Day 974

I have thought a lot about all that I have written down so far as I walked these last few days. And I how I have painted a very bleak picture of the future to my past self…You! I know you will never read this, but I owe it to you and the life you are living now (in the past) to try and paint you the whole picture. This will take sometime and many pages of handwritten scribble, but as I have said before this is kind of a therapy for me, and maybe one last thing I need to do. I have always been a some what negative person, always looking at the bad side of life, so I guess that is why I have gone on and on about all that has happen. But it is hard now, in this world when so many are in despair to look on the bright side of any thing. But I owe it to one, who for a long long time tried to teach me to see the good first and let the bad take care of it’s self. There is good in everything and everyone, sometimes you just got to keep looking and never give up, she did that for me.

My one an only……this is for you.

I walk during the day in the heat of the sun; I smell the musk of the road and hear the wind blow through the trees. The brush still rustles with wild life and you still see birds take flight and soar through the air; and when you do, you can see hope once again. I sweat as I walk and there is no air condition to retreat to, but it is a good sweat and with no cool man made air to make me weak, I grow stronger. I am resistant to the elements because I am part of them, just as a tree sways with the breeze I bend with my surroundings. I walk until I grow tired but there is always a place to rest at night because the earth is my bed. I look up at night and see the stars, they are brighter than I have ever seen them, no earth lights can now interfere with the beauty of the heavens above.

I have met many good people on my travels and as I think back I have met far more good than bad. Some of the simple people survived the ones that had the for-sight to not fall for the trappings of modern society. I have met some Amish in different states and their life’s goes on for the most part unaffected. They are good people and they always welcome me into their homes. Some how they have developed a network of trade with others of their kind in different states. I know this because when I stumble on one of there communities they always seem to know me. They call me the peace walker and always greet me with a smile.

Out west some of the Indian tribes still exists. The remote and poorest reservations began to learn to live off the land again. They took the leftovers from some of the nearby towns and started over. This land maybe theirs once again, but it will be many years I guess before that happens. They are determining to rebuild there society based on peace and they share with anyone that happens up on them. I found one tribe (or they found me) by accident, it really was an accident. I had fallen into a ravine (a very shallow one), hit my head and was laying there unconscious. The found me and nursed me back to health. I am called “old hippie who walks”. They laughed when they gave me that name and said; “you know we really don’t name people like that”, this coming from a guy called Charlie. He had an old guitar, I picked it up and we played and sang the old songs by fire light. That night I heard a child laugh again, it was a wondrous sound. I hope I make it out west again to see them.

People are still people (when I do see them); you have the good and the bad, and a lot of in between-ers. I try to look for the good in people and I’m rarely disappointed. It is all how you approach a person that matters I think, people just want simple respect. So if you can give them that, for the most part they will return it. The people I meet have had it all, everything they once knew taken away, through no fault of there own. But you can still see a smile from time to time and a simple act of kindness. Some times it comes in the form of a kiss on the cheek, like from my latest friends. And yes; I had a guy pull a gun on me the other night, but he was a man that had gone through hell. Yet in his last words to me he offered a brief act of kindness. And in that, there is hope.

A man my age should be in a nursing home, but I am as strong as I have ever been and my mind is clear (thank you Lord). I have out lived my Dad’s life span and (if I had been keeping up with time) I will soon have lived longer than my Grand Father I think. I don’t know why I have dodged all that has taken the lives of so many others, but there is a reason, there is always a reason.

I have seen far more these last few years, than I would have in a car, racing with time. My walk has taken me from one end of this country to the other. I have stood on the beach and felt the sea breeze in my face from both oceans. I have no important work to do other than just surviving. I am here to impress no one and I no longer have to wear a mask to hide how I feel. There is no money in my pocket for there is nothing I need to buy. It no longer matters what I want it is only what I need that is important and my needs are met most every day. I walk in peace with all and only defend my self if I have to. My life before had much weight and pressure, most self inflicted, I think our whole world had bitten off more that it could chew when it came to our life styles. My survival once depended on a man made system of paper money for trade and also of how much value I was to the person I worked for; if I was of no more value I was thrown away, like old trash. Now the weight is gone, nothing holds me down, I am free. Surely this was the way man was supposed to live; before he strayed.


That is the good I see, when I’m not focused on the bad…………


Go to Day 977