ES leaving on his first day of 2nd Grade in Ashburn(He wasn't in the mood to cooperate with a papa-razzi).
The topic of walking to school has come up in conversations in our house recently. My oldest son's walk to school is about a third of a mile.
It got me to thinking, and I said to myself,
"Self, how far did I used to walk to school?"
It sure seemed like a LOOOOOONG walk to me when I was in grade school. So I used the route feature on the Buckeye Outdoors website to measure it.
In Kindergarten through 2nd Grade, I would have guessed off the top of my head that it was at least a mile.
Um, yyyeah, not so much.
It was a whopping 0.35 miles. Man, it seemed a LOT longer than that as a 6 year old.
In 3rd and 4th Grade, I knew it was longer than my previous walk, and I would have guessed it at 2 miles. Nope. It was only 0.9 miles. I only got beat-up by a bully older-kid once while walking home from school though. That's not bad for a two year stint, is it?
In 5th and 6th Grade, it was only 0.4 miles to the bus stop where I caught the bus to school.
In 7th through 9th Grade, I walked 1.35 miles to the junior high school.
In 10th Grade, I walked 1.5 miles to the high school.
[Aside: After that... I got my driver's license. It's amazing how many people become your "friend" when you're in high school and you have a car and a driver's license.]
So how about you? How far did you walk to school when you were a kid?
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Actually ES is walking 0.6 miles to school and unfortunately it isn't like the olden days... I have to walk him (so I walk 1.2). The teachers all complain about the number of people who drive their kids to school and how they walked why can't our kids. Umm, did your mom walk with you and drag along your sick little 4 year old brother? I don't think so! :-) Times they have a changed!
Ok, time to go load the kids up in the car...
I always rode my bike to school. In kindergarten I was too young to ride a bike. I walked, by myself, about half a mile. Had to cross one busy street, mid block, no crosswalk. Natural selection at work and we were a better generation for it.
My sister raised her kids by hand. She took them everywhere and they were always supervised. They are grown now and hopeless. Their parents subsidize them. I expect they will end up back home, dependent. They are as whiney and lame now as they were then. None of them would even consider doing real work.
We were out the door by 0730. Mom would give us a sack lunch and remind us that dinner was at six. I paid the two buck a year membership at the local boys club doing odd jobs, it was a great place. By 11y/o I was hitching to the beach, about 10 miles South on Highway 39. I always got a ride quick, lots of pedophiles out and about in the SoCal Summer. You learn to deal with people the way they are. Never had a problem. Always had a job.
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