Footloose in America: Dixie to New England (45 page)

A look of horror dashed the smile away as he exclaimed, “What? No!”

He was a tall man and his whole body shook as his face got red. “Excuse me.”

Then he whirled around and quickly walked away as the sprinkles gave way to a shower worthy of my rain coat. Several minutes later, it had slowed to a drizzle when the man returned with red eyes and said, “I’m sorry about running off like that.” He choked back tears. “I didn’t know Nancy had died. Do you know when the funeral is?”

I told him Tuesday, then said, “We sure have met a lot of folks who knew her. She must have been a really special lady.”

The man was petting Della’s neck as he fought tears. “When somebody dies, everyone has something nice to say about them. You just naturally do that. But with Nancy, there really is nothing else to say about her.”

When we walked away from Onieda Lake, Patricia and I felt like we were in mourning. Nancy was a great woman. We missed her. I wish we could have met her

“So, you’re just wasting your life.”

This boy was probably twelve or thirteen, and had a face full of pimples. He rode one of those small bikes that kids do stunts on. With him was another boy on a scooter. On our way into Rome, New York, Patricia spotted a Big Lots store and went in to pick up a few things. Della and I were waiting under a shade tree across the street when the boys stopped to talk.

I asked the kid on the bike, “What do you mean?”

“Well, you’re just walking your life away. You ought to do something worthwhile.”

“Like what?”

“Get a job! That’s what I’m going to do when I grow up. People around here, that’s what they do. They stay here, get a job and have a family.”

In reality, fewer people were doing that in Rome. According to the 2000 census, the city lost nearly ten thousand people over the past decade. This city of 34,334 used to be a manufacturing center for steel and copper products, but many of those companies were gone. When we walked into town we passed lots of boarded-up buildings.

I said, “So that’s your idea of a worthwhile life? Stay in Rome, get a job and be a slave to the system?”

“I won’t be a slave,” he snapped. “They’ll pay me. I’ll have a house. I’ll have a car. I’ll have a family. I’ll have a life!”

He paused, then pointed at me and snarled, “It’s better than just walking around doing nothing!”

Then he turned around in the direction they had come from, motioned for his friend to follow and peddled away.

While I watched them roll down the sidewalk, I couldn’t help but wonder,
Is he right
?
Am I just walking around doing nothing? He may be just a
pimple--faced kid on a bike, but he could have a point. Just like the customer in the restaurant back in Indiana who told his everyday waitress, “In other words, they don’t really have a life!”

Under that shade tree across from the Big Lots store I wondered,
Are they right?

Near the heart of Rome we stopped at an Eckert Drug Store to get a roll of film developed at their one-hour photo. We were waiting under a tree in a nearby parking lot, when a woman in her mid-forties approached us pushing a wheelchair. Strapped into it was a tall lean man with jet black hair. He looked to be in his late teens or early twenties. His head bobbed slowly from side to side as his arms and hands kept moving spastically.

After the woman introduced herself, she said, “This is my son Shawn. He has Cerebral Palsy.” She had a wide grin on her face and a note of pride in her voice as she added, “But he doesn’t let it get him down. Do you honey?”

He blurted out, “Nope, not me!”

His speech was a bit halted, but he was easy to understand. A contorted smile lit up his handsome face as he stammered through, “I just graduated from high school.”

While it was painful to watch him try to contain the erratic movement of his body, there was a confident aura about Shawn that made him irresistible. His brown eyes had a sparkle that beckoned you to engage him.

I said, “So what are you going to do now that you’ve graduated?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe I could go around the world with you guys.” He laughed.

“I guess we could hook your chair up to the back of the cart.”

“Naw, I’ll just have Mom push it.”

She said, “In your dreams.”

After we all laughed, Shawn stuttered, “There’s lots of things I’d like to do. I just haven’t decided what yet. Maybe go to college. Who knows?”

His mother chimed in, “He has his whole life ahead of him. Whatever he does, I know he’ll be great at it!”

He raised his trembling right arm and tried to point at me as he asked, “What did you do before you started walking?”

“Oh, I’ve done a lot of different things in my life. I’ve been a disc jockey, a tour guide, a salesman and I ran a coffee house for a few years. For a short time I was an emcee at a strip club.”

Suddenly both of his arms shot up in the air and flailed above his head as Shawn sputtered and shouted, “Whoa, baby! That’s the job for me!”

His mother grabbed both arms and gently pushed them down onto the arm rests of the chair as she laughed. “I don’t think so honey.”

Fun was in his voice as Shawn whined, “Aw, come on mom. Working with naked girls all the time, what a cool job!”

Truthfully I said, “I thought so too, but it was one of the worst jobs I ever had. Never in my life have I been around so many miserable people. I’d never do it again.”

Shawn had a serious tone as he said, “So what’s the favorite thing you’ve done?”

“What I’m doing right now–walking across the country.”

For a moment Shawn’s body was still as he asked, “What’s the best part?”

“Meeting people like you.”

A few minutes after they left, a motorized wheel chair rolled into the parking lot and headed toward us. The man driving it had shoulder-length light brown hair with a few silver strands in it. His beard was the same color and had a big grin beaming from it.

I was sitting on Della’s water bucket in front of her when he stopped the chair a dozen feet away and said, “I don’t want to get too close and spook your horse.”

“She’s a mule, and she’s okay if you go up to her slowly.”

The chair whined softly as it moved him closer. “So what are you doing?”

Every time someone in a wheel chair asked me that question and I answered “Walking to Maine,” I always felt a bit of guilt when the word “walking” came out. Each time it happened I expected one of them to look up at me and say something like, “Well, aren’t you special!” But it never happened. Like this man, they always responded in the positive with some version of, “That’s really cool!”

After I answered Bob’s questions, he slapped the left arm rest with his hand. “This is my new ride. Only had it out a couple of times. Gets forty miles to a charge.”

Like Shawn, this wheelchair rider had an air of confidence about him that made it comfortable to ask, “So, how did you come to be in that thing?”

“I fell through the roof of a burning house.”

What else could I say? “Wow!”

Bob sounded like a news man on the radio when he said, “It happened a little over three years ago. I used to be a fireman and I knew the roof could cave in. But we heard there were children inside. We couldn’t get in the house because of the smoke and flames. So someone had to chop a hole in the roof to vent the fire. We had to get those kids out.”

He went on to tell me that after the roof fell in, he was able to crawl out of the burning house to safety. But he hadn’t walked since then. “Turned out no one was inside. They got the kids out before we arrived. Nobody told us.”

Bob paused and grimaced a bit before he said, “That hurt. I didn’t have to be on that roof, and I got bad bitter about it. The first year was really tough.”

The fireman laughed and stroked his beard as he said, “Yes sir, had myself a damn good pity-party and everyone was invited.” Bob shook his head. “I wore everybody out.”

He leaned back in the chair with his head against the rest. “But it’s better now. One day I was rolling through town in my old chair all hunched
over when something out the corner of my eye caught my attention. It wasn’t anything special. I think it was one of the trees in this parking lot. Maybe this one. But whatever it was it made me sit up and look around. Suddenly I saw things in my own neighborhood I had never seen before.”

Like a master of ceremonies presenting a stage full of pageant beauties, Bob gestured to his right and left as he said, “Finally I had the time to look at where I was.”

Bob smacked his forehead with the palm of his right hand. “Then it hit me, ‘I’ve got it made!’ I mean, I don’t have to work another day in my life. I can do anything I want as long as I don’t have to be on my feet.”

He slapped both hands down on their corresponding knees and said, “I get around and see more these days than I did when I could walk. It’s really not bad–especially now that I’ve got this new super ride.”

And Bob had a dream. “I want to ride this chair from here down to Daytona, Florida. Always wanted to go there. Wouldn’t that be a great ride?”

“It sure would!”

Then, for the next half hour we talked about the possibilities. Maybe he could get the company that made his chair sponsor the trip. Maybe he could rig it up with solar panels to keep the thing charged. He said, “Wow, wouldn’t that be something?”

So there we were, two middle-aged guys in a parking lot in Rome, New York, kicking around ideas on how to make a dream come true. Does life get any better than that?

Watching him roll away, I started thinking about the pimple faced kid on the bike. He had his health, he could walk and had his whole life was ahead of him. It’s too bad he was so crippled with tunnel vision.

CHAPTER 19

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DIRONDACKS