LEPOCO walks and rides for peace (26)

(26th in a series of posts on Walkability and Bikeability)

Gadfly has been sooooo busy.

Forget death in the family and grandchild college graduation hoopla. (Hoopla rhymes with moola.)

But there also were not-so-little doin’s like the Martin Tower demo and, oh yes, an election.

So Gadfly got forgitful. As you can imagine, gadfly memory storage is not much to speak of to begin with.

One of the things that Gadfly forgot was to announce the LEPOCO walk and bike for peace — which began 5 hours from this post.

Too late to participate. Not to late to donate.

Gadfly was going to ask you to sponsor him $1/mile — $5 for the five miles.

Like lots of you did Christmas-time when he participated in the walk from Nazareth to Bethlehem. (Now that was a WALK!)

Gadfly did the 5 miles today. And it’s not to late to donate.

LEPOCO is the best cause, Lepocopopians are the best people. Gadfly waited too long in life to get involved.

And “peace” is such a good cause on “Memorial” Day weekend.

Can y’spare a fiver?

The walk was wonderful — it began in the Christmas City grounds, up Main to Market, across Market to Center, down Center onto the bridge, down to the D&L trail, up onto the Minsi, onto the Greenway to New, across the Fahy and back to the Christmas City grounds.

I walked alone. That’s the way I usually like my walking. For years I walked to work at Lehigh and back, clearing my head for the day and clearing my head after the day. Walking is great tonic!

So I walked alone. I never tire of saying that you cannot really know your environment unless you walk it.

What sights and sounds: The music piped on lower Main when silence was the proper morning melody; the pot-bellied guy with bed-head and a desperate look like he was afraid Johnny was going to run out of bagels; that damn half-a-block incline as you turn from Main onto Market (was that there when I was 70? 60?); peeps into beautiful back yards on Market St. never seen before; skull and cross-bone signs warning of the dreaded Airbb plague in the Historic District oasis; the busy beauty of the Diamond front yard; the soft curve of Center St. yielding to Lehigh; trail huzzas echoing from below; the surprising number of people on the trail (do we always appreciate what a gem this is running through the center of town?); their garb —  from a headband that could double as an executioner’s blindfold to a maximum midriff bikini; bridge graffiti — from other planets, both celestial and cerebral in nature; the river — wide, muscular, and coursing dark; crossing signal waits longer than the waits for results of DNA tests on Maury; the neat town houses along the Greenway; attention-getting passing conversation fragment: “I give good hugs”; the seductive invitations to linger at The Cafe The Lodge or Parham Park; actually lingering at the Chinese pavilion; the “whiteness” of the Fahy bridge; portentous passing conversation fragment: “you WILL apologize to my girl-friend”: the welcome downhill left on Lehigh toward leisure; the lost site of H.D.’s Isle of Wounds; the LEPOCO tent like a motel sign during a late fall white-out on Rt. 84 near the Massachusetts line.

Walk. Bike.

It’s not just some campaign riff.

It’s good for the body, maybe even better for the mind.

Get to know your town.

Sense it. Feel it.

Walk.

And donate to LEPOCO if you can.