Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1994-11-16, Page 5THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1994. PAGE 5. Arthur Black like you've been hit by a speedy laundry van. Some folks are serious walkers. Take Jack Hitt. Jack's a guy who makes his living as a out of John O'Groats. In the 11 years in between her visits, Ffyona had walked. And walked and walkedTime to throw away the spandex Great news folks! It looks like the world of personal exercise is finally returning to he realm of sanity. If you'd care to jump on the sweat-stained bandwagon, here's what you do: Throw away your Spandex tights. Put your Stationary Exercise Bike in a garage sale. Sell your chest expanders, your Pow-R- Grips, your ankle weights and your Joe Weider-How-To-Look-Li ke-Schwarz- enegger-In-90-Days Video. Let cobwebs grow on your Nautilus. Give your barbells to that lout of a nephew who's probably gobbling steroids anyway. Have your $180 cross-training jogging shoes bronzed and plant geraniums in them. You don't need that stuff anymore, because Walking is In. Yep, just plain and simple walking. No special sunglasses, no Gortex jumpsuit, no ultra-lite fibreglass poles. All you need is a comfortable pair of shoes and a sense of curiosity. You can bum as many calories walking for an hour as you can busting your lungs running laps around the track. The difference is, with walking, you don't end up feeling Something you didn’t read about If you, like me, are getting a bit weary of all the media coverage being given to O.J. Simpson, the British Royal Family or the separatist question in Quebec, let me provide you with a bit of news that you probably have not heard. More precisely some bits of news that probably have not been reported too extensively anywhere. 1 thought it propitious to do a bit about Great Britain since I normally do not write too much about that part of the world, although I must admit, after having spent some time there, to having a soft spot in my hear for the place. London has, in fact, become one of my favourite cities starting about the lime when a cabby picked me up at my hotel to take me to the air terminal. Hardly had I got in when he asked me if I knew how to get from the hotel to Victoria Station. I replied that I did very well and he said that he was going to lake me a little different way that would not cost me any more (which it didn’t) but would be of interest to me if I liked history. I saw a few places in the next few minutes that I would never have seen if left to my own devices. I was totally delighted and, needless to say, give him a larger than normal lip. I have always fell that in Britain more than any place else, eccentricity was treated as something akin to a national treasure. The old saying "mad dogs and Englishmen..." is, to my mind, quite valid and I enjoy the many samples which 1 have cither seen or read about. Not too long ago a British baby was playing around with the phone and managed to hit the redial button which connected him with his great-grandparents who were living on the island of St. Lucia in the Caribbean. By the lime he had finished talking to them, scribbler in darkest, downtown New York. A couple of years ago he decided he needed to get away from it all, so he flew to France, bought a packsack and started walking. Eight hundred miles and two mountain ranges later he pulled up in Santiago de Compostela, which is about as far as you can go in northwestern Spain without tumbling into the Atlantic Ocean. Jack had retraced the route taken by Christian pilgrims back in medieval times - and he'd done it step by gruelling step. Lots of folks see Spain and France from an air-conditioned seat in a tour bus, or through the windshield of a rented car. Seeing it on foot is a whole different experience and a fascinating one. You can read about it in Hitt's book, Off The Road: A Modern Day Walk Down the Pilgrim's Route Into Spain. It's just out - published by Simon and Shuster. Ffyona Campbell hasn't written a book yet, but I'll bet she's going to. She'll probably get down to it as soon as she finishes soaking her feet. Ffyona ambled into John O'Groats late one afternoon last month. John O'Groats is as far north as you can go in Britain without tumbling into the North Sea. Mind you Ffyona had been there before. In 1983, as a matter of fact, when she walked By Raymond Canon as only a baby can talk, he had managed to run up a bill of $2,000. My informant was unable to say whether the phone company forgave the charges or whether the poor (in more ways than one) parents were forced to cough up the money. I'm not saying that the little tot was eccentric but he looks as if he is going in the right direction. Speaking of babies, another one got into the act, albeit unexpectedly when the British Inland Revenue, their equivalent of our Income Tax Dept, sent an eight-month-old baby a letter, asking him to provide complete details of his new job and income. Perhaps he could have got the first baby to phone up the appropriate department and reverse the charges. The British are just coming to grips with Sunday shopping and the first day sales were brisk. As expected there were the usual complaints from Anglican vicars, but one of them decided to take action instead of just complain. He moved his Sunday morning service into the nearest shopping centre and preached, not only to any of his parishioners who opted to make the move with him, but to any passing shoppers for whom going to church might be considerably farther down on their list of priorities. The British manage to form some interesting organizations, one of which is the force behind the Right to Peace and Quiet Campaign. The police have found that frequent complaints are not due to noise al all, or if they are, it is only secondary. More likely is a long running feud between neighbours, one of whom has seized upon the campaign to fire a whiff of verbal grape- shot at an obnoxious neighbour. This may have been the case of a retired couple who started legal action against neighbours whose rabbits were keeping them awake al night by making "persistent scratching, thumping and banging noises." Perhaps they have a different breed there than here. and walked. From the top of Britain to Land's End al the bottom. Then just for good measure she strolled across Europe. And Africa. And Asia. And Australia. And then she walked from New York to Los Angeles. "I just wanted to see how far I could go" the 27-year-old woman explained. Adventures on the way? Believe it. It look nearly two years to get across Africa, including a near-rape in Morocco and a political riot in Zaire. Was it worth it? Well, it got her in the Guinness Book of Records as the first woman to walk around the world. In terms of personal rewards, I've seen a photograph of Ffyona Campbell. She's as slim as an ultra-marathoner, looks very fit and ruddy. And appears to have great legs. Ffyona's adventure will never win her any speed records. She took 11 years to make the trek, including several breaks to go back home and earn some more travelling money. Guinness credits American William Kunst with the fastest walk around the world. Kunst left his home in Minnesota in 1970 and set a blistering pace, arriving back at his starting point in a mere four years. Ffyona took nearly three times that long. But then that's the whole pleasure of walking as an exercise: There's no big hurry. The Salvation Army whose good works are well known on both sides of the ocean decided to extend them into new fields. They duly put out a bulletin calling on women to donate unwanted bras. The bras, it seemed, were going to be recycled into roof insulation for poor families. The commentator entitled his description of this request "Snug Fit." Finally, I was walking down a busy London street when I heard some music coming from an unlikely place - the middle of the street. When I was able to get a clear view of what was taking place, it turned out to be a middle-aged fellow with his small ghetto-blaster. It was sitting on the median line and he was dancing up and down the line in tune with the music. A policeman stood and watched him until he was finished. I could only surmise what would have happened to him had he tried the same thing in either France or Germany. The expression "mad dogs and Englishmen", I surmised, was alive and well in London, as it probably still is. Letter concerns reader THE EDITOR, It is with considerable concern that I am writing with regard to a "Letter to the Editor" in last week's Citizen. The obvious purpose of the correspon­ dence in question was to slander someone with whom the writers disagreed. I do not believe that the local paper should be used for such destructive purposes. Their concerns and opinions could have been presented without the allusion to a particular person. Individuals who are the victims of slanderous remarks cannot defend them­ selves without resorting to attacks on those making the comments and, thus, only jeopardize their own integrity. I would suggest that in the future letters be edited more closely and print only those that are constructive and/or interesting, not promoters of hale. The political concerns of Blylh arc not the Continued on page 6 The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Just a case of bad luck Let's just put it down to bad luck. That's what convicted drunk driver Keith Jones believed after he crashed his truck head-on into another vehicle, killing three people in Florida in 1992. The really tragic part of this is that Jones should have been in jail serving 90 days for a second driving offense, but the judge gave him a week to get his personal affairs in order as part of his plea bargain. Though Jones admitted he had had several beers, the accident, he said, was not caused by alcohol. While his blood count was nearly double the legal level for intoxication, Jones said, "I was definitely not impaired." The only survivor in the other car, a 61- year-old woman, whose husband was one of the victims was soothed, I'm sure, to learn that Jones says he has forgiven himself. Though the story above is an American one, the war against impaired driving is being fought on this side of the border with the same frustrated fervour. Unfortunately it seems to be one we might be losing. Despite increased public awareness a recently released statistic, shows a four per cent increase in drunk driving. During the 80s drunk driving had dropped by over 40 per cent. In September there were 14 road crash deaths attributed to alcohol, sending the warning for this year's Drug Awareness Week, Nov. 13-19 that impaired driving is on the increase in Ontario. Most articles or reports on the subject of drunk driving will undisputably maintain that the worst offenders are, like Mr. Jones, habitual. And their stories are all the more tragic, because there seems to be no easy answer in these cases. They slip through the legal cracks, the penalties do not seem to deter them. To many who have lost someone because of a drunk driver, the punishment for what they have taken is nothing more than a slap on the wrist. One organization has begun two initiatives to stop the camage. Concerns Canada offers a course for referred, convicted drivers in the Metro Toronto area, which confronts them with the human suffering caused by their irresponsiblity. The intention is that at the end of the course impaired drivers stop thinking that their only problem is bad luck and seek treatment. But, to blame only the habitual drunk driver, is to be guilty of the same self-denial that marks them. There are few of us who haven't at one time or another gotten behind the wheel of a car thinking we were in better shape than we actually were. Or how many limes have we heard a friend say, "I've only had a couple of drinks. I feel fine," then let them drive home. It only lakes a small misjudgment, and a few seconds, to change your life and many others' forever. Some of the guilty parties haven't had time to be habitual and prevention is another focus of Concerns Canada. For young drivers the message in the newly released comic and resource booklet is clear — drinking and driving will exact a huge financial and social cost. Insurance alone can increase 400 per cent. The perfect solution, I suppose, would be a world where alcohol wasn't a factor, but we all know that’s not going to happen. However, with DDs and taxicabs, when you stop and think about it there really is no excuse for drinking and driving. It might be the last "good time" you have for a very long time.