Lewis Percy and the Culture of Walking Cont.

Journal Entry, October 17, 2009: Weight = 173.6; Coinage = $1.63, 53 pennies, 4 nickels, 4 dimes, 2 quarters; Glass Bottles = 1; Ground Scores = 3

Journal Entry, October 18, 2009: Weight = 174.4; Coinage = $2.85, 145 pennies, 2 nickels, 11 dimes, 1 quarter; Glass bottles = 3; Ground scores = 6; Best coinage find = three dimes and ten pennies from a residual walk to purchase a newspaper, an eight block walk. Also my alias friend at the 17th street canal bridge is now just leaving the pennies on the embankment barrier at ground level, not throwing them down onto the concrete apron that lines the sides of the canal; 50 pennies and 1 nickel. This new behavior has happened several times lately. Also, an excellent series of dime finds were experienced during the afternoon walk, just after the Saints defeated the New York Giants.

Journal Entry, October 19, 2009: Weight = 174.4; Coinage = $2.07, 57 pennies, 3 nickels, 6 dimes, 3 quarters; Glass bottles = 8; Ground scores =2; Best Coinage find = a wad of change left out at the car wash.

Journal Entry, October 20, 2009: Weight = 172.4, Coinage = $.88, 18 pennies, 1 nickel, 4 dimes, 1 quarter; Glass bottles = 2, Ground scores = 1; Best Coinage = a hunch find of pennies thrown against a retainer wall.

Feature Entry: More Percy Walker and the Culture of Walking

Anita Brookner’s (Booker Award winning novelist) protagonist Lewis Percy, like most of Brookner’s leads are avid walkers. What follows are a list of what Lewis thinks about or attempts to accomplish with his long walks:

1. Giving shape to emotional energy—resolution walking
2. Walking and stress management
3. The habit of regular walking
4. Places that Lewis walks
5. Walking as a way to pace living—reflective walking
6. Utility walking—to the store, the bank, the post office
7. Walking to combat sadness; boredom
8. Walking as a way to shape reality
9. Walking and joy; walking and sorrow
10. Maintaining good health
11. Walking and romance
12. Companion walks
13. Evening walks

I wonder if Lewis is a money walker? I don’t think so! In future blogs, the MoneyWalker will be exploring in more depth several of these cultural aspects of walking. But in the meantime, having found seven dollars and forty-three cents in four days of fitness walking is noteworthy and yet another way to look at the culture of walking. For the walkers that follows this blog, are there are other aspects similar to those of Lewis that guides your walking? Do you have different ones?

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