Chapter 4 Days and Nights on the Road

Chapter 4

Days and Nights on the Road

Dad talked about the things that happened to him during the Walk in some letters he mailed to family and friends from different points along the route, and in interviews with a few newspaper reporters. He liked to tell stories, and he probably talked about his adventures over the Thanksgiving dinner he enjoyed with his mother and sister in Philadelphia a few days after he had reached Washington.  I’m sure he regaled his friends back in Pompano with stories from the road.  But, just as I did not talk much with Dad at the time,  I did not interview friends and family about Dad’s Walk, and they are all dead now.

I knew, though, that he always kept a small notebook in his breast pocket, in which he made entries for every one of the 80 days of The Walk.  He had a habit, during his days as a Letter Carrier, to document everything – hours on the clock, mail volume, dog attacks, weather conditions.  When I got a job, briefly, as a Letter Carrier , Dad didn’t give me much advice, which is surprising considering his experience with the Post Office. He did advise me, though, to get a small notebook and carry it with me every day “to document EVERYTHING.” Dad told my sister Kathi, when he was dying, to make sure that his notebook from the Walk found its way to me.

I had the notebook, in a box somewhere, and for years I glibly assumed Dad had told his own story, with details, in its pages.  When I was ready to write, I would need only to transcribe his words from that notebook, and smooth it into a narrative, adding background where it was called for.

I was wrong about the notebook.  First of all, Dad’s handwriting is practically indecipherable. He was left-handed, and I always believed that the tortured appearance of his penmanship was the result of being forced, as a child, to use his right hand by the nuns who taught him.  My brother Thom has a knack for reading Dad’s writing, though, and I am grateful to him for translating every page of the notebook for me.

Here is a page from Day 9, Thurs., Sept 16

But that word-for-word transcript actually revealed very little about conditions on the road, let alone Dad’s thoughts. Except for the first day or so, when he had energy, and a sense that he was setting off on a great adventure, the notebook consisted of a taut list of facts:  Dates, town and county names, weather, stops for rest and food, sleeping arrangements. He expressed very few feelings, observations,  descriptions,  thoughts,  fears, or hopes. Of course he didn’t have the time or energy to write literature in his little notebook.  He was trying to survive out there.

Compare it to a long hike on the Appalachian Trial, (AT) for example (which Kathi and Jack accomplished years later.)  A trail hiker will face rocky, hilly terrain, where Route 1 is, of course, paved and relatively flat.  A trail through the woods is mostly shaded, and quiet; a highway is unprotected and noisy.  Dangers abound with both kinds of trek.  On the AT, the dangers could be injuries from falls, exposure to extreme weather, attacks by animals and insects, even by other hikers, and hunger and thirst.

The dangers of walking on Route 1 include injuries from passing vehicles, attacks by criminals, stray animals and insects, exposure to extreme weather, hunger and thirst. The AT provides sleeping huts and areas set aside for camping, and sources of drinking water, and even the company of fellow hikers if you want it.  AT hikers usually come to the trail prepared with the latest technology in backpacking gear: sturdy but lightweight boots, packs, rain gear, water filters, cooking equipment, high tech trail food and a compact first-aid kit.  Annotated maps and detailed guide books, written by previous hikers, advise them of elevation changes and conditions around every bend of the trail. 

Dad was hiking a road designed for cars and trucks, not people.  He was not a backpacker or even a hiker.  He was a very frugal working man.

Dad relied on gas-station maps, but in 1982, there was no GPS, no Google to show him what was ahead.  His gear consisted of one (possibly two) cotton/denim one-piece jumpsuits, extra socks, inexpensive hiking boots and backpack from K-mart, some light blankets and a tarp for sleeping, a flashlight, an aluminum canteen, no cooking equipment, and a Post Office-issued pith helmet for sun, and a lightweight postal rain slicker for rain. I doubt if he carried sunscreen,  sunglasses, insect repellent, or even much in the way of first-aid supplies. He got advice on the local surroundings from convenience-store employees, or men at the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) halls and American Legion posts where he always stopped. He relied on the commercial infrastructure of the highway for water, food, and sleeping accommodations, but his budget allowed for only an occasional night (every four or five days) in a low-priced motel. Most nights he searched for safe places to sleep under bridges, behind buildings, or in wooded areas. The page from his notebook, above ends with “slept like a watch dog under picnic table.”

In the first few days, when he was still not too far from home- close enough for a short round-trip car ride- he had several visits from family and friends. At Lake Park, FL, just north of Palm Beach,  45  miles from Pompano, he notes:

“Met Barb at the Drawbridge.” (probably a restaurant.)

Barbara Atkins was our neighbor across the street in Pompano.  She and her husband had divorced some time after our parents did, and she and Dad had become friendly.  Barb remained a great support and friend of Dad’s until the day he died. Thom and Kathi, with their spouses at the time, came with Barb to meet Dad for lunch that day, but these visits would become impractical as the miles piled up.

Within the first few days, blisters became a problem, and he spent time “fixing up (his) feet,” probably with supplies from 7-11-type stores.  He welcomed the rain because it gave him relief from the heat, and he relished any opportunity to swim, or to simply lie down in shallow water, to sooth sore muscles and cool off.

From the pocket notebook:

“Day 3- Sun, Sept 5

Rain 9 pm . Spent night in disabled car owned by John Hopkins, W. 10 St, Riviera Beach.”

There was a little more detail about this night in a letter he sent from the road:

“It rained most of the night and I stuck my feel outside to fully enjoy it. Awake at 7 am after a very refreshing night in a wrecked Cadillac. A lady (neighbor of Hopkins) came out of her house and made me take a dollar from her to make sure I had some breakfast. Feet refreshed by rain during the night.”

He walked a lot at night to avoid daytime sun. I don’t think he had reflective material on his clothing or backpack, but he walked along the southbound side of the road, facing traffic.

September 7 was a particularly bad day.  The pocket notebook states only:

“Day 5- Sun, Sept 7 - Hobe Sound

2 am- Jumped guard rail to avoid being hit.”

Dad later described the first week or so of The Walk in his own words, in detail, on a few typewritten sheets.  He may have planned to write the details of the whole story this way, on his own, without help.  No other typewritten pages have been found, though.

He typed out a description of the incident south of Hobe Sound:

“While walking along left shoulder or road, approx. 2:30 am, a vehicle heading south left the road and seemed to be “after my ass.” I jumped over the guard rail and fell, bounced and scraped my way to what was the bottom of a grade. It was a railroad underpass. I probably fell and bounced 30 feet in the dark.  I thought I was all right and lucky to be alive, so continued walking until daylight.  Arrived at Hobe Sound at 6:30 am. Fire house (polling place- it was a primary election day,) let me use rest room.  Had coffee and burger and sent some cards. Back and leg very sore from tumbling of previous night. Maybe a dip in the water would help. I headed east, looking for the Intra-coastal (waterway.) Found a dead end and no water. Walked through a very rough area of burned-out brush toward US 1. Near Port Salerno, I found a stream under a railroad track. Laid down in the water on railroad ballast rock to cool off. Dried off and continued to walk to US 1 .  Some kids on skateboards buzzed past me.  After a minute or so, one of them came back. He said. “My mom though you might like this,” and handed me a nice cold bottle of Coors beer. I thanked him and offered to pay.  Continued to US 1 at Port Salerno.  By this time the leg and back pain were so bad that I could not continue.  Called Thom and asked for a ride home, 8 pm.  Barb came to pick me up. I climbed into the van and slept all the way to Pompano (about 70 miles) Spent the next couple of days in bed. Decided to resume W*A*L*K on Monday, 9/13. Barb took me back to Port Salerno, at the exact location where she had picked me up on Tuesday. 

On the car ride back to Port Salerno, he asked Barb to pull over south of Hobe Sound, so he could take a picture of the offending guard rail.

Resumed walking (with difficulty.) My back was giving me seven kinds of hell. It was EXTREMELY painful to get out of the van and strap on the backpack.

Had to go, so did.”

I have repeated those words of my dad’s, “Had to go, so did,” to myself many times. Simple and to the point. Just go. Don’t stop. Keep moving. He wasn’t one to give advice, unless you count “Quit your bellyaching,” or “Stop that crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” But he showed us by example how to be tough and how to endure, and he did that by simply not quitting.  That first day back on the road, he walked about nine hours, through his back and leg and ankle pain, into the night, covering 23 miles, before he stopped to sleep, on the ground. Another 290 miles lay ahead between Dad and his first state line.  Over the next two weeks, he averaged over 20 miles a day as he walked through the northern half of Florida.

Those miles, where U.S. 1 was often a four-lane road, but sometimes a divided 6-lane highway, were also marked by extremes in weather. He saw sleet on the ground near Fort Pierce, but he was bedeviled by mosquitoes for several days after that.  “Skeeters ate hell out of me on walk from Oak Hill, New Smyrna.” To beat the heat, he swam in rivers and streams when he came across them, or just stopped to soak his feet.  Then, he walked several days through rain- downpours at times- looking for a laundromat where he could stop to dry his clothes, usually finding none. Route 1 had many years ago been replaced as a major north-south thoroughfare by Route 95, so the small and shabby motels and restaurants still in business along Route 1 offered little in the way of comforts.

Dad was a Navy veteran, wounded during World War II in the Pacific on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise, and was a proud member of the VFW and the American Legion, so he did find respite with fellow veterans. He never passed an American Legion hall or VFW post without stopping in, to enjoy a cold beer and tell why he was walking to Washington.

Except for the welcome he always found with veterans organizations, Dad’s frugal ways made it hard for him to find an easy rest even when he was looking for it.  He didn’t like to pay more than $20 per night for a motel room. (Today, in the south, that would probably be more like $60. ) But at those prices he often found only cold showers, loud neighbors, and roaches. His notes were brief, but he did take the time to write this sentence, “I owe Volusia County nothing, having paid as much as 75 cents for a container of coffee.”

At the small town of Bunnell, almost 250 miles north of Pompano, Dad noted that he stopped in at the local newspaper office. I never saw a story from a paper near there, so he may have failed to get a reporter’s attention that day.  Publicity was one of the reasons for Dad’s walk, but he had hardly mounted a public relations campaign to support that mission.  Other than the visit Thom made to the offices of the Pompano Sun Sentinel in the first days of The Walk, Dad’s publicity strategy seems to have consisted of word of mouth and personal visits to newspaper offices as he happened to pass them.  There existed, with The Walk,  no such thing as a press release for local papers, or glossy photos supplied by Dad.  Talking points were literally the rapid-fire sharp, clever quotes Dad would have delivered over a beer at the American Legion.

The very next day, during a check-in call with Barb, Dad learned the good news that she had gotten a call from Rick Pierce of the Pompano Beach Sun Sentinel. Thom’s visit had hit the mark.  I can imagine how this news lightened Dad’s step.  It took a few calls over that next day for Dad to reach the reporter at his desk,  but when he did, they stayed on the phone for two hours. The next day, a photographer from the Sentinel found Dad on Route 1 in St Augustine, where he took photos.

The feature story and large photo ran on page one of the Sun Sentinel under the headline “Not licked yet.”

Pierce clearly laid out Dad’s saga with the Postal Service, revealing his humor and toughness with quotes like “I’m not going to roll over and play dead. My kind of people don’t do that.” Pierce ended the story with Dad’s observation, “Usually, it would be a matter of proving you are disabled.  All I have to prove is that I’m not.” 

Rick Pierce’s story was picked up by the Associated Press, which got Dad some more publicity in small newspapers farther up the road.

Pierce would, two months later, fly to Washington to interview Dad in person as he walked into the city, and up the steps of the capital building. A few months after the end of The Walk, Pierce wrote another story to tell of Dad’s re-hiring by the Postal Service.  It may have been Rick Pierce’s good journalism which got the attention of NBC’s Today Show, where Dad was interviewed live on national television by Bryant Gumbell on his first day back on the job. Fifteen years later, when Dad died, Pierce wrote a detailed obituary for the Sun Sentinel.

We didn’t know it until after Dad completed the Walk, but as he approached the Florida-Georgia line, he thought about stopping. He was getting tired, and the reality of life on the road was grim, especially as he walked Route 1 as it wound its way through the large city of Jacksonville, and he got lost a few times.  He told a reporter later, as he reached the northern end of Florida, he thought he might have walked far enough to prove his point- that he was fit to do the job of Letter Carrier.  But crossing the state line must have given him a mental boost.  As he told the reporter, “There were times, coming up the road, when I wondered if it would make an impression on the Postal Service.  Maybe I could just walk the length of the state of Florida.  Then I thought, ‘Hell, if you can cross one state line, you can cross another.’”  At 4 pm on his 20^th day on the road, Sept 27, Route 1 North took him over the St. Mary’s River at the Florida-Georgia state line.     He had walked  360 miles; more than a third of his trip was behind him. Seven hundred more miles to go to Washington DC.

He continued.