Walking Treats

I love to walk. I looked at a bunch of quotes about walking and found so many of them true: it cleanses your mind, it makes you happy, it makes you healthy, it brings you to new places quietly.

I come by my love for walking through my Mom. She was quite the walker. She had to be- mother of six with no driver’s license. How else was she to get where she needed to be?

I was the youngest of this gang and so was the only one home while everyone else was at school. I remember scrambling to keep up with Mom as she headed off on her various errands. After a brisk walk to the cloth store she would scan the fabrics feeling each with her fingers and carefully choosing the pattern. If I was the recipient of the to-be-made item I would be able to offer a little suggestion on the style and print of the cloth. But I didn’t care too much. Maybe my thoughts were already on the walk home: the lines and cracks of the sidewalks, the ants and beetles scurrying across our path and whether or not I could keep up with Mom to hold her hand.

In warm summer evenings I remember different walks. Mom, Dad and I would saunter, with me sometimes in the front, sometimes in the back, up to the drugstore to buy a piece of candy for dessert. I remember always getting a Black Cow- flattened caramel rectangle covered with chocolate on a stick. Yum.