“C’mon, Danny, let’s take a walk.” Thus began a singular moment with my father. Of all things, he wanted to stroll, vigorously.
There is something you need to know about him before we go down memory lane. I don’t recall him ever exercising for exercise’s sake. He worked long hours at his gas station, and in later years puttered around in our garage while a radio played talk shows in the background. He didn’t sit and watch television until after he retired, when his feet hurt from neuropathy.
He did not golf, fish, toss footballs, climb mountains, smack tennis balls, fly kites, bungee jump or ever mention the word fitness. He would not have welcomed pickleball.
In the era I am recalling, he wore workingman’s pants, not shorts. He wore collared shirts. He spent his days in shoes, perhaps scuffed, but not sneakers. When he said “let’s take a walk,” it was a bolt from the blue, as unexpected as an invitation to scuba dive, or race to the moon.
“What? Me? OK, sure,” I said, rousing myself from watching cartoons or some other dopey TV show. I was probably around 10 or 12 years old.
Stories about moments like this might lead to a father saying something important: a confession, regrets, a stunning family announcement. But not this one.
He told me that former president Harry S. Truman believed in daily brisk walks to clear his mind and ready himself for the day. So off we went.
My father liked Truman partly because he’d bet on him when it seemed certain he would lose against Thomas Dewey for president in 1948. I don’t know how much he wagered, but the bet went into family lore.
We walked around a long block or two, maybe a half-mile, maybe a mile. Our neighborhood was a pretty good place for a jaunt. The mature maples were tall and the shade was deep. Many of the sturdy sidewalks were built by the Works Progress Administration. We may have talked about that. My father was a New Deal Democrat.
It was over soon enough, and the funny thing is we never walked like that again. As with many things concerning my father, I do not know what had gotten into him. This was not unusual then. The generations kept their secrets. If fathers had inner lives, it was no business of ours.
Years later, after the running boom of the late 1970s ended for me with a 10K race and a sore hip, I discovered the pleasure of walking. Maybe that moment with my father and Harry S. Truman inspired me. Who knows? But I think it probably did.
I learned that a good four or five miles can brighten a foul mood on a crummy day. You head out stewing about some workplace drama and come back humming “Build Me Up, Buttercup.” This helped me pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Midlife.
And here I am, averaging 9,800 steps daily in 2026, according to my Fitbit. It also claims I average 4.68 miles, but I am skeptical of that figure. In any case, I always end up in the same place — the home where I’ve lived for more than 40 years. Walking is good for my health, I think, even if I’m just going in circles. I am fond of the words perambulation and pedestrianism, although it seems nobody else is anymore.
After all these years, my hips are fine and so are my knees. My feet keep up. What more can you ask for?
Truman walked on city streets with Secret Service agents and sometimes with reporters when he was in the White House. Imagine a world where this was even possible.
He kept walking after he left office. His presidential library offers a Harry S. Truman Historic District Walking Tour in Independence, Mo., between the library and his home. You can literally follow in his footsteps.
I do not imagine this is a huge draw for tourists, but I would get a kick out of it.
Truman reportedly lived modestly in his later years, with a military pension and royalties from a memoir. His library website says “he refused lucrative corporate offers, believing they would diminish the dignity of the presidency.”
Join me now in a deep, deep sigh.
His dignity slipped once when a Washington Post critic panned a song recital by his daughter, Margaret. Truman sent a note threatening to sock him in the nose. Some of the commander-in-chief’s language in the note was described as “earthy.” Not very presidential, but fully a dad.
Of course they never squared off, but my father’s money — and mine — would be on Truman.
The writer lives in West Lebanon. He can be reached at dan.mackie@yahoo.com.
