Ain't nothin' gonna breaka my stride

Within a week+ of using my ASSISTIVE DEVICE, I was invited to have a threesome with two guys. The next day, a gray-haired woman approached and said I was fascinating. I guess I’m making the cane look good? Or maybe it’s more about Key West, or where I chose to watch the sunset. I think being a guy by himself in Key West reads as gay guy looking for action, and I’ll get to the retiree later. Still, I’ll take the compliments.

When my father-in-law retired, he bought a place in Key West, so we’ve averaged nearly a trip a year since 2000. For a long time it was just the Awesome Wife and me, and we tore it up. Lately the extended family congregates in Feb, replete with nieces and Grandpa. I went by myself once for the Literary Seminar, but I stayed with my father-in-law and had my lit crew (Hi, if you’re reading!). This trip was my first completely solo adventure, on the loose and off the leash. And just 10 days into my walking stick.

Key West is always my most intense walking time of the year. But now I had nobody to answer to, no Evil Wife to tantalize me into 17k step days like in Stockholm and Oslo. I’ve done this trip 25 times, how would I approach it as the only master to serve? Turns out I walked MORE, averaging 15k over four days, even beating the 17k for my most active day of the Apple Watch era. The wife is Awesome after all. Sorry, baby! I’m a maniac.

It tickles me when doctors say I’m an “active guy,” since my lack of athleticism has been a lifelong plague. But I really put the WALK waitforit IN WALKING STICK nailedit. I’m still a huge walker, and one sclerosis, even multiple can’t slow me down. I got to keep on movin’. The stick has upped my game tremendously. I found out my favorite thing to do in Key West is walk down Duval St and people-watch, or stare at the sky and the water. I prefer traveling by foot, especially in Key West. And oh did I use those feet.

As for some context on that woman finding me fascinating: I was at a bar on The Bite, Key West’s dock neighborhood and long our fave; I was writing in my journal; I said hi to a passing couple I’d met the previous two nights, married 56 years; and I looked like this, but in a Celtics tank:

Since I’m not using the stick as a proper cane a lot of the time, my brisk saunter seems jaunty, a bit Mr. Peanut. As for the scarf, it’s a cooling wrap to battle the heat (a topic for another day). The tank, hat, and glasses are just how I roll in Key West.

I felt a drained by Scandinavia but invigorated by Key West. I no longer fear long walks, I have a shot at them. Hills still suck, but my fear of What if I need a cane?! has been overwritten by I’m walking better than I have in years. I feel enabled.

And then I sat at the bar my last night, and the guy next to me was either trying to pick me up or steal my hamburger, or probably both. He asked What do you teach, handicap shit? And I remembered, victories will come alongside defeats. Most people were out of their way helpful, but there’s a range of folks out there, and I’ll meet them all.

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Flying back from Scandinavia, Delta said anyone needing additional time could board early. The Awesome Wife was worried about having to check her carry-on and pointed out I could get us on early. I resisted but acquiesced after our layover. And as I sat on the plan and watched other board, I removed my leg brace and thought of my weeks of wobbles and troubles with stairs, and about how helpful the ski pole had been. And I found myself fighting back tears as my identity as DISABLED suddenly came into sharp focus as others placed baggage in the overhead compartments.

But that was 10 days ago. American Airlines doesn’t offer early boarding for extra help, so I got sincere-sounding apologies when I strolled up alongside Group 2 to board early. No invitation, but no hesitation, a million miles from the previous flight. I did a lot of mental work last week, it was a crash course in acceptance. As for American, I’m new to this and all, but why make me ask?

I collaborated with the brilliant Vee to make a webcomic (2009-11) that failed to become syndicated across the globe. I’m still super proud of it, I still think it needs to be seen, and I am pro-recycling.

English teachers in my building know the only change to the above is the time (Hi, if you’re reading!). About half the teachers eat right before, during the prep we get in exchange for a lunch meeting. And I definitely could do that. But I believe you eat lunch at lunchtime, so the comic remains valid.

I heard a college DJ play “the new Feelies song” but that 2025 Rewind album is all B-sides and rarities from another millennium. Because my the peak of my Feelies obsession coincided with my life on Limewire and Bearshare, I’ve been listening to 6 of the 9 tracks since the early aughts,. When I got to guest DJ on MIT radio, I even played the studio version of “I Wanna Sleep in Your Arms.” They slapped a live version onto the Crazy Rhythms reissue, but the studio version is far superior, I like it better than the Modern Lovers original. And it appears on this “new” album!

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I decided I wanted to be a writer in 8th grade and have fiendishly held onto lots of my work. I have fun highlighting old writing and making fun of my former self.

College freshmen at Tufts had take Freshman Writing, and our first assignment was an open-ended essay. We read them aloud in class and mine marked my first writing success of college. From “Walking And Solving The World's Problems,” early fall 1997, drastically edited down because it’s page-fillingly long. Also society can only withstand so much Dan Tobin at 17.

I had exhausted all of my options for fun and excitement for the day. I had played guitar for an hour. I had beaten all the computer games created by man. I had called all my friends who were not out in search of bigger and brighter pursuits. I had built a nuclear reactor and remodeled the White House. I had done it all.

So Dave Barry. Then plenty of artistic license. There’s no way I played guitar for a whole hour, and I never computer games more than casually. NES Zelda and Game Boy Tetris, different story. The essay rattled off my teenage problems of privilege in excruciating detail, then got toward the point. Not to it, but getting warner.

While basking in my self-pity I recalled a piece of advice someone once gave me while I was in the midst of another period of depression. She said to take a walk to clear my head. I shrugged it off for its sheer mundanity. How could putting one foot in front of the other solve anything?

I’ll plead being 17 for the characterization of my light bummer about girls not like-liking me as “depression.” I lost my hat, I’m so depressed,

At this point I was so frustrated that I would field any suggestion, regardless of origin or how mediocre it appeared to be. I put on my sandals, even though I had decided that they were maybe the worst pair of shoes ever built for long distance walking.

I was testing whether to invest in Tevas by road-testing some Payless knockoff. I ended up in Tevas the rest of college, but at the time those Schlevas were indeed lousy.

I walked out the door and onto the street, careful to look both ways before crossing, just as we were instructed in grade school.

I walked down the street.

I was not impressed.

So Douglas Adams.

It was a really nice day, though. The sky was a beautiful color, as blue as a package of 2000 Flushes makes your toilet water.

So MAD Magazine. These were among my chief comedic influences at the time.

The clouds hung in the sky in interesting billowy shapes. The air was fresh and intoxicating, cool and dry, easy to breathe. The trees were green and tall, straight out of a Bob Ross painting.

I can’t blame anyone else, this writing is all my fault.

As I walked down North Street, I saw the pond where ducks were happily swimming and playing games that only ducks know the rules to.

The duck line killed in class. Now an embarrassing level specifics about plannig to tackle my first-world problems. FINALLY, I made the pitch for walking.

Everyone can walk. Everyone’s good at it. You don’t need any special equipment. It’s free. You can do it year-round. It’s just a simple, easy activity, often overlooked as a form of physical fitness.

2025 Dan Tobin would like a word.

Maybe it would be more popular if there was a professional walking league that had people getting paid 8 million dollars a year to walk around Fenway Park. Kids would collect cards of famous walkers... or maybe not.

So Dave Barry crossed with MAD Magazine. Who said I’m no innovator? The “or maybe not” bugs me now. Have confidence in your jokes, man!

Now, I’m not advocating power-walking. That is taking a nice calm relaxed activity and injecting it with testosterone to make it more difficult. It’s wholly self-defeating, since the beauty of walking is the pace, catered specifically to each individual. I equate power-walking with full-contact Scrabble, another destruction of an otherwise peaceful game.

Again with the Dave Barry. I should also credit Monty Python, Looney Tunes, and the Marx Brothers. A dash of Tom Lehrer, a soupçpon of Balki Bartokomous. Thankfully their influence doesn’t appear.

Incidentally, this paper has caused me much stress and I have taken a few walks to deal with it. The first walk was to come up with a topic. The second was to relieve the stress when I thought of how difficult it would be to write a multi-paged essay about walking that would not act as a sleeping pill.

I hope you're still awake.

I loved ending the piece like that, and when I became a Tufts Daily humor columnist the next year, I’d end my last column of the semester, My name’s Dan Tobin, thanks for indulging me. I preferred my exit line after a late June performance by my student-teacher band: “My name’s Mr. Tobin, read five books this summer!” And I guess that’s how I’ll end today, too.