I've been here a full week, now, though not quite all the way straight through. My grandparents have been doing everything short of stuffing food down my throat, and I've heard enough stories, sitting on the couch, to last me for a long time. Saturday my grandpa took me to a cotton gin, and both Sunday and Wednesday I accompanied them to church. Though I'm staying fairly occupied, I'm ready to head out fully.
Also have read several books since I've been here, including 'The Long Walk' and 'Endurance.' They're both incredible stories of people surviving against horrific odds, and continue to remind me that nothing I'm facing on the road is much to bear, in the long run.
Yesterday I got up early and ate a little breakfast, before packing up a small bag and heading out toward Hayti. It wasn't raining hard when I left - a little before eight - but picked up fairly quickly, and I spent the next five hours without much of a break in the rain, nor in my stride. In the roughly eighteen miles from the house to a gas station in Hayti I didn't so much stop to take a drink, and jogged quite a bit. This can be attributed in part to the fact that I left the main pack in Kennett.
I'm getting close to the Mississippi, now, and the only places to cross around here are interstate bridges, which are illegal to walk on, so my grandpa planned to take me across, today. My grandparents didn't want me staying in either Hayti or Caruthersville, as they're in a rough state after a big tornado not too long ago, and so I had planned to walk into Caruthersville yesterday, and then my grandpa would pick me up and take me back to Kennett for the night, and then take me across the river, today. But after my eighteen mile stretch jogging in the cold rain, when I got up to go after sitting in a gas station for an hour, my hip flexer was paining me badly, and I didn't limp more than two blocks before having to pull over and call grandpa, early.
When I got home I took the best shower of my life, having been soaked and frozen.
I'm feeling pretty good, today, but definitely don't want to push it, and my grandpa has come down sick, now, as well, so I'm staying at least an extra day in Kennett. I'm planning to leave tomorrow, but I don't know, for sure.
These native serfs all stuck down
in the Kansas clay.
Their rusted heads turned to the
sky to hear my quandry, there.
And behind, coming of the fog,
the iron soldiers marching in their
somber rows.
And the wind - the misting wind -
the unjust
tax collector of the air.
Who can think to claim it -
this battle under birthing fog?
Who seeks to call, from servitude, my prose?
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2 comments:
I am very impressed with your feat (pun intended). And I don't mean to draw from the selfless act which you are performing. It is just that I, like so many people, go barefoot all the time. We have come to find them not so important. Because of this I challange you, the next time you are hucking down at the buffet ask, what is more important to me?, the shoes I didn't need today?, or the food I did? For me you are only proving that the impossible can be done with out shoes. Which in itself show it is not impossible after all. We are industrialized as a nation, because of this we have many tabus, one of which is barefeet. We see them as a sign of weakness and shoes as a sign of strength. The destitute do not need our tabus, they need food, medical supplies, clean water, and shelter. They need a reason not to send their children to landfills to search for food, and scraps of tin. They need an education and much, much more. I do not support any particular group but I would say that if when your done your trek, you might turn around and support, say, UNICEF or even the Salvation Army. These people are taking down the tree at the roots and not just one branch at a time. I would lastly ask that you aim your browser to Barefooters.org where you might find some help on conditioning your feet so that the so called damage I read about , might be alleviated. But all said, I say walk on. Kudos on doing something that many in America fail to do any more, care about the poor and destitute. Thanks Dave.
Hi, Dashiel:
I want you to know just how much your visit to your Grandparents in Kennett meant to them. It was probably their highlight of the year...maybe decade! They're still talking about it and likely will for sometime.
I just hope Grandma didn't get on you too much about sleeping in ditches! She thinks it's terrible that her grandson has to resort to that at times. I instructed her not to give you a hard time.
Keep up the walk and keep us all regularly updated via your blog.
Uncle Lynn
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