I was driving back to work from lunch today when I had a near-miss with an invincible jogger in the road. I’m guessing he was invincible because he didn’t even quaver at the approach of my car’s awesome kinetic energy. It’s an American luxury sedan, so it has considerable mass. It got me thinking about the whole “sidewalk” situation. Why do we have sidewalks? Is it better for our bodies to walk on pavement rather than softer earth? That seems odd, as we’ve made it for some time without sidewalks. So are sidewalks just an aesthetic quality? I realize that the grass would not be green where people walk on it constantly, but that’s what they call a trail. I don’t think there’s anything displeasing about a trail. The reason this came up, of course, was because the guy in the road was jogging next to a perfectly good sidewalk. There was even some grass adjacent to the road that could be tread upon, but this guy chose the gutter. Oh well – maybe he really is invincible.
I’ll tell you why we have sidewalks. It’s because trails aren’t ok. Think about it… who starts a trail? Have you ever started a trail? No. You see a trail and you follow it, but you’ve never started a trail.
Now, maybe if the government created a trail starting committee, but the manpower to get the trail laid down after a road is created would be too high.
So thats why we have sidewalks. Oh, and the “have you started a trail” comments are from George Carlin. I’m reading Napalm and Silly Putty right now. Very funny. 🙂