If you happen to be driving anywhere near Leader World Headquarters on a weekday, try not to gawk at the sight of a herd of journalists moseying down the street.
It’s just the newspaper gang on our “Walk to Avoid Death.”
When the paper first started, most of us in the office were youngish, busy people with young families who stayed fit by simply going through our daily activities.
As we got older, though, we found ourselves having to make a conscious effort to get the exercise we need in a profession that often consists of a whole lot of sittin’ around.
A few of us began to try and take a daily walk, a modest lap around the block that didn’t take much time but gave us a chance to get up and get moving.
It was nice to get out of the chair and stretch, to focus our eyes somewhere further away than a screen, to feel fresh air and the sun on our faces.
My co-worker Kevin Carbery, ever the optimist, coined the term “Walking to Avoid Death,” and two or three or maybe four of us would get up from our desks and make the trek down to the corner, past the library, around the church and back to the building.
It takes six or seven minutes – Kevin makes sure to time us – and leaves us feeling somehow more refreshed than such a tiny caloric expenditure should warrant.
In the past few years, a number of staffers have reached retirement age and moved on to other things and other places.
As the last of the original Leader staff members, I wondered if the tradition would begin to die out when I hit the retirement trail myself.
Then a funny thing happened: Those of us who cherish the tradition of the WTAD somehow hooked our new, young staffers on the habit.
If you drive by in any given week, you’ll probably see close to an even dozen Leaderites ambling down the sidewalk in a gang, chattering and enjoying the day.
I love that I’ve let them in on some of our more hallowed WTAD traditions:
On the way to the corner, we sometimes gather a handful of berries from the enormous holly tree on our lot. Then, we enjoy pelting co-workers and the odd passerby with the tiny berries.
We keep score on who can hit a certain brick on the side of the church from the sidewalk, or who can flip a berry into the pothole on Grand Avenue on a single bounce.
One day after a rain, we spotted a flat, smooth rock, and a brief experiment proved once and for all that you can skip a rock in a puddle, if you get down far enough to ensure the correct angle.
You can, of course, if you don’t mind looking like a raving lunatic to any and all passersby.
On our trek one hot summer day, our whole group came to a halt as we watched in dread or fascination while a roofing crew took their lives in their hands hauling shingles to the top of a building by means of a rickety conveyor belt.
If there happens to be a decent-sized rock or discarded tin can in our path, an impromptu soccer match often breaks out, complete with play-by-play announcing.
“Annnnnnnnd Goldie takes a quick pass from Laura….she fakes, then passes to Lindsay…..she shoots ….SHE SCORRRRRRRRES!”
Then there was the fateful day we saw the corpse of a mole, lying in the street along the edge of the sidewalk. It was still there the next day, and the next, and pretty soon Kevin was making colorful daily reports to the rest of the office on its state of decomposition.
The slow decay of the mole (Good Lord – that sounds like a good title for a surrealist novel) remained a topic of conversation for a remarkably long time. Then, one day, the poor desiccated thing was simply gone, and we have yet to find a replacement quite as fascinating.
Perhaps it says something about the nature of journalists in general that we always find something to look at and talk about on our walk.
Or, you know, maybe it’s just me.
Kevin puts the blame squarely on me anytime we exceed his arbitrary 7-minute limit. Of course, he’s usually right. There are so many things to see and do, even on a stroll around the block.
But change is upon us. Now that my employment status has moved to “semi-retired,” I no longer spend long days in the office, so I’m not always around when the WTAD happens.
And you know? I’m really going to miss it. I hope it never stops.
Keep it up, guys. Savor the scenery and the silliness. Enjoy the sunlight, pelt things with holly berries and marvel at the crack in the sidewalk that looks like Alfred Hitchcock’s profile.
It’s the little things, right?
