“If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore.”— Ralph Waldo Emerson 
I had a great walk the other night. It’s something I’ll never be able to put on a resume. Which is too bad. Some of the best things we do occur when we walk. My father made a gleeful confession earlier this week. He smiled that sweet smile and confided he missed the most of the Super Bowl.

 “It was such a beautiful day,” he said. “I didn’t want to be cooped inside, in front of the television. So — I took a walk.”

I smiled because I knew exactly what he meant. Pedestrian Hooky. I escaped from life Monday night and it was as if the moon and all the stars were glad to see me. It was a delirious escape. We get pulled and eroded so much by that and those around us. Deadlines. Projects. Dozens — sometimes hundreds — of faces with that blank stare, demanding a chunk of you.

I remember not so long ago being up north in the redwoods, near Mendocino. I took a hike with an entire battalion of people through quiet woods. A naturalist led the march and he taught me something I’ll never forget.

 “You can always tell when you’re off the path.”

What a delightful metaphor.

We weren’t allowed any lights and even though the moon was full, sometimes, in the deepest of woods, it was pitch black. The young fellow explained that if you listened —  if you felt with your feet and heart — you could tell whether you were on the path, even with your eyes closed. No matter how narrow, the path has a certain compactness to it. Stray just a foot and you can tell, even with your eyes completely closed.

As I walked through Iron Canyon last night, I tried that. Iron Canyon is a fairly quiet road, now that it is blessedly shut off on one end from the suburban madness surrounding it. It’s one of the last enclaves of the serenity the rest of my suburban community used to possess not so long ago.

Anyway. Here I am. Late at night. I’m walking down Iron Canyon Road with my eyes closed, counting my steps, bolding striding with my walking stick. I’m lopsided, and the road curves, so every 30 or 40 yards I either lose faith and open my eyes or the moosh of soft gravel warns me I’ve gone astray. I’m about a yard-a-step marcher, so you do the math. I made it to 64 steps before opening my eyes — a personal world’s record.

To my delight, I opened my eyes after I had stepped off the road. I was standing smack dab between two of the largest ankle-muddying puddles the world has ever seen. Eyes closed, somehow, I had guided myself off the road and onto a two-foot-wide, high and dry bank between these mini lakes. People are getting impeached and I’m getting a lesson in trust.

My dad and I hike at the state park up the road in Placerita. There is a riverbed there, littered with rocks and boulders. Last summer, we held a contest to see who could take the most steps without looking down. Of course fear and common sense reared their ugly heads. “What if you sprain your ankle?” a devilish outer voice asks. Just taking it easy, looking straight up or ahead instead of at our paltry strides, we made it for a count of about 200, our smiles getting bigger each step.

How do you explain that any one of those trusting footprints counted equal against any award or accomplishment?

Several years back, it snowed here and without hesitation or thought, I jumped on a motorcycle and headed straight for Placerita Canyon State Park. What — maybe 100,000 people living here back then? And I was the only one to think of strolling through Placerita during a rare daylight snow flurry.

A thousand years from now, put that in my obituary. I got to walk in the laziest, lightest blizzard.

People might think you mad, seeing you walking alone with your arms out, catching snowflakes on your face, laying down spread-eagle over a log and have the icy precipitation pile up on you. But oh to see your footprints in the snow where it never snows.

I walked with my eyes closed for 64 steps in the darkness Sunday. No thought of bills. No foolish debates. No grim faces from the city council or nation’s capitol.

All the problems in my small personal world, gone in those 64 steps. 
 

John Boston was named Best Humor Columnist in America by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Again. This goes along with his 117 other major national, regional and California awards for writing excellence. Look for his new web page, thebostonreport.com, coming, cripes, we have our fingers crossed, next week!