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Staying in motels just exhausts me. I'm not altogether sure why. I think it might have something to do with a lack of oxygen. Your cheaper places tend to be stuffy. They would not pass a blacklight exam. Hot baths soften my calluses. Soft beds weaken my thighs. Watching six hours of Law & Order will give you peculiar dreams.
Notice I've italicised "Law & Order." I'm not going to do it twice. It took me fifteen minutes and three points of battery life. But I do have a new blog editor. I like the old one better. But life goes on and things change, no matter how much it hurts my feelings.
I haven't changed so very much. I'm a youthful forty-two. Because I've spent a lifetime avoiding resposibility. Which is after all what ages us. I'll be forever young. You might as well go ahead and admire me for it. Jealousy is unbecoming.
Sure there is some grey in my beard. My eyes have wrinkled some. In the manner of Clint Eastwood. Everybody likes him. And every important part of me works, as well as it ever has. Though I did while washing my feet this morning discover a missing nail.
On the little toe of my left foot. It was never much to see. But it's gone now, poor little fellow. It has given itself to the cause. Never again will I have to pay full price for a pedicure.
I did not get back on the road until noon. It took me hours to walk out of town. If I had not slept indoors I would have been in a pickle. Trapped in a city after dark with no place to put up my tent. It was nothing but my hobo skills that convinced me to sleep indoors.
Which I have been doing a lot of this month. It is really slowing my progress. I have been in Mississippi for what, a week, and I'm still up by Tennessee. There are children who look up to me. I feel I am letting them down.
But I never signed up to be a role model. All I can offer is my best advice. Read more and watch less TV. Take up the banjo young. Clean your room and take care of your teeth. Eat your vegetables. Avoid brown liquor and nicotine. Smoke pot in moderation.
It was an unpleasant walk, even in daylight. There was no shoulder at all. For miles I was walking on the spongy grass growing next to the road. Which is tiring and really hard on my feet. They get knocked around in my shoes. Which are fairly lightweight and not at their best on uneven surfaces.
I had by then abandoned Tupelo for Verona, Mississipi. Which butts right up against it to the south and goes on for another few miles. After that I had some sharp gravel to walk on. Just like in Iowa. But here it's a rusty red color and littered with prescription bottles.
I did find some countryside after that. Traffic thinned just a bit. And one or two raindrops landed on me but the skies never opened up. They've decided that will happen tomorrow. Hail and thunderstorms. And maybe a tornado or two, just to keep me on what's left of my toes.
The Gulf of Mexico is behind it, they say. Something about warm moist air. And I am pleased to be so far south that the Gulf is even a factor. Warm rains aren't going to kill me, I guess. The day after that it gets cold. Down below freezing again. I thought I was free of all that. I'm typing this in a T-shirt with my windows open. At the motel I ran the AC.
Eventually I made it to Shannon, Mississippi. I was walking in rather a daze. My mind again wandered to other things. I was not thinking of my feet. Which is how a long walk is supposed to go. It is why I've always liked walking. It is like a sort of meditation, without going all Buddha on you. But that sort of peace has been lost to me for nearly all of this trip. Sad to think that I'm just getting it right when I am nearly done.
I'd had a big breakfast in Tupelo. I had a big lunch in Shannon. At a once gas station that is now P&G Wings and Things. It is run by a retired minister. We watched Let's Make a Deal.
With genuine interest. There's no irony here. In a perfect world we wouldn't need it. But it is a force alive in me. The Buddha was not ironic at all.
I walked on a few miles from there, until the sun went down. And was at least briefly concerned about where I might set up my tent. But I found a spot. I always do. Hobo skills, don't you know. I am between a river and a ploughed field. It is going to get muddy if it rains.
I HAD pecan pie at P&G. I wasn't hungry, but I'm glad I made the effort.
WHILE I was having my biscuits and gravy, the cooks were arguing. There was something very wrong with the biscuits, they said. Neither would admit fault. They tasted OK to me but it did get me thinking. It rather ruined my meal.
THERE IS A critter outside my tent, heavy and seemingly bipedal. I think it's one of them bigfoots. I'll try to get a photo with him.
NO ONE can tell I'm a Yankee until I talk. I feel like a spy.
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