Back in 1966, Nancy Sinatra was known for a ballad entitled: These Boots Were Made for Walkin’. I never owned boots made for walking, but my legs were. I had to walk everywhere I wanted to go. My father believed it was unnecessary to own a car. He walked everywhere he had to go and thought his family should, too. Fortunately, on weekends Uncle Bill Moransky or Uncle Frank Borecki would take their own families and us for a drive in the country or to visit other relatives. If my father wanted to gamble at cards, he would be driven to the game by his friend, Ed Shoebel. It wasn’t until I had planned to attend graduate school in another state that he agreed I needed a car. While living in Niles, my high school was only 0.9 mile from my home, and my grandmother’s home was the same distance in the opposite direction. It took only twenty to thirty minutes to make the journey on foot, depending upon weather conditions.
During the winter months I did wear boots, although not the kind Nancy sang about. Mine were rubber galoshes worn over regular shoes. It was a challenge to snap the metal toggles together so that my pant legs were securely wrapped for the journey through the sludge of winter in northern Ohio. With the spring mud, the galoshes were replaced by rubber overshoes that felt as if I were walking with lead-weights on my feet. During the limited months of early fall and late spring, walking was temporarily replaced by bike-riding. I preferred the more rapid journey afforded while sitting down to the pace of leg movement while standing up. Nevertheless, both biking and striding offered time for a wandering mind as well as a wandering body.
My continuing life in college towns of limited size allowed for more opportunities for walking. My home was usually located about a half-hour walk from where my classes occurred. However, proper scheduling was required to minimize cross-campus dashes. The crisscrossing paths were efficiently designed, in contrast to the slowly moving campus shuttle system with its over-packed minibuses. Cars were used only when they were needed for transporting packages, especially weekly groceries. This necessity, however, seemed to increase with the passing years and our move to Houston with its suburban sprawl. Now, walking was associated with the pleasures of sightseeing rather than with the necessities of life.
Neighborhood walks, especially in the cool of early evening, were pleasant ways to dissolve the stresses from my daily interactions with demanding faculty members. A community golf course, after the players had left for the day, could serve as a calm oasis for a quiet stroll.
Domestic and foreign travel destinations for vacations offered even better opportunities for my wandering body and soul. The grounds of an Ignatian Retreat Center provided the best location for my physical and spiritual renewal. Not far behind, were cemeteries in Prague or in towns in Italy and England. Narrow, cobbled streets with quaint shops and houses afforded quiet resources for contemplation as I passed along them. A wandering walk could be readily interrupted by a bench near a plaza, where people-watching would replace the desire to see delightful carvings hidden on the facades of the ancient buildings surrounding me. I enjoyed my attempts to compare the faces of the statues with those of the town’s current residents and see that only their garments had really changed, and not always for the better.
In between vacation times, with its opportunities for strolling through history, Karen and I would engage in mall-walking, a variation of that ancient custom of rambling through market squares in European villages. Air-conditioned sites are Houstonian replacements for the breezes found in plazas, especially if there is a food-court selling Cinnabons.
During our first forty years in Texas, we spent many pleasant hours wandering through Greenspoint, Willowbrook and Memorial City as well as among the crowded streets of Old Town Spring. For special times, we would travel to San Antonio and immerse ourselves in the events found along River Walk. Just as we avoided central London, or other major cities, during our foreign travels, we did not engage in the modern wonders of Bayou Place, Houston Center or Discovery Green, although the Museum District did become a beacon for special weekend stacations. We continued our wanderings until a multi-knobbed virus came to the United States and decided to remain for an undetermined period.
Yes, social distancing arrived as a modern way of life. It became the beginning of the end of my days of walking for any distance whatsoever. The epidemic began during the early years of my ninth decade, a time which may, by itself, have impacted on my ability to enjoy walking for pleasure.
When we first moved to Eagle’s Trace, I often walked around the new, undeveloped campus. Although the desire remains, the reality has changed dramatically. I once could readily engage in wandering outside for an hour; now I am challenged to move, in a reasonable time, to the garden near the lake. I prefer to sit where I am, for as long as I might, to the effort of moving from place to place. I have found there is an advantage in taking a “walker” with me; it allows me to sit where and when I want to rest and look.
I also recall how much I enjoyed mall-walking with Karen, even without stopping for coffee and a Cinnabon. We have not mall-walked during the last two years. I cannot remember when I last visited Old Town Spring or River Walk.
Last week our daughter and her husband returned from a ten-day vacation in Amherst and New England along with days in New York City and Washington, D.C. In one of her Facebook reports, she wrote that her Fit-Bit had recorded nine miles for a day in D.C. I found my envy was very high. A few weeks ago, one of our sons moved with his family from Houston to Gadsen, Alabama and a house on a lake. He has taken us on a cellphone tour of his new home, one which we will probably never see in person. His daughter, our granddaughter, has recently moved to San Francisco where she gave birth to a great-grandson, one we hope to meet when they visit Houston for one of the winter holidays.
I admit I am sad when I think about my desire to travel, to walk new and old paths once again, and then realize that such events are unlikely to occur. I remain very pleased to have the memories, both in my mind and in physical records, of those magnificent journeys we once made. We are fortunate to have had a wandering life that has taken us to live around the country and to visit around the world.
Indeed, my legs, once made for walkin’, no longer allow for that process. Those boots worn by Nancy Sinatra may have been given the boot. On the other hand … or foot, as the case may be … perhaps it’s time for my own life to be re-booted, to see what the next cycle holds.