A Family Walk Turns Into a Safety Lesson

The other night, I told the kids I had a special treat for them—we were going to walk to El Nayar for dinner. “Yay!” they yelled.

I am really very lucky they are so easily pleased.

I grabbed my purse, the kids put on their shoes and we headed out to Frederick Road for the trek.

There’s something rather magical about walking. You share a connection with the things around you. You have more time to notice things. A car acts as a bubble, insulating you from the outside world. When you walk, you become part of the landscape, part of the neighborhood, part of the community. You aren’t just passing through, you’re present.

I used to walk home from school when I was a kid. I remember those walks fondly. A big group of us would walk along our town’s Main Street. Those of us with pocket change would head into a shop to buy candy or a soda. I think about it now, and it seems rather funny. We were kids of the '80s essentially living some variety of Rockwellian life.

We didn’t live in neighborhoods, or have playgrounds and cul de sacs to ride our bikes on. We had streets. It didn’t matter. Because on those walks home from school we were kids, connected.

It’s that connection I was hoping to achieve the other night with my kids. And we did. We sang "Miss Mary Mack," "The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly," my daughter told us about a boy in her class who can do gymnastics and my son said, “Oh yeah, but can he do finger gymnastics like this?” and then proceeded to cross his fingers and say, “Ooh! My fingers are realllllllly strong!”

It was all very idyllic in a way. You know, the sort of way that if you squint and obscure most everything in your view, all the bad stuff is blocked out and you can just focus on the details you want?

Our merry stroll then encountered a few problems—congestion and walkability.

Whole sidewalks are closed with signs saying to use the other side. Yet there’s no crosswalk so you can make it across safely. What’s most frustrating about this is that the sidewalk has been out of commission for close to a year, and there still isn’t a crosswalk or signs of improvement.

Take a walk along Frederick Road and look at the cars. There are hundreds and hundreds. But what is most striking is that they all have only one person in them. All that space, for one person. And yet there is no sidewalk for us, a family trying to walk to dinner.

We have an obesity problem in this country and we have adults and kids sitting at desks all day. We need to connect. We need to walk.

There’s a saying: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” So I will be out there walking. And I do hope you’ll join me. Perhaps if the powers that be see us flooding the streets, they’ll start making some changes to better things for our community and our kids.

And then maybe, just maybe, one day my kids and your kids will walk home from school together.