'Goodwill'

Three miles walk in the cold for shopping because of a lack of a working car.

**** I walks everyday at least 10 miles and do shopping beside with my working car in front of my home.

Before my retirement on average I cycled to work two times a week 38 miles round trip once more with a working car sitting home.

The climate where I am living is warm however I had walked for enjoyment in climates so cold that my mp3 battery refused to power the player far more then 3 miles.

@BillRM
I'm a little perplexed at your post.
Are you pooh poohing the hardships that poor and unemployed people endure? Perhaps I misunderstand you.
There is a difference between having the 'option' to walk because you're retired, want the exercise, etc. and being obliged to walk when you've already worked all day, have kids at home or whatever.

A three mile trip is nothing for a person in normal shape and far more healthful then taking a car!!!!!!! I could not when I read your poem understand how a three miles or so walk cold weather or no cold weather is any great hardship for anyone.

As far as walking or in my case cycling to and back from work as I said I had done it hundreds of times.

A bike can extend the car less range into twenty miles or so one way and as I already posted I did that for the exercise and my health and enjoyment 34 miles or so commute to work and back at least on average two times a week. When my wife and I was down to one car for a short time I let the car with my wife and commute for many weeks five days a week to work for that distance. Then on the weekends I normally added another 100 miles of cycling. Footnote the commute time over that distance was only double that of taking the car and far less stressful then sitting in heavy traffic on the highway.

If I did not have my wife and 89 years old mother needs for transportation to consider I could now get rid of the car and be far better off for so doing.

To sum up your example of what is or is not a hardship leave a lot to be desire.

Here is a poem jjorge that express real hardships such as marching on foot for thirty miles in a day,day after day, carrying fifty pounds or so of equipment and at the end of the march many times going into combat.


JACKSON'S FOOT-CAVALRY
By Hard-Cracker

Day after day our way has been
O'er many a hill and hollow;
Through marsh and bog, by wood and glen --
Where "Stonewall" leads, we follow.
Through dust-clouds rising dim and thick,
Or smoke of battle o'er us,
Close to our leader we must "stick,"
As he trots on before us.

Now we're trotting up a hill,
Or fast behind it sinking;
Or jumping o'er some road-side rill,
Without a pause for drinking;
Now crowding on the narrow road
In thick and struggling masses;
Now skirmishing the fields so broad,
Or guarding mountain passes.

Our march is thirty miles a day,
And forty -- now and then --
But that's not strange, you well may say,
For we are Jackson's men.Before the sun gets up, we rise,
And eat our beef and dough,
And e'er the morn has left the skies,
We're off upon the "go."

With five days' rations of fresh meat,
(And no shirts) on our backs,
And "nary a leather" on our feet,
We're ever making tracks.
In this sad plight we dash ahead
From morn till late at night,
Or else are halted, well-nigh dead,
To charge the foe in fight.

Ah! then we throw aside our beef --
Our blankets follow suit;
The exchange, we know, is our relief --
We're sure to get the boot.

No wonder that the Yankees run,
And will not stop to fight;
For we've no need of sword or gun --
They cannot stand a sight.
Our long hair floating on the wind,
Like witches in Macbeth --
They know they dare not lag behind --
We'll have their -- shoes, or death!

Young man! if truly you desire
To join our gallant band --
If "Jack's" the leader you admire,
Enlist in our command.
You'll meet the "Yanks" ere many a day.
If killed -- why, what's the loss?
In Heaven you'll be proud to say,
I was one of "Jack's Foot Horse."

Camp of the "Used-ups," September 26, 1862

BillM
I think I see where you are coming from:
Only extreme and heroic hardship qualifies as 'hardship'.
You must have a very small store of compassion, Sir...
... as you certainly are very frugal with it.

Hello, jjorge.
Good to see you again.
I couldn't agree with you more.
Winter is a much harder time for the poor & the down-and-out everywhere.
Terrible what life must be like for those living on the streets, especially, in this harsh northern hemisphere winter.

I have a very small store of compassion for people who think that a lack of a car is the end of the world and that using your legs for very short trips is any great hardship.

I love the idea that people will used a car to go to a gym a few miles away and then get on a treadmill for thirty minutes instead of just taking a walk in the first place.

He was not talking about people on the streets but in trailers and without working cars!!!!!!!!!!

That needed to walk three miles or so to shop and get to work and that is beyond silly.

Hell when I was a small child I walked to school in the middle of a northern winters more then three miles and in fact enjoyed it when a snow storm "force'" me to climb over snow banks taller then I was.

I just went to google earth and a straight line between my childhood home and the school was just under two miles and I walk that from second grade to six grade in all kinds of weather.

Hello my friend!

Good poem, jjorge.

Hi osso!
How are you? Well, I hope!

Hey there back to you, jjorge!


Any more writings in the works?
Are you going to get to see them soon?

G'day jjorge, nice to see you.

Frugal with compassion - well said!

@Margo
Hello my friend! I hear of various weather related problems in Oz - ie. floods and fires and such. I hope neither you or msolga or any of our Oz friends are affected by it!

@msolga
I've been on a lazy spell... just writing a little poem on impulse from time to time.

I HAVE been immersing myself in Emily Dickinson of late (she and R. Frost are my faves) I've got about twelve books on the lady I call 'The Divine Miss Em' * --ie. her complete poems, selected letters, about six biographies, and a few critical analyses and study guides for her poetry. It is sort of a self-constructed, self-directed 'course' on ED. I've been reading and note-taking for about two hours each night in a little nook at my favorite coffee shop.


* Brash and brassy Bette Midler, who is about as different a personality type as one could imagine from Emily Dickinson, is known as 'The Divine Miss M' ...a title, legend has it, she acquired while singing in Gay Bathhouses in the early nineteen-seventies.
Emily Dickinson, by contrast was famous for her life as a semi-recluse! :-)

I'm more or less fine, jjorge. Pleased, of course, to see you.

Remember the San Francisco gathering? The russian taxi driver that you had the great conversation with? The flying taxi maneuver, just like Steve McQueen's in the movie Bullitt? Well, maybe not just like, but similar to.

@ossobuco,
Yep, I sure do! that was a fun gathering!
The Russian driver and I were talking about Ana Akhmatova, who I had recently read and was enthralled with!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Akhmatova

Now there's a woman..

Tsk, tsk, jjorge!

But seriously, I've always really enjoyed your writing (the serious & the funny).
So I hope it's not too long before we see some more of it.