What happens while walking...

...is that an occasionally a thought or two pops into my head.

Okay, it really happens very, very rarely, but anywaysy...

As you some of you know, I walk to help combat a medical problem, a problem which has over the past few years destroyed most of my hearing because of damage to the nerve endings. While the walking was too late to prevent this, it has, for now, saved my toes which came within a few months of being removed because of bad circulation and nerve damage.

The biggest fallout from all of this is that instead of hearing real sounds (and music) nowadays, I have permanent tinnitus... ringing and other noises in my ears - this noise usually sounds like a perpetual fog horn bellowing in my head... but on good days, I can get a song going in my head to replace it. This is really good except when the song is the Barney "I Love You" or "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round!"

Umm.. what was I saying, oh yes, while walking recently, I had the pleasure of hearing a most pure violin solo playing what might be, my all-time favorite, Christmas Carol in my head...

O Holy Night

The stars are brightly shining
it is the night
of our dear saviors birth

Long lay the world
in sin and error pining
'til he appeared
and the soul felt it's worth

The thrill of hope
the weary world rejoices
for yonder breaks
a new and glorious morn
oh fall on your knees
oh hear the angels voices
oh night divine
oh night when Christ was born

This sound came from memory, a most cherished one. It was 14-15 years ago, when I attended my parent's Church for a candlelight Christmas service. I attended because a very talented young boy of 14 years old was playing his violin. This young man got up in the stillness and the flickering of the candles and played the most haunting rendition of "O Holy Night" that I have ever heard. The tune was so evocative, so plainitive, and so moving the entire church sat there in stunned silence when it was over, everyone completely shiny eyed, completely captured by the innocence and the spirituality of the moment.

It was a dark, bleak, raw night four or five years after that, when this young man, who was an honor student, eagle scout, and now a volunteer fire fighter responded to an alarm and headed to the firehouse. Along the way, he was broadsided by someone who ran a stop sign in the dark and killed.

This tragedy, among others, dimmed my outlook on life, giving me the bitter phrase "No good deed goes unpunished."

...but for a few shiny moments, while I was walking out in the cold, darkness with a light flurry of snow falling, I heard his masterly fingers over the strings of his violin... and a part of him came back to this "weary world" and gave me "a thrill of hope."

This year, in addition to getting grave blankets for my grandparents (a quirk of mine some of you know about), I will be attending a memorial candlelight service being held at that Church of distant memory in honor of those that are no longer "among" us - where I will speak of this young man... and tell them, "oh... but they are still 'among' us".

-Intense Guy

The Route of the Virtual Walker

Even with Punkn's tempting offer of chocolate chip cookies if I should walk through central Missouri, I decided to walk up the east coast of the USA since I have been pretty much everywhere along the I-95 corridor and will be familiar with places as I travel along. I will make a quick side trip in upstate New York (via virtual bus) to a place named Schermerhorn Harbor (projected date June-ish, 2008)

I will try to show where I am in a "virtual" travelogue fashion, but might only do so once or twice a week as time-permits and when the virtual walk actually goes some place of interest (there will be lots of nameless and seemly endless stretches along the way) This route measures 2033 miles from one end to the other, from Key West, Florida to Lubec, Maine. I will go by way of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel to the eastern shore of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia (Known as "Delmarva") across the Delaware Bay to the New Jersey beaches, through New York City, and into New England.

And yes, with a fear that makes me quake in my boots, I will risk the Maine-iacs. :-)



Happy trails -

New Virtual Walk Gets Underway - Day One

I haven't charted out the whole route yet but I have started from the southernmost point in the continental USA, South Street and Whitehead Street, Key West, Florida. The Florida Keys are known by the natives as the Conch Republic.



Fittingly, there is a marker here. I have been here to watch sunsets, and sunsets in the Florida Keys are quite special. The clear blue water shines and reflects the colored sky spectacularly.



This virtual walk will be about 2000 miles (one-way) depending on where I end up! So as I turn and leave the southernmost point, I see this sign... Real life can be stranger then fiction huh?



Just up the street from where the walk started, is the house Ernest Hemmingway lived in. This home is now a park where the offspring of the many cats owned by the "Old Man of the Sea" had - literally dozens of them, are kept comfortable by an eternal trust fund.



Of course, no walk would be complete without a landmark like the one below - the Key West Lighthouse. It is open to the public and the house itself is done with immaculate glossy woodwork. The porch is a nice place for a drink on the ol' rocker.

Walk Completed!

6060 Miles (9752.6 kilometers) completed! I pushed myself 11 miles so I could get to the end before the crummy weather set in.

I am now planning the route for the next virtual walk. :-)