SEPTEMBER 18th - Take a Walk



On this day in 1983, George Meegan took the final steps of his 19,019 mile walk reaching the edge of the Arctic Ocean. He started walking in 1977 at the southern tip of South America making his way to the northernmost point of Alaska. As you can imagine, Meegan saw a variety of things on his walk. You always see more when you stop and walk. I’m pretty sure I saw a drunk squirrel on my last walk, and that was just to the mailbox. I think he was drunk. I think was he a he too. It could have been a she for all I know--a little rusty on my squirrel biology. He kept running around in a circle. Regardless of his BAC, I never would have seen the little guy had I gotten in my car to traverse the few feet it takes to get to the mailbox. Meegan saw so many amazing things he wrote a book about his walk. I tried to write a book about my walk, but I think it's more suited for a limerick. Anyway, both of Meegan's feats seem pretty impressive. Thomas Jefferson would not have been impressed. "You just wasted six years on trip you could have taken in 6 months by automobile, you egghead," he would have said. Of course TJ once saw an identical replica of Mt. Rushmore built-in the Rocky Mountains in under a week. "Who are these other two jokers with Washington and me?" was all he muttered because apparently in this post he hadn’t yet discovered how to manipulate the laws of time and physics to discover who Teddy and Abe were. So he blew the thing up. I do see his point about Meegan though. Walking 19,000 miles over six years might be a bit extreme. But it is a good reminder to slow down and take in the world around you. You never know what you might see. You might be lucky enough to see a drunk squirrel. Or maybe a belligerent emu. Anything is possible.

This day has been Marked.

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