Life on foot

NOTE: A few weeks ago, I wrote about how owning a reliable car is a privilege most of us take for granted. It is. Now I want to explore another kind of privilege.

I grew up walking or biking everywhere as a kid. There was nowhere to go and little to do in a town like Hospers. You could start from Highland Avenue, where I lived on the northern edge, and bike to the ballfield on the southern edge in 15 minutes without really trying.

Most of us townies walked to the elementary school, which we attended from first through third grade. After that, we rode the school bus to Newkirk or Alton, the other sites in the Floyd Valley School District.

This was a change from a few years earlier. My older brother attended school in our hometown through the eighth grade. He played trombone and swears that hauling that heavy case for six blocks back and forth each day wrecked his posture.

The point is, we walked. We hugged our books to our chests. Later we got bookbags, but we still walked. Perhaps this is why walking seems to be in my blood, yet my parents weren’t big walkers. They always rode in dad’s pickup to the hardware store, and they never took an evening stroll. They were too tired from being on their feet all day, but I get a little antsy if I’m visiting somewhere and don’t stretch my legs after a sedentary day.

Once, on a trip to Minneapolis, after my parents checked into the motel quite late, I said I was going for a walk. “You are NOT! This is a big city. Somebody could get you.” This is how small-town I was, how safe my world was. The thought of walking alone at night was natural, not dangerous, to me.

For a short time, I lived on the south end of Bellingham, Washington, and walked to the Albertson’s at the bottom of the hill. On days off, I walked downtown or to the Fairhaven district. I had a car, which I drove to work at the north edge of town, but I much preferred my jaunts on foot. It was the best way to learn about a different part of the country and to drink in sweeping views of Bellingham Bay.

So, when I think about moving closer to the Grands, my first thought is, I’d want to live in a place where it is safe to walk. This doesn’t seem like much to ask, particularly if you live in the ‘burbs, but I’m not a ‘burb kind of gal. I want to walk to a coffee shop or a restaurant, an Aldi’s, a pharmacy, or the doctor. And, for too many of us, this is more than a big ask. It’s impossible.

Part of the joy of living close to downtown Storm Lake is that I can walk to a few favorite restaurants, and I can walk or bike to work. I am a couple of blocks away from the lake and the Lake Trail. Until the drive-up pharmacy closed, I could nip over — on foot — during my lunch hour and fill a prescription.

Do you live in a place where this is possible, where your basic needs could be met — on foot or by bike — in a 15-minute radius from your home? There are fancy terms for this concept like “human-centered planning” or “urban mobility,” but I call it living on a human scale.

For me, of course, it harks back to the way I grew up. Increasingly, I realize that this is a privilege few enjoy anymore. Am I the only one who thinks this is strange and even wrong?

Maybe. Someone once told me there are “light people” and “heavy people.” Light people can move away from a place and not look back. Heavy people become part of a place and find it hard to leave. “You’re heavy,” they said, and I should have replied, “I’m an anchor stuck deep in the sea floor.”

So, I carry this romantic notion of wanting to live like I’m in a European city. I carry it around like a dirty secret, but why should it be so? I know that other people have experienced this kind of delight, too. They talk about how good it feels not to dodge cars while crossing a street or having to rely on a car for everything.

Many parts of Storm Lake can be enjoyed like that. Storm Lake Times Pilot publisher John Cullen wrote about adopting a walking habit, and he talked about the virtues of keeping fit, bumping into people, and noticing flora and fauna.

In other words, walking can bring us back to ourselves, but it can also draw us out of ourselves. When I first moved here, the dog and I headed to the lake every day after work, and the sight of the moving water, which was (and is) different every time, lifted me.

That’s why the 15-minute town idea has such appeal. There are critics, of course, who say that it’s just another form of gentrification. There is that danger. If there’s no mixed housing, if it’s just creating another homogenous form of the suburbs, then no thanks. I live amongst people from all over the world, and I would hate to lose the richness of what they bring to my life.

Conspiracy theorists, however, see the 15-minute town concept as totalitarianism, which is really a stretch. The implication, best I can tell, is that they see walkability as restricting freedom and the ability to “get away.” They’re equating driving with an inalienable right or treating it like a shadow amendment: “You can pry my steering wheel out of my cold, dead hands.”

No one is taking away your license or your car. Some of us, however, want to retain our mobility well into our twilight years. Walking can stave off or mitigate a host of physical problems.

Really, given the giant leap in gas prices — and who knows how much higher they might go — do these naysayers really think they are free while paying $4 a gallon?

Joan Zwagerman loves how easy it is to do so many things on foot (or by bike) in Storm Lake. She may have more to say about these sorts of things in coming weeks.