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A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE MAY 16: Maybe Forrest had something

It’s amazing the number of people walking or biking across the country these days.

It’s amazing the number of people walking or biking across the country these days.

You have to wonder if there shouldn’t be a quota on the number of people heading each direction – some kind of control to make sure that Canada doesn’t get any more unbalanced than it already is.

Someone to keep track of a how many are going east vs. how many are heading west.

North-south probably doesn’t matter too much. The country is already hopelessly out of whack there, with over 90 per cent of the population living within 150 kilometres of the U.S./Canada border.

It must be interesting to see the world from the pace that these people are going though.

Most of us view the world as it flies past at 90 km/h.

Those who walk or bike get the opportunity to enjoy the birds sing. Something that we lose in our cars. It’s no use the bird singing to us normal people as we whizz by.

And whoever coined the phrase “stop and smell the flowers” must have been think of the motoring public. There’s no other way we are going to be able to get a whiff unless we do stop.

But if you are on foot or riding a bicycle – assuming the wind is right and the farmer’s manure pile isn’t too close to the road – you have a half decent chance of getting to savour the fragrance of the flowers.

The slower pace probably gives one more time to contemplate the meaning of life too.

According to the blog posted by one fellow who came through the Boundary last month he was walking across the country – AND BACK! – to try to mend his broken heart. Something like Forrest Gump did I guess.

I can’t fault the fellow though.

Herbert Spencer wrote, “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt before investigation.”

In other words – walk a mile in my shoes!

Too often I have enough trouble just making it across town in time for the next event – let along walking across the country.

So I’d better just wish the fellow good luck and hope that he finds the peace that he’s looking for.

It would be interesting to have a daily routine without a deadline again though.

When I got this newspaper job five years ago, I’d just finished a year of being unemployed after Pope & Talbot went belly up.

I was getting really comfortable with the lifestyle – but one day when the Employment Insurance was about to run out Special K casually mentioned that it would be nice if I might find a new career.

My 12-month long weekend while waiting for the mill to re-open was over. So when a part-time position for a reporter came up I put my name in.

The next thing I knew I had a deadline. And it wasn’t something I could just take a pass on when I wasn’t in the mood either.

Worse yet – as soon as I met the deadline then another would be looming up ahead, just a week away.

Maybe Forrest had something there. I wonder if Special K would like to go for a little walk after dinner?