A walker’s guide to happiness

While out walking for pleasure one recent fine morning I chanced to encounter a surly teenager on her way to school, although I didn’t know she was a surly teenager until my cheerful “Good morning” earned me only a withering glare that could have pierced the armor plating of a Sherman tank.

It served me right, of course, because I well know that many a young one, dragged from bed and pointed in the general direction of the schoolhouse, is not capable of speaking to anyone – save perhaps grudgingly to others of the species – until well on toward noon, if then.

No matter. Having racked up enough mileage walking over the years to have earned the right to list “streetwalker” on my income tax forms in the box that asks my profession, I have learned to take such snubs in stride.

As that deep thinker, Henry James, is purported to have counseled, the art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. And, by now, I’m nothing if not wise to the ways of fellow travelers I meet when out and about.

Fortunately, the glarers and their mute cousins who stare straight ahead like zombies when a stranger says “hello” to them in a face-to-face public encounter – as well as those who genuinely seem stuck for an answer – are in the vast minority.

In the business of greeting strangers, as in most endeavors in life, one generally gets back pretty much what one gives. Ask most people you meet along the way how they’re doing and they’ll likely reply that things are just fine, thank you very much. The more gregarious might even throw in their opinion of the prevailing weather. Meet someone whom you know, and the resulting conversation while the walk is temporarily put on hold can cover everything from how the Red Sox blew last night’s ballgame to how hard it is to corral a plumber these days.

Herewith, some truisms for fair-weather springtime walkers, gleaned from years of daily hoofing it along the public way:

When you meet a fellow walker attached to a dog on a leash, if you make friends with the dog you will also become friends for life with the walker.

Once you make a fuss over them, dogs being walked by their owners are always friendly. Remember their names when next you meet and they’ll be so tail-wagging flattered they would eagerly follow you anywhere. On the other hand, snarling attack dogs tied up in their masters’ front yards are best given a wide berth, as are untethered mongrels lying in wait for you to make a sudden wrong move.

In Maine, if you wave to oncoming traffic while you are walking along a quiet country road, people who drive pickup trucks are more apt to return the greeting than are those who are piloting fancy sedans.

Corollary: If you are walking along a quiet country road in The County in the middle of winter, far from human habitation, 60 percent of the drivers who return your greeting will presume you have had car trouble and will stop to offer you a ride. Even if they think you are a complete dope for not accepting, few will say so.

A long walk during April’s erratic mood swings should never be attempted without packing a wool cap and gloves, no matter how perfect the day appears to be at the time of your departure from home.

A stash of hard candy in your jacket pocket is a great security blanket against the possibility of starvation should you take a wrong turn some place and become lost, with no one the wiser.

Experienced walkers never waste their breath saying hello to joggers they meet, because joggers are too busy huffing and puffing to respond to such an inferior species, even if they wanted to, which few seem interested in doing. Wise walkers always give way to joggers, as they tend to take their half of the sidewalk in the middle and flail about something fierce.

Nothing jump-starts an old walker’s heart quite so much as a kid on a bike, sneaking up from behind to whiz by on the non-passing side of things.

While one is walking, the mind is capable of thinking through logical answers to most of the world’s problems, although once back home even balancing the checkbook can become an iffy proposition.

A walker who encounters a geek, cell phone glued to ear and ostentatiously babbling inanities into the void, may rest assured that he has walked nowhere near far enough.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net