No, I didn't take out on foot on Locust Road and head towards the north and the small community of Olathe, Colorado. It was the usual 11 mile drive along Highway 50 that I always make about quarter after six. Yet I did walk to school. Kind of/sort of in a different way and you know what? It was really fun!
Yesterday was "Walk To School Day", a global effort of sorts to encourage children to get to school at least part of the way by their own foot power. Our school was a participant with several of our staff members heading over in the early morning hours (on foot) to the high school/middle school parking lot to wait and meet the buses when they arrived full of students. Once a bus arrived, an adult would walk back the distance over to the elementary school with a group of kids. In other parts of town, parents who would normally just drop their children off at the front door instead dropped their children off at points several blocks away from school to walk with others who would meet them there.
They called it a "walking school bus" and in essence, it was.
I signed up to walk a group of bus kids over to school yesterday morning and I'm glad that I did. The early morning Rocky Mountain air was crisp and cool with not much breeze blowing, all in all a pretty decent day for walking. Shortly after 7, I started out with one of my friends and co-teachers at school named Toni and headed towards the middle school. We laughed as we went along as I noticed how different our strides were. Her long and very strong legs were a challenge to keep up with. The 17-year age difference between us told on me rather quickly. I could throw in things like her being way more used to the altitude than I was and on and on and on as I try to think of excuses. But the real truth is that she exercises a lot and me, well some days not so much. We had smiles on our faces and excitement in our voices as we went to meet the kids and I figured as long as I could take in enough oxygen and continue to carry on a conversation as I walked over with her that I was probably not going to do so bad after all. I didn't die from walking and lived to tell the story. Toni, if you are reading this I want to say "thanks" for walking with me. It always makes the time more pleasant if you have a friend to talk with along the way.
I felt like a mother hen with 19 little chicks walking behind me in the early morning hours yesterday as we headed to our final destination~school. Some pretty responsible 5th grade boys were at the end of our long line and they took care to make sure that none of the little people had any issues. No one fell down. No one cried. No one complained about having to walk the last leg of their trip to school yesterday morning. Joe, our wonderful principal, met us with a smile on his face and a hearty "hello" to all of the kids at the halfway point to help us cross the busy street that we came upon. After that it was smooth sailing to walk the final couple of blocks to Olathe Elementary. When we were finished and as we crossed over onto the playground, one of our staff members was there handing out stickers for all of us to wear that announced we had "walked to school" today. I stood in line for mine too and wore it proudly the rest of the day.
When I was a little kid growing up in south central Kansas, our family always lived on a farm several miles away from school. Each morning in the early hours, we'd all "hot foot" it down to the mailbox and wait for the school bus to come and pick us up. The Scott kids did that for years and years until our parents built a restaurant and service station in our hometown of Haven, Kansas back in 1967. After the restaurant opened up, we kids mostly would get up at 5 in the morning and ride into town with them. My little sister Cindy and I would wait eat our breakfast at the restaurant and then walk the 6 blocks to our elementary school there every morning. From the 6th grade on into high school, that's how I got to school as I walked down Kansas Avenue from Ulrey's corner straight down the street 4 blocks and then to the east a couple of more. As I was walking with the kids from the first bus yesterday, I could not help but to remember that time so very long ago when two little girls from the "land of long ago and far, far away" did the very same thing. Day in and day out. Always.
Yesterday's activity of walking to school together was extremely beneficial to all concerned. It jumpstarted our day and gave those that participated a proverbial "shot in the arm" of extra energy. Although it is only scheduled for once this school year officially on the calendar, I think it would be fun to do it more often and there was some talk yesterday of scheduling another one in the near future. I hope that we do. My mom, a woman who never learned to drive a car and often relied on foot power to get where she needed to be, often spoke of the benefits of walking. Her proclamation to us kids when we sometimes griped about having to walk to school each day, especially if the weather was too cold or too hot will forever be engrained in my nearly 59-year old brain.
"You kids get going. Walking isn't crowded. It won't kill you!"
With a smile on my face, I realize that she was right. It wasn't and it didn't :)
I survived "Walk to School" day at Olathe Elementary and had a lot of fun in the process.
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