Sidewalks for Show

I am a full-time pedestrian, meaning I regularly walk to wherever I am supposed to be. I walk to work, I stroll to the store, I trudge to the dentist's office, and after long days of toil teaching English, I often stagger home. I have no driver's license--not because of some political stance or a health agenda. In fact, I accept rides whenever offered, and sometimes I'll even plead for them. I don't drive because my eyesight--while allowing me the joy of a vernal, wooded glade or a glistening snow covered field--prohibits me from passing Ohio's driver's test. Years ago I so impressed my Driver's Ed. teacher with my technique of curb scraping with tires to signal where the border of streets were that he had me scheduled for an eye exam within the week. I haven't been behind a wheel since. Instead, I walk.

Being a frequent pavement "hoofer," I've had a chance to see the roads from a non-standard perspective. And what I have observed makes me suspect that our society, in spite of its claims that its citizens should try to be healthier and pollute less, still assumes that the only way to transport the human frame around the countryside is upon four wheels and not two feet.

Drivers may complain in winter about some bit of snow left on the road by the plows, but they have no clue what "slushing it" really means. The mountains of ice and snow, piled up by the municipal plows, that I have climbed up and scrambled down to get by and the completely buried paths, except for drive-ways, that I have sloshed my way through in front of home after home, convince me that the walking individual has no reality in the minds of most community builders and home owners. Don't city workers know that creating such mountains must make shoveling nearly impossible even for them when they get home? However, rare are the individuals who do shovel walks these days. Maybe they are out of practice. There seem to be a growing number of new communities in Ohio that have roads with no walks, no place for the pedestrian to traverse, at all. Within the old towns there are walkways, old brick and cracked cement, but head out into the surrounding mushroom-like developments, the flash-construction "Happy Valley" suburbs, and such walks vanish. So perhaps many residents have forgotten that walkers even exists. Meanwhile, such pavement-less stretches of road have made for some exciting moments in my daily path poundings.

It is difficult to describe the adrenaline rush I've experienced whenever a Mack eighteen wheeler has roared up behind and passed inches from my shoulder, leaving me staggering in its afterblast. Nor can I fully express the sheer exhilaration felt in my heart while teetering on a snowy cliff which covers what was once a curb while an unyielding river of cars flows down below my feet. I used to become angry about this, but a new thought has recently developed in my brain. Perhaps I have been mistaken about what sidewalks are for in today's world. Perhaps they are not meant for trudging feet at all but are, instead, only for show.

I first became aware of this possibility when I lived in Point Loma, a small suburb of San Diego. Highways and roads there are fairly straight forward, but as I walked to work I noticed a major lack of continuity among the sidewalks. Of course, in some places there were the standard slabs of cement bordered by a small stretch of grass on the side closest to the road, leaving the traditional expanse of green lawn just before the house. Fair enough; such sidewalks seemed completely functional.

However, they weren't because next door another house sometimes had little round disks of baked brick spread out evenly beside the road so the pedestrian found himself skipping from one stone to another. Furthermore, that house was often followed by still another home sporting just a gravel path, or another with bricks unevenly laid down, or still another might have nothing at all-- just grass stretching from a busy street to a front door. In fact, in such cases as the last, the garage is connected to the home so the front door is never used.

Walking on such a variety of surfaces was not comfortable. It was impossible to get into any sort of rhythm which allows the mind to turn its attention to other matters and let the feet go on automatic. Instead I found myself constantly concentrating on what new surprise of a surface might appear around the corner.

Even the houses with the standard slabs sometimes had elements which made them a challenge to traverse. One beautiful stretch of white cement that I recall was also lined by a giant hedge that not only loomed overhead hiding the house but also pressed deeply into the walking zone of the sidewalk, pushing the pedestrian into the street. This complete lack of conformity and in many cases practicality confused me for a while until one day I noticed on several lawns decorative (and non-functional) horse hitches and stable boys.

It occurred to me that both of these items had once served real needs of real people. Riders needed such posts to tie up their animals and were glad for the help servants such as stable boys might give. But, of course, that need is gone, and these posts and stable boys that I observed on lawns were just manifestations of home-owners' nostalgic longing for a quieter and simpler time.

Suddenly I understood. These sidewalks that I had been struggling with were never meant to be used! They were only a reminder to various home-owners of a golden time when all of one's needs could be reached by a stroll to the local store, the school, or a small business. Berating these people for their non-functional sidewalks was like complaining about individuals whose horse post lawn decorations are not grounded deep enough to hold a Pekinese dog let alone a true post horse. Or like fussing at a decorative stable boy because his plaster filled head can not tell me if his master is at home. How foolish of me! And perhaps what is true in California is true throughout the land.

With this understanding I have decided to stop fussing at those who do not shovel or even have a pavement to walk upon. Instead I shall invest in some snowshoes, ice picks and cleats, thus girdling up my loins and recognizing the roads of Ohio as the inhospitable, trackless, wastelands they truly are.