Ambulation--a good way to go places

As most of you know, I was in Washington, DC for the summer. I took a lot of public transportation and did a lot of walking. In fact, when I got off the train at the Takoma station, I just walked home instead of waiting for the bus. It was a nice way to end the day, and good exercise (something like a mile, maybe 1.5) on top of everything else. I walked to the laundromat every weekend with my clothes, and sat and read while they were washing. It was right on the way to the train station and CVS. One morning I discovered that I didn't have enough soap, so I walked the extra half-mile to CVS and picked up a bottle of Free'n'Clear detergent and some diet Pepsi. Upon my return to the laundromat, a guy asked me, "Where did you get that? Is there a vending machine around here?"

"I got it at CVS," I told him.

"OK, but I'm walking, see," he said.

"So am I," I replied.

I did my graduate teaching internship at the Cuyahoga Valley Environmental Education Center, a place where we all did a lot of walking. I never noticed it being a problem until we took a field trip to the Erie Canal, probably because we did a lot of stopping. This time, however, we walked at least half a mile--maybe 3/4--down the canal, and suddenly kids were lagging behind and complaining about how tired they were! I told them they were lucky that I was not the trip leader and that we were on a time schedule. Otherwise, we would have walked until I got tired. When I was a little kid and complained, my parents always said, "Come on, Lazy Legs."
I think I know exactly what the problem is. I saw it with my cousin who is seven. He was going crazy, wanting to get outside, and my uncle refused to contemplate it because he might run out in the street and get hurt. I remember playing quite safely out in my front and back yards and never, ever having a problem. I remember kickiing the soccer ball across the street with neighbor kids, and when a car came simply getting out of the way. I have come to the conclusion that we need to stop listening to the media.
The media is forever showing us a culture where our children are at risk of being snatched or killed or end up in street gangs, yet for every kid who ends up like that there are many others who don't. I don't remember this culture of fear ever being so prevalent, or maybe I just wasn't paying attention. Certainly it seemed to get worse the older I got, so maybe it was just me. While we are obsessing over this obesity epidemic, we should take a good look at our aversion to walking. That's something that could end up killing us.