Walking in the Neighborhood, and Exercise in America

Today, we had a walk around the neighborhood. Actually, it started out with Amy pulling Madeleine in a wagon, Ian riding his bicycle, and Daniel riding his hoppity-hoppity little vehicle. Toward the middle, I was carrying Daniel's vehicle, Ian was contending with a not-so-cooperative bike (I think he was tired), and Amy was pulling Madeleine and Daniel in the wagon. At the end, Amy pulled Madeleine home in the wagon, with Ian in tow, and I carried Daniel's vehicle and Ian's bicycle, and walked with Daniel, arriving several minutes after the Party of Three. (Amy was about to go pick us up in the minivan when we arrived in the driveway.)

To make things much more interesting, as is his wont, Daniel elected to walk backwards the last one or two tenths of a mile - all the way down the driveway, even. He was pleased and intrigued by his own innovation, and asked me if it was good for him. I told him that because it was exercise, yes - it was good for him. He asked me if running backward would be better for him than walking backwards; my answer was yes - as long as you don't run into anything. (Luckily, this was an academic question.) He also told me that he was looking back at my, effectively using me as his navigation device as he walked backwards - talk about leadership!

Daniel had more questions about exercise. What was exercise? (Playing, walking, running...) What about standing? (No. Not standing.)

A mild digression: I read about a year ago that there was good news and bad news about the state of exercise in America, based on a recent poll. I'm not making this up, and it wasn't satire: the good news is that a great majority of Americans reported exercising daily. The bad news - if it should somehow turn out that they were wrong - was that a significant number of these same Americans included, in their category of "exercise," strenuous activities such as driving their car and watching television.

Back to our own, more encouraging exercise story: Daniel arrived proudly at the garage-end of our driveway, at the conclusion of our unconventional walk, and wholly intact, facing the house across the street, and very proud of his inventive feat. One last thought: when I explained exercise to him, before he entirely grasped the category, he reflected:

"Well, I don't think I've had exercise in years."

Luckily, he's not correct. But it's a wonderful quotation.

(January 1, 2012)