man in the gas-food mart who had to be over for seventy five to five hundred pounds getting a pile of suger filled drinks and snacks. I asked about the clothes confirming that it was the man fishing. The young man said he would have felt for him had he not had so much on the counter. He left it alone too. As I rolled up I saw a great view of a huge old bird flying along the tree by the river and all afternoon I heard the cackle of the bald eagle in the trees close bye. I hope to leave early in the morning to get our walking in before the heat. During the hot summer days this will be our pattern, to start early and end in the early afternoon. It is sixteen miles to the next city and if we don't get there early we will spend a lot of time under some shade tree by the highway.
I don't mind repeating... It's a Movement-movement. Love yourself, go for a walk.