Walk of Ages: Edward Payson Weston's Extraordinary 1909 Trek Across America by Jim Reisler

Author:Jim Reisler [Reisler, Jim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SPO050000 Sports & Recreation / Walking
ISBN: 9780803286436
Publisher: UNP - Nebraska
Published: 2015-02-01T08:00:00+00:00

8

“Walking Is the Easiest Part”

A day’s walk south of Chicago, Edward Payson Weston described himself as looking like “a drowned rat.” Leaving Joliet in the driving rain of the predawn darkness of Wednesday, April 21, 1909, Payson had donned his oilskin coat, which didn’t seem to do much good. And there was mud—and not just mud, but a deep, black form of goop that covered the entire roadway, “so slippery one could scarcely keep his feet,” as Weston put it. Arriving just past 11:00 a.m. twenty miles down the road in Wilmington, with another twenty-one miles to go to reach his day’s goal of Dwight, he was drenched to the bone and dirty as a miner.

So Weston stopped, changed, and pressed on. Continuing south, the roads got worse, flooding into pools of water. “I thought this was a task for walking,” the pedestrian lamented, “but it seemed likely to develop into a swimming bout.” So Weston bounded off the road and set off through the adjoining fields, fighting the whole way to keep the water from sweeping over his ankles. That worked until it didn’t, giving Weston little option but to go back to the drenched road and continue walking.

The day had turned into a full-scale calamity of misfortunes. Though Weston had finally secured another car, it was a loaner and he would need to secure a permanent one to use in the West. In the meantime, he was finding his new attendant as hopeless as the last; arriving soaked in Wilmington, the old pedestrian was directed a mile beyond his destination hotel, because the new attendant had failed to scout a shorter route off the main road. And what of those two new hats that a friend had sent Weston from New York? Lost. Both of them. “I tell you right now,” Weston said, “the walking is the easiest part of this task.”

At least, the last part of the day was easier. Stopping to change in tiny Coal City, the pedestrian was greeted by five hundred residents and the town’s Marine Band, many of whom escorted him to the city limits. The reception revived Weston—“I kept the crowd in the rear on a laughable and uproarious run,” he boasted—and so did the roads. Stone ballasted and drier, those roads sustained Weston those last miles into Dwight.

. . .

The week was growing short. On Thursday, April 22, Weston remained in Dwight, home of the well-known Keeley Institute for treating alcoholism. His latest valet had quit after three days—imagine the tongue lashing he got—and the pedestrian still needed to find a reliable way once and for all to move his supplies. Stuck on the phone throughout the day, again, Weston and his backers made several crucial decisions. First, they ditched the car. Good riddance, too; it was more trouble than it was worth. Weston could do without it after all, given his decision to stick mostly to the railroad beds the rest of the way. Next, they chose a new manager

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