Tuesday, April 24, 2012

A message on the Wind.

I'd been feeling an odd calm lately, different from all the other times I had returned from the long walks. The precious memories and fine acquaintances left behind had me lonely. I would not trade the friends and sights for the mixed emotions that troubled me. This time I feel no sadness for loss but a calm joy at recalling the richness of the path, the people, the fleeting sunsets.
A wind blew a piece of paper along the sidewalk in front of me. It was a free flier that had blown from a restaurant up-wind, covered with advertisements surrounding a column of local events with a few stories one paragraph in length. As I was about to crumble it and toss it in the trash I noticed a quote. Upon reading it I noticed it was from the Author of "Walden Pond". It seemed to compliment the warm feelings I have begun to realize... " I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture,
or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumble-bee.
I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star,
or the south wind,
or an April shower,
or a January thaw,
or the first spider in a new house.
Henry David Thoreau

Monday, April 23, 2012

Silence

Now Spring has sprung, the seeds must have time to sprout. Amid the winds there is calm, a pause between the roar. My son needs time to do his work, and I will be here to watch him grow. From behind clouds the light will soon glow and help the roots take hold. For now I am staying close to home. For awhile my job is to be here, be calm, be silent. I am forming a plan for the next walk in the West, repairing the world, tending my nest, watering the seeds. I am walking everyday. I talk about loving yourself, about the Movement-movement. For awhile I will love myself, move myself and watch the seed grow in silence.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Earth Day

I have spent most of the day enjoying the outside on this cool spring day. I took the dog for a run with the bike. I spent time with my son. I ate something green. Everyday, for me, is Earth Day.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

since I've been back home...from The Grassy Knoll

I sit in the shade by a Knoll of grass aside from the spot where our former mayor was run down while walking his aged mother across the road. They were both killed. A wide stripped crosswalk is painted on that spot. In hopes it will never happen again. Of all the places to stop and, "out of the blue', decide I need to post something after being home over a week. I will just save this, and continue walking the dog...


Continued... Since I have been back I have began eating less, a life long habit I have, I eat like I am twenty, I don't burn it of like I used to. Since I have walked all these miles I don't crave sweet things and when I eat them I can now notice the drain it puts on me. Nice (the dog) and I have walked into the heart of The Highlands, He is shading in a small knoll of ivy beside a bowl of iced water left by the restaurant for the dogs who walk by. He decided we would stop here... The neighborhood I grew up in is as open and diverse as any I have wondered through so far. Since I have been away I have come to notice how pretty Louisville is, especially around "the Kentucky Derby". Since I have been home I have been very calm. It must have been all the walking... He has gotten up time to move on.

Since I have returned I found my first four leaf clover. After fifty years of looking... Moving along...

Since I began writing this the neighborhood auto repair shop has fixed my brakes, again. Off to pick it up.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

The Back Yard to the Grassy Knoll

Fourteen years ago when I pulled the world out of storage to play in our tiny back yard with my seven year old son on his birthday who could have predicted how many miles, storms, mountains and divides this ball of rubber and thread will now have seen? Now, after walking in, through or to thirty four states, rolling more than five thousand miles outside of my own back yard, I finished this seventh walk in downtown Dallas to bring awareness to diabetes. There a secret, known to a small group of men, was revealed to me; the neon green lighted building scheme was a picture slipped in as joke in the final plan submition and the owners liked it. A joke where some prankster taped glow sticks to the scale mock up just before the photographer came to shoot the last pictures. The Dallas Texas skyline secret. When the world outside my fence tempted my son and I like a trillion dollar playground how was I to know how that simple-minded choice to jump the fence and go for a walk would alter my universe from that day on. From my back yard across the Ohio river, the Missouri, Mississippi, Shebogan, Red and countless creeks and rivers through wind and, clouds and sunshine I have walked. From my backyard to Wall Street in New York City to the grain elevators of Beemer Nebraska, The Alabama Bayous to the Presidential Mountain Range in New Hampshire, we have walked under the Archway to the West in St, Louis, across the continental divides of Minnesota and South Dakota. To Walden Pond and Cripple Creek I have walked. Fourteen more states, how many more inside stories will I learn, who knows?
Walk for your health. Be your own Movement-movement.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

"X" marks the spot

A friend was reviewing World events during his life. Events which, from that day forward, shifted how things are with whole nations both emotionally and physically for generations. One was the killing of President Kennedy in downtown Dallas. Though I was a baby when he was shot I have grown up and grown old effected and affected by the event. My friend is almost ten years older than I, he remembered his pre-adolescent emotion and saw how it changed the country, the world, as he watched from innocent young eyes. A man half my age walked with me into downtown Dallas who had studied the assassination and led me along the motorcade route to the spot where the president was hit. There on the street in Dallas, where the coarse of generations changed fortune, is painted an "X".

midnight at the grassy knoll

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

At the Dallas county line...

Underpass post

I nearly began walking at 2-AM from the bugs biting but managed to get enough sleep to walk somewhat rested. I am a couple days from where I will stop walking. Here comes a visitor...

Monday, April 9, 2012

Mundo ramble...

Walking toward Kaufman from Kemp I didn't notice the time fly by as I talked with people who stopped. Some were curious and had not seen or heard what I was doing. Some had followed my progress for days or longer, finally finding me and excitedly getting a picture with the World. A man who stopped with his family turned out to be a local police chief and emailed the officer on duty to get his supply bag and bring me a patch. He couldn't find one but came out to get a picture and read the message from his smart phone. He said he wondered what his boss had meant when he said "World Guy" but it wad obvious when he saw us on the road. He did have a department business card. I often ask for a patch when I speak to law enforcement. The thing is that I hadn't asked. I didn't know the man with his beautiful pink dressed girls and lovely wife was a cop or a king. He certainly had two little princesses. Not long after the visit from the officer a county sheriff stopped me, asked for my drivers license, quizzed me about the exact location of my van, it's color, model and year before pointing to the spot I was already stand on and asked me to wait "right here" while he ran my I.D.. Nice (he dog) stared longingly at the cool puddle just feet away, then at me, then at the puddle. I didn't bother to ask him for a patch when he returned my identification with a caution to keep the World out of the roadway. Where was he when I had to run those narrow bridges? A woman later stopped with one of her "many" daughters and two of her "many" granddaughters. She said as she labored to walk from her car "only for you" would she walk that far. As I explained my Movement-movement and message that walking can help to control diabetes her daughter pointed to her mother and egged me on to keep talking, I pressed that I had lost my mother and that being alive for your grand-kids is important. Her daughter beamed with smiles as I tossed out line after line that bounced off her mothers armor. A man stopped to see what I was doing, we talked for a long time as several other came and went before he revealed he had recently lost weight and gotten off of diabetes medications by going on-line and strictly following the diet of Edgar Cayce. No fried food, no refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white flour etc. He said the pounds fell away. By the time the clouds rolled in and I slipped under a steel carport for sale between a car lot and a church the day was spent. I had traveled just nine miles in eight hours. I received a text from the woman who had invited me to dinner the previous day. She was able to get through to that church and get permission for me to bring my van up and stay for the night. If not for the many people who stopped all day I would have been out in the rain. With the wind, gravity, barometric pressure, people, dogs, mud puddles and varied terrain I cannot really know how much time it may take to move the world. Everyday I find inspiration and hope to keep stepping out.

Join the Movement-movement, Bring a friend...

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Easter

We have already walked several miles from Kemp this morning. I think today we will have to walk over ten miles. There have been several narrow bridges I have had to run since yesterday. I am a turtle and running only hurts my back, torn achilles and knees that were tweeked in a bad way early last year when I was riding my bike and some guy drove into me. I may not have a wafer or wine this morning but I can waffle and whine. I had a nice supper last night with some of the cast for "the Resurrection" at a local church. We at at a long narrow table. The one who played judas was conspicuiously absent. He had other matters...
We are forty three miles from Dallas. iam tired. Have to cut this short, people are walking up.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Hugs for Meme

I get "blown away" by things sometimes. When the winds are very strong I sometimes have to hold on tight to the leash aTtached to my little world. There are times when I meet someone who lifts me off my feet. The young Mother I met on the morning of Good Friday touched me deeply when she gave me one of the wrist bands she and her family are using to raise funds for a kidney transplant for her Grandmother who has been a long time on dialysis. The wrist bands say "Hug a Meme". The young woman is going to give her kidney to her Grandmother, her Meme, and help raise the money for the surgery. That's love. That's truly giving of oneself more than I have done in walking to help bring awareness to diabetes. It's people like her that deserve the highest honors, the most praise and warmest hugs. I hope them the best with all my heart.

Friday, April 6, 2012

In the Mirror

Walking away from Athens I was against the wind, was stopped to talk, was given more bottles of water,V-8,food and more water. If the day from Poyner to Athens could be defined as a "cardio-workout" this day was a weight training day. My pace became slower and slower as the weight increased. As the sun fell behind the trees a man riding his small children in a four wheeler came up, he had stopped earlier as I plodded along. I asked if I could stop for the evening some place close. He gave me a ride back to my van and made sure I was safely back to the World's resting spot by the road. This morning while I unpacked my gifts I have lined up a three foot row of bottled water, bags of pre-cooked meats,flour tortias, cans of dog food and a pepsi. I had drank a dozen bottles during the day. Dehydration was not an issue. Thanks to all those who help me stay safe and well fed.
Tuesday I was scanning radio stations as I walked and heard a D-J talk about "the worldguy and played a song that reminded her of me. It was a song I'd never heard and after listening to the words I wondered what she was thinking, it was a sad song about crawling back to some thwarted love, I searched to hear something in the song I could relate to my trip, my life, my world and could find none. It had me thinking what songs might be more appropriate. Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror played in my ear. This morning I awoke a two A.M. With the lines playing in my mind. I recommend it.
Be the one to start your Movement movement.


Addm: Earth, Wind and Fire-Shining Star

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Poyner , the loop, the picnic.

After spending the evening posting thanks to the many peoole who wished me a happy birthday I was lulled to sleep by the rain, hail, lightening and thunder; the tail end of the storm that smashed through Dallas. I slept through it as if it were my birthday. The road was a two lane for twelve miles, with no shoulder and tall wet grass. In some areas the grass was chest high. Nice (the dog) walked behind the World in the furrow I plowed as I kept out of traffic. There was no rushing in the high growth while I stepped high and carefully in the wet grasses and wildflowers. After the grass dried from the sun and I made it back to the wide four lane I was able to change to dry socks but the boots had become rank from so many days of being worn while wet. In the end of the day I was helped to a church where I stayed for the night. I talked with the pastor ofr hours this morning before I started around the loop around Athens. With a head wind and dozens of stops for interviews, pictures, conversations and laughs I have made it back to US-175 and a shaded spot. A good place for a picnic to enjoy the sandwich the local reporter brought me. I washed it down with the gatorade a highway worker gave me as I passed her. The wind has not let up and the hard miles of yesterday have me feeling tired. Or maybe it's the sandwich and the breezy shade.
It would be so easy to fall asleep...
I netter get on my gear and get it in gear. The World doesn't move effortlessly...

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Yes, it's my Birthday...

Fifty. Not feeling poetic, young or very old. It almost always rains on my birthday and this is typical, raining. I had walked less than three blocks from the Frankston Fire Department when the rain came. We happened to be next to a roadside building with an overhang carport, once a gas station, now a storage spot for a mustang, old rusty tow motor, a vintage Coke machine and a pile of nail riddled framing wood and scrap plywood. Leaves and dust from seasons of neglect covering the concrete pad. When I was a baby this probably was the hub of the neighborhood. I can imagine all the old fathers hanging about before work, big tail finned cars driving by. Things change. This old fork-lift is probably as old as me. There is more technology in this modern Ford Mustang than what on the flights the moon. My phone has bells and whistles I could never have imagined when I was making red clay plates to dry in the sun on an old log by the creek in Georgia where I caught my first crawdad'. That crawfish was so black it shined blue in the sunlight. The roads are soaked with rain, a soon as the cars spash some of the wet away I will walk away from my little moment of nostalgia. Several folks have stopped in the past few minutes and Nice (the dog) now has an extra bag of dry dog food and a few cans of wet to wash them down. I was given a breakfast sandwich by two pretty sisters. It may be wet today but it is already a beautiful day.
Walk today, it's a one man Movement-movement. You be "the man" and the movement.

Monday, April 2, 2012

out of Jacksonville

I slept at Walmart and had enough daytime to make a repair on the North pole and some much needed paint. It was warm and early enough to dry thoroughly, the paint I have put on since Wells has all washed off from dew and rain from poor drying conditions. My clothes and even Nice (the dog) are streaked with wisps of green and blue. I have turned west on US-175 to go to Dallas. The pack I was given by the Veteran "Mr. Clay" has seen two tours in Iraq and after a few days of my sweat I have kicked up the Bouquet of The Veteran "Mr. Clay", it's like carrying my twenty year old on my back. I stopped and got a $3 spray bottle of smell good stuff , Egyptian Mist, and doused half the bottle on the pack. Now I smell like a two dollar _______. better than the alternative. This morning I was not very enthused about walking but now that I am on the road I feel better.
Walk with someone you love today, you may get a hug for the effort.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Almost Jacksonville

I walked out early this morning. The heat yesterday afternoon and the tall spring grasses and wildflowers though beautiful were too tall for steady progress and there were many stretches of shoulderless roadway. I am drained from the past weeks of worry and getting back up to speed takes time. While I was home I was given a full "ruk"sack by the veteran Mr. Clay. A great piece of gear, weighty, but good. I'll have to loose some weight to make the difference. I am now about four miles from town where Nice (the dog) has found some shade for a nap. I want thank the cat Lady for the ride to get my van last night. I apologize for the lack of things to talk about, my mind is still worried about my son. He is getting clearer each day.
Remember to get out and move. Your own personal Movement-Movement. Prevent, control diabetes.