It's for the kids

A show of hands via comments please. Who among you walked to your grade school? Rode a bike? Took the bus? Got a ride?

Until I was in sixth grade, I either walked or rode my bike. In sixth grade I either took the bus (sometimes walking a mile uphill in the snow to and from the stop, really), begged my mom for a ride if I missed the bus or realized I was too malaised to attend school. Seventh and eighth grades, back on foot or bike. High school, for this purpose, is lost time (Cheech and Chong were huge during my formative years; I also spent a lot of time getting my face slapped at the back of the bus).

I'm curious about how you loyal few arrived at your educations because Oct. 3 is International Walk to School in the USA" day. Organizers cite three reasons to walk or bike to school: to enhance the health of kids (we're too fat); to improve air quality and the environment (we're too lazy); and to create safer routes for walking and bicycling (we're paving too much and in the wrong places).

Responsibility for this mortifying state of affairs should sit squarely on the shoulders of my generation (I'm 45) and would if we weren't so desperately trying to shirk it. It's our kids who are getting rides (my own once included, though at college she either walks or takes public transportation); we are the ones driving the cars and making the pavement an easy political choice. There's a lot more to this pathology but other sources beside this blog cover are better equipped to discuss the causes more comprehensively.

Of the 38 other countries listed as participating, I wonder in how many of them walking or biking to school is really considered a day worthy of being separated from all others. Along those lines I loathe Mothers and Fathers days. I resent being told I have to show my love to my parents on these single days when I want them to know I love them every day. Same thing here. If walking or riding to school is reduced to a single day, that's all that should be expected: a day, and a day only, when kids walk or ride.

Rant aside, one day is better than no days. Better to cycle or walk on this single day every year than not at all. I'll be happier when it turns into Walk to School week, or even better, month or year. To those of you with kids, get them out of your car Oct. 3. And the day after. And the day after that.