Walkers and only

In my grade school, there was a custom that kids were released at the
end of the day in a particular order. The first group to be called by
the principal at the end of every day was "Walkers and only." Walkers
were people who walked home from school, of which there were quite a
large number. Onlies were only children with no siblings enrolled in
the school--an incredible rarity in our Catholic diocese.

Everyone was so jealous of the onlies. Who among us knew what it was
like to be an only? No hand-me-down clothes, no reused toys, no
fighting over desserts or seconds of macaroni and cheese, no competing
for your parents' attention. It sounded like a glorious, privileged
life from which we siblings were excluded.

I have no idea what came after "Walkers and Only," I was a walker.
They could have said "Everybody else," "Car riders," or "So long, suckers!" I don't know since I was with the group to be released first.

I'm not much of a walker any more. I regret it. Supposedly walking is
vital to the creative process of writing, and maybe that's why I
haven't been writing as much lately as I should. I look at my
beautiful blue Vespa, my wasp, and I think, "Why should I take the
train to work?" I look at my beautiful blue Schwinn and I ask myself,
"Why should I walk to the train?" There is no reason for me to walk
but to stimulate my writerly affectations.

Charles Dickens was said to roam the streets of London for inspiration.
Being out among the down-trodden and poor activated the story-telling
part of his imagination. And William Wordsworth? Don't get me started
on that walker. He prowled around the Lake District like his life
depended on it. That guy's daily constitutional ranged miles. There's
a great story about Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his wife going to visit
at Wordsworth's Dove Cottage. Coleridge's wife dropped a pot of
boiling water on his foot "accidentally" so that he couldn't go on the
big walk with Wordsworth but she could. He wrote a lamenting poem
while everyone was out walking, but I can't remember which one it is.

I hope not to be motivated by injury like Coleridge, but inspired by
the grit of the city like Dickens. "Walkers and Onlies are dismissed."
I'll re-mount my feet soon.