To relive the relationship between owner and slave we can consider how we treat our cars and dogs - a dog exercising a somewhat similar leverage on our mercies and an automobile being comparable in value to a slave in those days

We New Yorkers see more death and violence than most soldiers do, grow a thick chitin on our backs, grimace like a rat and learn to do a disappearing act. Long ago we outgrew the need to be blowhards about our masculinity; we leave that to the Alaskans and Texans, who have more time for it.

Man is different from animals in that he speculates, a high-risk activity.

The question of whether it's God's green earth is not at center stage, except in the sense that if so, one is reminded with some regularity that He may be dying.

Henry David Thoreau, who never earned much of a living or sustained a relationship with any woman that wasn't brotherly -- who lived mostly under his parents' roof . . . who advocated one day's work and six days "off" as the weekly round and was considered a bit of a fool in his hometown . . . is probably the American writer who tells us best how to live comfortably with our most constant companion, ourselves.

Men greet each other with a sock on the arm, women with a hug, and the hug wears better in the long run.

If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can't go at dawn and not many places he can't go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking - one sport you shouldn't have to reserve a time and a court for.