Walk to Discover

“From now until the end of time no one else will ever see life with my eyes,” wrote the American journalist/essayist Christopher Morley.

You do not have to be a Meriwether Lewis or William Clark to discover something new. Their eyes were not the first to see the American West. When we see things on our walks, we are the first to see them with our eyes. We are, thus, discoverers, a fact I learned as a boy.

I remember the Saturday Joe Moore and I followed Palo Duro Creek west of town, crossing several pastures and ducking under multiple barbed wire fences until we reached “uncharted territory.” Our preteen adventure ended with the discovery of a new fishing hole where—our hooks baited with Vienna sausages left over from lunch—we caught a half-dozen, blue gill perch.

Also, it was about this time Jon Lair and I decided to follow the railroad tracks south of town. We had no particular destination in mind, only a belief shared by all pre-adolescent boys that railroad tracks are neat and inevitably lead to mysterious and exotic destinations. Our exotic destination turned out to be the horse tank at Uncle Barney’s farm where—using a large peach can with the lids cut out at both ends—we trapped and captured multi-colored goldfish who, unlike the hapless perch, were set free to swim another day.

So my early days taught me that discovery is part of the pleasure of walking, and love for the former can create a love for the latter.