Tuesday, February 6, 2024 The Walk for Development

I had forgotten until recently about the Walk for Development that I went on sometime in my early junior high school years. It was a 30-mile walk – what were we thinking? I went with two friends: Debbie and Sue. We got up around 5:30 a.m. and my Dad took us out for breakfast before the walk began (what a good fellow he was!). He dropped us off at the starting point, which was the Memorial Stadium at the U of M and although we didn’t really know what was going on, we started out in good spirits, full of the sense of adventure. As I recall it was a nice day in May and the weather was good. We had to find sponsors before the walk, but we really had no idea what the cause was that we were raising money for and we didn’t care. Early on when life was still beautiful and we had energy, we struck up a friendship with a guy about our age who was walking about the same pace as we were. It turned out he was the son of a judge on the Minnesota Supreme Court. Of course, we’d never heard of the judge, but were impressed all the same. He was a nice guy, but eventually left us behind. This was a repeated pattern throughout the walk. We’d strike up a temporary friendship and then get left behind.

Sue wore new shoes (which we were instructed not to do) and began complaining fairly early on about blisters. Debbie was a bit of a tyrant, not allowing us to sit down and rest, so Sue and I would run ahead of her and rest until she caught up with us. At one point, we were straggling fairly far behind the crowd and began alternating walking with jogging to try to catch up. I don’t remember much about the route of the walk, but late in the day we were walking down Lake Street (I think) toward the lakes and Sue just hit a wall and could not go on. It was getting dark by this time. She wanted to call her Dad to come and pick her up and I seem to recall feeling somewhat torn about whether or not we should wait with her for her ride. This was before cell phones, so we had no way of knowing how things were going with Sue. Debbie talked me into continuing on – mostly by refusing to stop – and I fretted inwardly about Sue’s safety (much relieved later to find out that all went well). The walk ended at Coffman Union at the U of M and by the time we got there, it was late in the evening and we were absolutely exhausted. I’m not sure what possessed our parents to let us go on this thing. In retrospect, they probably had some reservations, but I’m sure we begged them to let us go.

I made a vow never to do something like that again, and have been true to my vow. How about you? Have you ever done anything like this? Do tell!

Blog blisters compel me to delete this in the morning.