Learning to walk — to school

LARRY ANDERSON
Larry Anderson

My father didn’t have to walk to school on Icelandic-like days growing up in southern Iowa. He rode a horse.

He graduated from high school in 1930.

My mother made certain I knew she did walk to school growing up in rural northern Missouri. The walk, a couple of miles or so, was done in all kinds of weather and included one especially bad experience with near frostbite. No one came to the rescue in a chugging Model T, nor was there grumbling about the situation.

My mother graduated from high school in 1936.

I was expected to walk to school. It was part of the learning experience.

When I was seven years old, I briefly attended Webster Elementary in St. Joseph. The fine old brick building was perhaps seven blocks from where we lived, so I cheerfully made the march every morning and afternoon.

Once in a while, my sister and I would cut through a neighboring cemetery which saved a minute or two. Passage depended on proximity to Halloween.

It wasn’t just the Anderson kids who made the daily trudge. It was everyone in the neighborhood, and, trust me, there were more children within the school’s radius than there are geese at Squaw Creek.

In the morning, the sidewalks were flooded with tykes lugging books and Lone Ranger lunch pails. There was plenty of shouting, laughing, and chasing.

It was fun, and fun is good.

The thing is no one expected a bus to haul us the half mile or so to school, nor did parents typically give thought to dropping junior at the door. Gas cost money, and there was no point since Mom and Dad knew their kids would benefit from a brisk walk with friends.

When my family moved that same year to little ol’ Sheridan in Worth County, I still made the walk every day. It was a whole four blocks.

The experience wasn’t an inconvenience, although there were snow drifts and a cranky little mutt that would sometimes glom onto my pants leg.

Often I cut travel time in half by running.

I don’t recall anyone worrying about the hazards of foot travel. The warning, “Don’t talk to strangers and don’t take anything someone offers you” was sufficient. Kids listened and watched out for each other.

It was a different time.

Call it normal.

A recent headline came to my attention.

It read, “School seeks to expand walk-to-school program.”

Before I had read two paragraphs, I was laughing at the absurdity this society threatens to become.

It seems Longfellow Elementary in Iowa City has launched an “initiative” to hand kids the awesome responsibility of walking to school. Not by themselves, of course. They must be accompanied by a “trained” adult.

Trained to do what? Walk?

I assume there has to be security clearance as well before parents can walk their child and his little buddies a few blocks.

Can’t be too careful, you know.

I picture walkie-talkies and emergency drills. Perhaps a drone soaring overhead.

Not to take on too much too quickly, the “program,” for now, is only done on Wednesdays at Longfellow.

The school is seeking a “Blue Zone” designation which is part of a larger program within the city. It even has a manager, one Shannon Greene, who said a walk-to-school program promotes exercise and encourages students to form healthy relationships with adults and others.

Truly.

A program to walk to school.

With designated routes and a manager and helicopter adults watching every move. Driven by the startling discovery that walking in the great outdoors in the early morn is good for a kid.

Wow!

What a breakthrough!

Sad, isn’t it, this mommy state we’ve embraced, governed so by programs, bureaucracy, and earnestly anxious folks just now discovering once common knowledge about walking.

I don’t mean to be flippant.

At least the youngsters are outside. They may not be happy about that until they are much older and can reflect on what a fine thing it is to put one foot in front of the other on an autumn day when the birds are singing and the laughter one hears is an antidote to foolishness overwrought.

Larry W. Anderson believes walking is a natural thing and doesn’t require a program to be carried out successfully.