Tuesday, October 12, 2010

I'VE CIRCLED THE GLOBE ON FOOT

An American singing group asked in their song “How many miles must a man walk before he will go to his grave?” I for my self have an answer to their question.
Let me compute. After I came back to my home town in April, 1993, from a sedentary office work in the corporate office of a shipping company in Manila, I began to develop into an orchard of mango, santol and lanzones a family land of about 3 hectares. The land is 2.5 kilometers more or less from home. From April, 1993 up to now, October, 2010, that is a total of 17 years and 6 months. I walked the distance going there and coming back for a total of 5 kilometers every day. If I have walked 300 days of the 365 days of a year, I must have walked 1500 kilometers a year. Multiply that by 17 years and 6 months, I must have walked 26,250 kilometers. That’s only a period of 17 years and 6 months and I am still long from going to my grave.
In Manila, for nearly twenty years, I had to walk almost if not more than a kilometer from where I lived at Dominga Street to the corner of Vito Cruz and F. B Harrison Streets to get my ride to work. I must be credited for more that 12,000 kilometers for that. My total walked distance by now including those walks in Manila, must be 38,250 kilometers, and that’s my answer to the American singing group’s question in their song although measure is in kilometers, not miles. (This is where the Americans prefer to fall behind the rest of the world by not going metric.)
The Earth is estimated to be only a little more than 40,000 kilometers to circle from one point and back on straight line. With my total estimated walked distance of 38,250, I am about through circling the earth.
The achievements of American walkers, walking East to West are nothing compared to mine. John Arum couldn’t even complete his own East to West walk; he went to his grave walking his walk. The achievements of Russian walkers walking without stopping for months as preparation for escape out their country on foot, are also nothing compared to mine.
I’m still far from going to my grave. If I could still walk for the next 20 years unless the world ends by 2012 as the Aztecs predicted, I might have began my second circling of the Earth.