The sun was buried deep in the horizon and a faint orange glow was all that remained of the day. I was slicing through fragrent alfalfa fields on abandonded railroad tracks when Phillipe and Rachel pulled alongside of me in a white pick up. I lifted my head from the email I was reading on my BlackBerry to hear Phillipe say, "We saw you in the paper and wanted to bring you water." I left the tracks and walked down a small hill to meet them. We talked briefly about the walk and their professions. Phillip is an electrician and Rachel a social worker. I thanked them, said good bye and ran up to the point where I left the tracks. Calmly coiled like 3 ft. of uncooked Italian sausage in the center of the tracks was a rattle snake. Reading the email in the near darkness I would have stepped on and been bitten by the snake if it were not for Rachel and Phillipe.I found relief from the 107 degree temperatures the last two days with numerous speaking engagements. Yesterday I met five groups of high school students at Central Union High and attended a Red Cross fundraiser. I was late to the Red Cross event. A weak dryer held me and my only pair of pants hostage. I was eventually released and Haydee Rodriguez a teacher at Central Union drove me to El Centro's natural history museum. Stuffed bobcats, elk and big horn sheep watched as 300 RC volunteers and donors listened as Sylvia the MC concluded her speech with, "He must still be walking." I crept behind her, tapped her shoulder and said, "Who's walking in this heat?" The crowd laughed, I apologized for being late, spoke briefly about my walk and experience as a Red Cross volunteer in Chicago. The mayor then presented me with the key to El Centro. Thank you to Joe, Jason and Haydee for including me in the event. Today I spoke at a juvenile detention center. A group of 30 boys and 10 girls ages 11 - 17, uniformly dressed in navy blue sweat suits and black velcro shoes entered a sterile cafeteria under the stern instructions of blank faced guards to keep their arms crossed. They were greeted by me and the smell of food preservatives. The kids sat on teeter-totter chairs projecting from steel picnic tables, bolted to a pale linoleum floor. Socially challenged teenagers are my favorite audience. I spoke and concluded with, "nobody remembers that Pat spent time in a juvenile detention facility. As a matter of fact he once said, 'I learned more from that one negative experience than all of the positive experiences in my life combined.' The kids were extremely well behaved and asked thoughtful questions like, "How has this walked changed you?" "Have you had any trouble with bad people?" "Can we leave with you?" and, "Where do you go to the bathroom?" Haydee Rodriguez has been my tour guide in El Centro the last few days. Haydee was a high school drop out who went on to graduate from Stanford with a masters in History and Spanish. She is the most popular teacher at Central Union. She has been to every country in Europe except Switzerland and is extremely smart and well read. I had a lot of fun talking with Haydee the last few days.
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