Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 28, 1994 TAG: 9412070043
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It was a good idea. The air was bright with that low, brilliant light that shines here only in fall. Squirrels chattered and dashed. Papery sycamore leaves, larger than a large man's hand, drifted down on the breeze and nestled into the still-green grass.
I sat at a picnic table, the sun on my face, and dawdled over my task.
While I worked, the walkers passed in front of me.
Bissett Park is nearly always busy with walkers. An asphalt path loops it, following the New River down one of its long sides and slipping under the shade of a hill along its other. Walkers circle grassy playing fields, often filled with students tossing Frisbees to their dogs, and sturdy playgrounds, often teeming with toddlers.
On this afternoon, though, I sat alone; and the walkers circled only me.
Most of them strode by briskly, the soles of their serious shoes whooshing importantly, but a few merely strolled. There were walkers in pairs and single walkers. Walkers in sweats and hats and gloves, walkers in shorts and T-shirts. Walkers with dogs, and walkers without.
The walkers in pairs chatted, sometimes breathlessly. The single walkers wore headphones.
Nearly every single one of them.
I wonder what they listened to? I've worn headphones on that path myself, usually listening to classical music.
But what were these folks listening to? Books on Tape, rock 'n' roll, motivational messages, gospel quartets, bluegrass, rap, heavy metal?
Who knows? Each advanced swathed in privacy, timing steps to match the sounds coming in at the ear, obviating any need for acknowledgement of others along the way.
Perhaps that's why the single walkers walked: for the privacy, for relief from social necessities, for solitude in a world too busy, too full. I've walked in the park for those very reasons myself.
But on that balmy afternoon I was struck more by the armor such walking projects: "Here I am. Marching. Out in nature, yes, but eyes down and listening only to what I want to listen to. Leave me alone."
Leave me alone. Tramp, tramp, tramp.
Even with the sun on my face, I felt myself sinking under their anxious spell.
Then, along came a single walker without headphones. He was marching, yes, but lightly, spryly, and following a beat he not only made up for himself, but that he shared. He was whistling.
Whistling! Exquisitely, melodically whistling. He fluted his steps to a tune he seemed to be composing as he went along. I sat up and watched him. I smiled. A maintenance man who'd come by to empty the trash cans looked up and smiled, too.
The walker turned at the one-mile mark, and walked back along the river again. Still whistling that intricate, wonderful, unfamiliar tune.
The maintenance man and I, transfixed, watched him out of sight. And still we could hear his tune, even after he was gone.
A thread of life purling out through the air, connecting us, we three. In the sun. In the light. By the river.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB