Hi, I'm Bruce and I'm Walking Across America

I-94 is the last place you'd want to take a stroll on a Saturday afternoon.  The Peterbilts, RVs, and harried vacationers zoom past creating back drafts and decibels of noise and exhaust pollution.  Yet Saturday afternoon on I-94 somewhere between Sterling and Steele,  Bruce showed up.  At first neither Rick nor I could make heads or tails of the movement five hundred yards in front of us.  Broken-down Harley biker?  Someone in need?   To our astonishment, it was Bruce pushing a jerryrigged cart he called "Sam."

Bruce walks.  A lot.  Started walking in 2010 when his world suddenly unraveled--his company folded, his wife, brother, and mother all died.  In just twenty-four months he lost everything.  So he began to walk.  Did I mentiion that Bruce is 79 years old?  There are lots of kinds of walks--walks in the park, cake walks, walk the dog walks and then there is the Bruce-Walk.  He has walked from Vancouver, Canada to Los Angeles to Key West then north along the Atlantic Coast and west to Chicago and when we ran into him, Bruce was walking--pushing Sam--diagonally across the nation back home.

Though he carries deep pain and sadness, he also told me that he was sick and tired of being sick and tired.  "So many of my friends have retired and just sit around waiting for the memorial service to happen.  Not me.  I want to walk till I drop.  I want to stay active and in motion until my last breath."

I listened to Bruce's rather complicated philosophy about lymph nodes and movement, and avoiding cancer, but I had to admire a 79 year old guy still walking for what he believed in.  How much passion do you have?  How much passion do I have about anything in life that would cause me to inconvenience myself to that degree if called on to show it?

So Brucey, you keep on walking and find what you're really looking for.  Tom, you keep on biking and find what you're really looking for.  And you--don't ever give up your passion and vision just because it's difficult.