The Art Of Walking

You know I miss “having” to walk places. I think the simple act of walking with a far away destination in mind gives raise to wonderful bounty of thinking time. You totally resign to the fact that it’s going to take an undetermined amount of time to get where you are going. So you realize that you have plenty of time to just think, of anything. I swear with the amount of thinking I did during those times, converted to electricity I could have powered a small star. My little brain couldn’t contain my big mind and it spilled out as I walked along. I just started rattling on out loud about whatever was on my mind. You know like crazy people do. God that was fun! I could rehearse sketches, sing, make funny noises, talk to myself like I was a totally different person; talking out my conclusions about life or whatever. Not to mention you absorb more if your listening to (at that time) a walkman. I had memorized all the Monty Python Skits just by listening to them again and again as I walked to and from places. Put that in your pipe and smoke it Artie Duckwett! Its not just time involved though. It is also location, location, location. I have always been rather adventurous where I walked. I almost never ever took the beaten path. Not many people know this but my first official job at “Devalue City” it took me over an hour to walk to work. I would leave my house and go through the woods to the creek. Walk through ankle sometime shin deep in creek water. Go through the dark tunnel / spillway under the railroad tracks. Through a wild field sometimes continuing through the woods behind neighborhood houses to the main road but usually through an unfamiliar neighborhood twice a day. Sometimes it would be one in the morning when I made my journey back home. I usually never saw anyone. I often changed my route walking under the highway or across the railroad tracks through (not the best parts) of those neighborhoods. I wasn’t rushing either meandering around like I lived there and had all the time in the world. Even though I was alone those were some of my fondest times. Everyday was an adventure… never knowing what you might find along the way. Of course, it was big pain in the ass too because it was a suburban area. Unless it is like the city things tend to be spread out more so. I had the ambition to get where I was going but once I was there and done… “you mean I have to walk an hour back home? Oh that sucks. I wonder if I still have a buck fifteen left”. But of course, if tried to do that today and were to stray off the beaten path I might get accosted and detained. When you’re a naïve kid you get a lot of slack if you weren’t up to no good and if you could fain stupidity that would help too.