The Born Loser by Art and Chip Sansom for March 10, 2015

Then you’d better buy him a bright yellow slicker and a pair of rain rubbers. In this day and age, you’ll probably be charged with child endangerment anyway, so all things considered, it will take less time to just drive him to school.

rain? pshaw we walked to school every day… it was a block and a half rough times back in the 50s

three miles each waybarefootup hill both ways

Grade school was exactly 1 mile away. Downhill going to school, uphill coming home. Walked that miserable mile everyday rain or shine. Finished grade school in May 1964.

And you try and tell the young people of today that ….. they won’t believe you.

Five miles up hill each way.

I had to walk some pretty significant distances for most of the years up through high school, but the most story-worthy is during the junior-high years, I walked across a very large cow pasture that even had a creek running through it. Once I nearly got frostbite on my ears and a few times, I actually had to dodge a grumpy bull!

High school was about a mile away. Walked it every day plus coming home for lunch.

It was about 6 blocks for me, too, uphill going, down coming back, but it was in Vermont, so we’d get up to a foot and a half snow at a whack, and down to -15°F to walk in. We didn’t get rides, there was no school bus, except for those with disabilities or broken legs, and the city bus went the wrong way. The school also had no lunch facilities, so in our hour and 15 minute lunch break we’d have to walk home and back to eat.Glad I, and my son will never have to deal with this, since we moved to Washington state YEARS ago. However for the “Knee deep snow, uphill both ways” prize, I had a college professor win that – it was flat ground, but down to -30 with high winds, sneakers, sandals or no shoes, unheated schoolhouse with no glass in the windows, no electricity, and often no coats, in Northern China. No thank you!

I grew up in Pittsburgh, and we did walk to school. Days of ice storms and having to wait outside till our shift started (overcrowded schools with no way to expand them) convinced me, way back in grade school, to move to Florida.-So here I am in a state where we don’t have to worry about snow and ice (although dodging wind storms and driving rain, and the occasional hurricane or tornado can be challenging for kids.)-But today’s ‘walking to school’ problems include walking along 6 lane highways with no sidewalk, trying to cross same with no crossing guard and people who ignore crosswalks, and the strange men who keep asking the kids if they wouldn’t prefer to get into the car and ‘have a ride’….