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Melanie Munk, Features Editor munk@heraldnet.com

They walk for health, for peace of mind, for life

Through the worst of the winter, I saw the elderly man walking morning after morning. Snow, ice, fog, sub-freezing temperatures, through it all he walked five miles each day.

After colon cancer and heart surgery, Maynard Larson's doctor told him walking is essential if he wants to live.

So he walks.

Like Larson, millions of senior citizens across this country are out walking daily to keep their bodies and their minds healthy.

If you live in Monroe, you may have seen Mary Peterson Clark, 72, walking each morning.

"People say, 'How can you walk by yourself,' well, I just have all these years," she said.

Along the way, she's collected stray coins. To avoid falls she looks down often and, invariably on each walk, she'll spot a penny or a nickel.

"I heard years ago that if you find a penny it's from heaven and it means someone is thinking of you," she said, "so I always look at the date and think about an anniversary or birthday or something or someone from my life I can associate with that year."

Back home she puts them in a jar. When the jar is full she empties that into a sack, counts the coins and sets it aside. Someday, when her time on Earth is ended, all those pennies are headed for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, she said.

It really won't amount to a vast sum. They're just pennies, after all. But picking them up is part of her routine, just as her commitment to a two-mile walk is part of her commitment to good health.

Her mother's problems with obesity and lifelong health issues, inspired her to walk.

"I didn't want to go through that so I was determined to work exercise into my routine each day," she said.

One perk of living in Monroe, she said, is the opportunity to go to the YMCA for 17 hours a month. So she is at the Y twice a week for senior aerobics. Other mornings, after her walk, she goes to a private health club. She and her husband, Bill, also have exercise equipment at home. He does tai chi and joins her on walks.

During some of the most difficult times in her life, those daily walks gave her a spiritual as well as physical lift. Her first husband, Jim, endured a long, painful bout with cancer before his death.

For four of those years she was his primary caregiver at home. Her only break was those walks.

"I'd have someone come in to be with him, and then I'd walk and talk to the Lord and He would get me through…."

After Jim's death in 1999, she didn't plan on romance ever again.

"If someone would have told me that at 69 I'd remarry, I would have said, 'You're nuts,'" she said.

Then one afternoon at the Monroe Senior Center while listening to the Moonlight Swing Orchestra, a friend suggested she say hello to a fellow across the room. It turned out his mother had been her neighbor.

On their first informal date they went for a walk.

They still enjoy walks together although he's not out there with her every morning. No, those are her "pennies from heaven" walks. Her time to meditate, talk to the Lord, think of old friends and family who're thinking about her.

There are myriad ways to exercise our minds and bodies to stay healthy. We can do it alone or in groups, indoors or outdoors, in water or on land.

The simplest and easiest of all is just going out for a walk, breathing in that fresh air and enjoying the life we've been given.

You might even find a penny from heaven along the way.



Linda Bryant Smith writes about life as a senior citizen and the issues that concern, annoy and often irritate the heck out of her now that she lives in a world where nothing is ever truly fixed but her income. You can e-mail her at ljbryantsmith@yahoo.com.