Walking Is The Answer

We have become a society much to dependent on driving. Tonight I have a meeting that is exactly one mile from my house. The person holding the meeting has limited parking and it turns out her neighbor is also having 40 guests at the same time. My friend having the meeting asked everyone to carpool. Since most of us live in the neighborhood the real request needs to be, “if you can, walk.”
If we lived in a city no one would think twice about doing anything but walk. Imagine how crazy you would seem if you hailed a cab or called an uber to go one mile. In New York City one mile is 20 North-South blocks, and those are the short blocks. Twenty blocks is nothing.
The gas crisis we have had here is affecting people getting out. Tuesday and today I went to lunch at very popular lunch spots, they both were practically empty. It was weird since you usually have to fight for a table. Both of these places are on the boulevard, close to many places of work and homes. Many people could have walked there if they wanted, but they didn’t.
When we have giant snow and ice storms plenty of people who can’t get their cars out walk to the grocery store from my neighborhood and that is in the cold and wet. Why not do it when the weather is nice? Granted carrying home a lot of bags is not that easy, but how many times do you run to the store for one or two things.
We can’t all be so busy that we can’t spend fifteen or twenty minutes to walk a mile. How much time do people spend getting ready to go to the gym, driving there, working out and driving home. If we just walked a little more to the places that are a little further you would not need to go to the gym as often, or you could eat and ice cream cone every so often.
My friend Jane says she walks so she can keep walking. Having lived with elderly parents who did not do any exercise she sees how quickly you can lose mobility from lack of use. I know that my parents living on a farm are in much better shape than they would be if they lived in a suburban setting.
So leave the car at home. Do yourself a favor and walk.