Eleanor 6

I grew up in farm country. My dad and grandpa jointly farmed a quarter section -- 160 acres of rich soil. After I finished my chores, I would walk our land and the adjoining forested land just to explore, find interesting things, enjoy the silence. My life changed when my dad was killed in a truck-train accident. We had a private railroad crossing that required extreme caution. On this day, dad wasn't cautious enough.

Grandpa hired a hand to pick up part of the load of the farm. I didn't like him and did my best to stay away from him. He wheedled his way into my mom's life and a year later she announced she was marrying him. I moved out and lived at my grandparent's house. I didn't go to the wedding, nor did they. The next day, Ray came to the house to punish me for embarrassing mom and him. Grandpa met him at the door with his shotgun.

"If he didn't want to go, he didn't need to go." That's all that was said. Ray left red-faced and our farm life became a war. Grandpa decided the land and he and I farmed his portion and tended to our farm animals. Your work is never done if you have milk cows that need to be milked twice a day, 365 days a year. By the time I graduated from high school, grandpa was declining. He sold the land so Ray wouldn't get it, sold our livestock and retired. He gave me part of the proceeds, a good sum of money, and he and my grandma went on their first vacation in forty-plus years.

I bought a beat-up pickup truck and took a break from walking for a while as I found work first as an apprentice painter, then carpenter, then handyman. I was always on my feet, walking about, but it wasn't at all like my early years of walking. Then I had walked everywhere, sometimes even into town though it was three miles away. Walking just seemed natural, which it is. It was cars and trucks that seemed unnatural. Comfortable, fast, and convenient, but not natural.

A few years later I moved away from my home town. I did carpentry in Nevada, then New Mexico before settling in California. After the harsh winters of my past California was a paradise found. It was there that I rediscovered walking. After a day's work I would eat something light, then begin to walk. I found I always walked alone. I was used to walking alone. I always made discoveries, an arrangement of flowers, a hummingbird flitting from one flower to another, a whimsical woodcarving or fence line that caught my eye and brought a smile to my face. I began carrying a camera to record these moments but found I would rather go home and write about what I had seen than look at a picture. So, with each passing day, I kept a journal of what I had seen that was new, exceptional, interesting, pleasing or just plain fun. The sheer ingenuity and creativity of people inspired me. I just wanted to record those moments. I incorporated my pictures in the narrative. On long winter nights I would read a section, then close my eyes and be taken to that moment in time, to see in my mind what I had seen with my eyes.

My walks often took me to areas where there many other walkers. I got to know a few of them, first a polite nod as we passed, then a quick pause as we passed to admire the day or talk about our walks. Often they would pause as I looked at something to ask what had captured my attention. Other times it was me to stopped to do the same. I was always curious. What, who, when and why were always on my mind. Months and even years passed in the pursuit of this passion. Eventually I became known as The Walking Man.

My life changed when one particular woman with whom I had exchanged observations asked me to guide her on a walk. I was surprised, then pleased. I accepted and went to my notes to find a path of interest. We met on the following Saturday morning and I guided her along one of my favorite walks, showing her things that had delighted me, explaining what I knew of each of them. To my great surprise, she loved it. We made a date two weeks in the future to do it again. I gave her my phone number in case she needed to change the schedule. Instead, she called me to ask if she could bring some friends. I was bemused, but agreed. Our next walk took us on a completely different path. I showed them tiny, forgotten streams in the middle of a city, hidden paths, hills of wildflowers, beautifully painted homes with some wonderful architectural surprise, forgotten pieces of our city's history. At the end of the walk I was praised and thanked. To my further surprise, Karen, my first walking companion, came up to me and tucked money in my hand.

"Thanks from all of us. I praised my first walk with you so much they wanted to see what was so interesting. Now they know. When can we go again?"

So began an avocation that eventually became a vocation. I began to offer walking tours of our city, highlighting some part of the city with each walk. We walked and talked about architecture, art, history, and hidden places. My weekends were often given over to various walks. I was blessed with wonderful friends and one of them set up a web site (thewalkingman) and gave brief stories about things I have seen in our city. She was also a demon social media presence and I received some great reviews and a trickle of fellow walkers slowly became a flowing stream. I quit my day job, as it were, and made walking my career. I was walking and talking five days a week, sometimes twice a day. It was exhausting but exhilarating. I found I had to cut back the number of days as I was wearing down to where it was no longer fun. I was urged to find like-minded people to lead other tours. Social media is a great way to find people. I met with several and initially hired two. My notes of past walks were invaluable in getting them up to speed on what I had seen. They each had their own favorite walks and we shared those as well. James loved the waterfront and knew of new and interesting perspectives. Beverlie loved the history of the town and shared pieces of history known to very few. The most difficult part of this for me is that I had to look at their discoveries with two minds: one the joy of seeing new things but tempered with the practical perspective of whether or not this was something a group of people could see. Some places were too small, others had some level of unacceptable risk. Liability is a terrible thing. It can ruin your livelihood, your finances, your life.

Life was busy, interesting, and fulfilling. I made friends with my fellow walkers, seeing familiar faces in different groups that I led. I missed the days of footloose wandering but recognized a need that I could profitably fill. We expanded into small walking tours of museums and city sights. Our emphasis was no longer just the local resident interested in new things but also the tourist trade. I hired more guides. I was concerned that we were losing what had made us special. That worry aside, we were very successful. There was a steady stream of new faces and old alike. We did photography walks, I hired a bird watcher to give talks about the various birds of the city. I hired an architect who gave us architectural criticism walks. I once saw a sign that read: "Find a need and fill it". That seemed to describe us completely.

Life changed yet again when a major tourist industry company made an offer for my company. I was flattered but really not interested. They raised the offer, then raised it again. I went from flattered to overwhelmed. I had once read that everything is for sale at the right price. I have to say I found some truth in that statement as I sold my company for what seemed to be a small fortune at the time.

Suddenly I was at a loss. My work had been all-consuming, now I had an infinite amount of time on my hands. I took my notes of my various walks and wrote an online book, then a second. Those were well received and I had requests for still more walks and books.

I wasn't sure what to do after that, so I walked. I still kept up my web site, though I changed the name to The Walking Man Chronicles. I kept a running story on the internet of my travels, the history I learned, the people I met. I found I now had followers on my web site. Eventually I asked those followers where I should walk next. To my surprise, I received requests to come and walk in five different states.

I laid out a plan to first visit various areas of California. As I refined my list of places, people offered me places to stay, to come and share dinner and take a walk. How could I resist? I bought a small RV and I traveled up and down California from Eureka in the north to San Diego in the south, from the Pacific Ocean shores on the west to Yosemite and Lake Tahoe on the east. Those people and places were added to my chronicles, prompting yet more requests. Not all of these experiences were memorable but I met some wonderful people who guided me to see their special places.

These, too, became chapters of a new book, highlighting the special places of California and the people who knew them well. It was gratifying to see so many people were interested in walking and the special things you can see if you slow down and look.

So life moved on. I was driving, walking, writing, talking, meeting interesting people and seeing exceptional places. But as with all things, eventually I needed a break. My pace had been exhausting. I rented a small place north of San Francisco and settled in to a quieter life for a while.

Life always finds a way to evolve. I was out walking one day, experiencing again one of my favorite walks, when I found someone else enjoying the moment at a place I remembered well. As I waited for her to move on, I realized I wanted to talk with her, to ask what she saw, so I approached and asked the question. She turned to me and I saw beautiful blue eyes, high cheekbones, pale, pale eyelashes and eyebrows and a beautiful smile.

"Thank you for asking," she said before showing me an almost invisible stream sheltered by an overhanging bank. There was tadpoles swimming in it. It was wonderful, such a delight amongst the debris of modern society. It was completely different from what I had seen before. I moved a few feet to the right and pointed out a place where quail were walking across the grass. She ooohed at that. I began to show her more as we walked along in a lively back and forth conversation.

We came to a spot where she said she would be turning to the left and heading back to her home. I thanked her for showing me the stream. She in turn thanked me for my observations. "You're the Walking Man, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am, or rather, I was."

"I'd say you still are after this walk today."

"I enjoyed this walk more than I have any other recently."

She said, "I'm Eleanor White."

"Benjamin Moore," I replied. I reached in my pocket and took out a business card. "I don't own the business anymore. That's why I'm out walking alone." I turned the card over and wrote my name and phone number on the back, then gave it to her.

"Thank you," she said. She reached into her purse and took out her phone, called my number so that my phone rang once, then hung up. "Now it's on my phone before I lose this card," she said, smiling a bright smile and making fun of herself.

We parted ways and I watched her climb the hill to the left. She never looked back and I watched her until she disappeared over the crest of the hill. I turned right and started walking towards my home. I found myself thinking that this was one woman I would like to see again. Traveling had introduced me to a steady stream of interesting women. I had enjoyed spending time with some of them well past just general conversation. Yet I had never felt a spark between any of them and me. I sometimes wondered about that but just felt it wasn't the right time.

I got in my car and drove home. Parking on the street, I went up the sidewalk to my house and through the front door. The house was quiet, at the end of a dead end street. I made some coffee and moved to the back deck. I had a small slice of a view of the bay below. It was a cloudless morning, a rarity here. I was sitting there, enjoying the moment, when my phone rang. Normally I would let it go to voicemail but I glanced to see the number and realized it was Eleanor.

"Hello again," I said.

"I hope you don't find me too forward or aggressive but I really enjoyed our walk and would like to see you and walk with you again soon. I'm normally not like this at all, but it was so enjoyable that I don't want the moment to pass without asking."

"Of course," I answered. We found a date and made plans. I told her where we would meet and she agreed. I found myself looking forward to it.

I took her on a different path, one I especially enjoyed. We walked along part of the bay south of the Ferry Building in San Francisco, then turned inland and stopped at an oasis of greenery and light surrounded by buildings. Further into our walk we stopped at the local coffee shop and found we both shared a love of good coffee and conversation. She told me of her walks through other cities where she had lived, what interested her, surprised her, delighted her.

We began to walk together once a week or more. I had no idea where she lived. We always met at some starting place and our walks tended to circle around to nearly the same ending place. We talked occasionally on the phone but mostly on our walks. I found I didn't want those walks to end.

One day I stopped and said, "I know this sounds weird, but would you like to come over some day and see my rocks?" I laughed at myself, then told her I had collected rocks for years during my coastal walks. I had them in piles across my house. I periodically rearranged them, finding them a natural decoration and a calming influence. I loved the subtle colors and the textures, each one slightly different.

She laughed as well, her eyes bright and her long brown hair blowing in the wind. "I would love to see your rocks, Benjamin."

She called me Benjamin, something only my mother had ever called me. To everyone else I was Ben. I found I really liked it. It rolled off her tongue in a very pleasing manner. Everyone called her El but I preferred the long version of Eleanor.

It was a Sunday afternoon when she showed up at my door. I'm ordinarily a clean person but I had spent some extra time cleaning before her arrival. She came in and we walked around, looking at various things I had collected over the years. She picked up some of the rocks and weighed them in her hand, feeling the grooves, crevices and holes in them.

"I like this one," she said, holding up a rounded, triangular piece of smooth stone that had holes and a pattern of whiter rock within the mostly gray surface of the rock.

It was one of my favorites as well but I turned and said, "It's yours." I moved over to another one I liked and picked it up to show her. This one was almost square, again worn smooth by years of grinding in the sand along the beach. There was an indentation, a worn spot that was the perfect size for my thumb. I would pick it up from time to time and just rub that spot. "I call this one my worry stone," showing her the indentation and how I rubbed it. I handed it to her and she did the same.

"Oh, that's nice. I can see why you love that."

We moved to the kitchen. The smell of fresh-ground coffee filled the room as I first ground fresh beans and then brewed coffee. As I made coffee she wandered around, looking at my 8 plates and cups and motley collection of pots and pans. I told her I had found each piece at some thrift store or garage sale, slowly adding to the collection over years. She pulled out the plates and looked at each in turn. She would hold one up and ask me what caused me to buy it. I told her the history of each plate, one at a time. They tended to be earthen colors, a mixture of blacks, grays and browns, with some white or off-white mixed in. She held up my favorite, waiting for my response.

"That one I found in what is generously referred to as an antique store in Guala, California. It's on Highway One as you go north along the coast, south of Mendocino but some distance north of San Francisco. It's called the Lost Coast, pretty well empty of towns, just these small villages scattered around tiny harbors. Anyway, I stopped at the only gas station in town. Next to it is this store in a barn-type building that had a slight lean to it. The only door was a sliding door, more like a barn door than a store one. Inside were so many things just jammed in, the residue of a thousand garage sales and auctions. I found that plate in a stack of mismatched ones piled in a corner. I liked it, so I took it up to the owner and asked if he knew anything about it. He told me it was the last one he had of a set that had once belonged to the wealthiest family in town. It was an old logging town, with boats carrying the redwood they harvested down the coast to San Francisco. At the time the only mode of transportation was by boat. Otherwise there were winding dirt roads. Not even the railroad had found its way up the coast on the coastal side of the tall hills that blocked easy access to these villages. What had been hills covered with redwood forests were now rolling grasslands and scattered groves of trees. These fabulous first growth redwoods became building lumber for row after row of new homes in San Francisco and Oakland. That wood today would be virtually priceless. Indeed, houses were sometimes dismantled for their lumber, to be made into decking. After the redwoods were gone they tried to become a fishing village but found there was little money in it. The town fell on hard times and most people left for greener pastures. The lumber baron was reduced to raising cattle on his now-denuded hills. After his death the family home, once an imposing mansion on a hill overlooking the town was closed up. No one lived in it the fifty years before it burned down. He said that for many years you could look through the windows on the front porch and see the furniture in the front rooms, as if someone had just locked the door and walked away. Eventually, family members had come to the house, opened it up and took what they wanted to keep. Everything else in the house was sold to him for almost nothing. Just after he emptied the house it caught fire and burned. Over the years he had sold most of it but there were a few pieces still there for sale."

"Does each piece have a story as detailed as that one?" Eleanor asked.

"No, thank goodness. There are finds made at a garage sale down the street, on a walk through an abandoned building that was to be demolished, even a gift from an old girlfriend."

"You are the definition of the word eclectic."

"I try."

We took our coffee out on the deck. It was a bright spring day. I showed her my last pile of rocks, these from the Oregon and Washington coasts.

"What are you going to do now that you've sold your company"

"That's a good question. I wrote two e-books about walks in the area that are more remote or less traveled than the ones used by my company. That was fun but I've mined that vein for everything good. I've traveled California and written a book about that as well. I'm back here to wind down for a while. It's been a somewhat hectic pace and I'm just trying to relax and be open to what comes next."

She got up and walked over to me. "When you asked me to come and see your rocks I thought you were crazy. I'm glad I came. You've told a hundred stories about walks, now I've gotten one about rocks. I feel complete."

I laughed. We talked some more until she said she had to go. We set a time for our next walk and she left.

Our next walk was canceled by rain and wind. We met anyway and I drove her to Fort Point, under the Golden Gate Bridge. I told her what I knew of the fort as we sat in the car and watched the waves crash against the shore. It was here that I learned more about her as well. She told me of her life growing up in the Midwest, of going to college and moving west for a job. She told me about meeting and marrying her husband and how they eventually had a son.