19/7/99

Perambulaters in peril

    With so many worthwhile causes in this country, it's hard to find one that really deserves to be publicized more than all the others.
    But when I got a tearful request to help save the RGWP from extinction, I knew, from the lump in my throat, that something had to be done.
    Most of you have certainly heard of the RGWP, especially if you are a WP in RG. For the rest of you, brace yourselves, sit down somewhere and get a tissue: this is going to shatter you.
    The RGWP (in Hebrew: RGW"P, pronounced "ragwap") is the Ramat Gan Walking People. A heartless bureaucracy is threatening that they won't be allowed to walk anymore.
    One of the WPs happens to be a friend of mine from RG, PR (she's too embarrassed to let me use her full name, which tells you something), so I got this direct from the horse's mouth, or in this case, foot and mouth.
    "A few weeks ago I joined a walking group run by Maccabi which meets twice a week, Sundays and Wednesdays, in the Park Leumi in Ramat Gan," she told me. I responded that I didn't know Leumi runs a walking group in Park Maccabi; she explained that they don't, and suggested I was not paying close attention. 
    The gist of the tragedy is that the group is too small, and unless they get four more legs by July 30, or at least half that many people, Maccabi will have to shut down this venerable institution.
    "So what," you say. Well, that's what I said, but PR convinced me this is at least as important as the peace process. And besides, no one else is writing about it, so it's a scoop for Not Page One (which earns me a fat bonus).
     It should be explained that no one is trying to stop these people from walking in a park. The thing is, they need paid instructors to walk.
    That is correct: paid instructors.
    The obvious question is, "Whatarya, crazy?!"
    I know that there ARE women who get paid for walking, but they don't usually wear sneakers and sweatbands, while these walkers do. So there's a difference.
    Being a man of the '90s, I'm not one to criticize other people's ridiculous cultures, but I needed to understand why one has to pay someone to teach one how to walk. The answer was: "They also have us doing exercises."
    Oh.
    What amazes me is that Professional Walking Instructors are not embarrassed to be making vast salaries by tutoring healthy, intelligent adults to "Push your left foot forward about 23 centimeters, good! Now put your left foot down -- no, no, heel first! -- and lift your right foot high enough so you don't trip -- oops, not high enough; get up and try it again: push your left foot ..."
    More amazing is that 10 healthy, intelligent adults (like PR) are PAYING to be taught what they've done virtually for free since the age of 1. But she pointed out that for the low, low sum of NIS 140 per month, you get to walk for ONE FULL HOUR twice weekly in a wide circle around a pleasant park.
    I asked what seemed like a dumb question: do you always go in the same direction? Definitely, she said. "Then call me back in a few years. I'll be glad to write a story about how 10 people of Ramat Gan have been stricken with a mysterious condition characterized by their left legs being shorter than their right legs."
    What is the point, I asked, still thinking that I was missing something, of walking unless you're walking to go somewhere? And why walk if you can drive? At the very least, walk to a makolet on the other side of the park and buy an ice cream.
    PR sensed a tinge of sarcasm, and much less sympathy.
    "You don't understand," she said, suddenly fearful rather than hopeful that I would write about it. "We don't just walk. We also CHUG OUR ARMS." (Chugging is included in the price.) Walking is a lot more complicated than putting one foot ahead of the other, because you also have to learn to coordinate arm-chugging and arm-flailing; according to this source, "We move our arms up, and down, and sideways."
    She added that the aim is to "get our pulses racing," but I manage to do that by lying on the beach and just moving my eyes.
    It all comes down to that evil E-word, Exercise.
    Obviously, she had never heard of Chauncey Depew.
    Chauncey Depew (1834-1928) was an American politician who, in the terminology of the 19th century, was fat. "I get my exercise acting as pallbearer to my friends who exercise," he quoth. Anoth time he quoth: "Whenever I feel like exercising, I lie down until the feeling goes away." Clearly, Mr. Depew did not pay someone 140 shekels a month to teach him to walk, and if you subtract the year he was born from the year he died, you will see that despite his notorious inanimation, he lived to be 94.
    Which proves everything.
    To me, walking is like riding a bicycle: you never forget. Even after sleeping a full night, I always know, instinctively, where my feet are, where the floor is, and how to use them together to get to the bathroom. Sometimes, I'll admit, I need a push to get out of bed, but never an instructor.
    Maccabi has offered a solution, says PR: "We could join another Ramat Gan walking group, but they walk in a circle in a much smaller park." That would be like telling Betar Jerusalem they have to play their home games in a gymnasium. Worse, she says, is that the other group walks on Mondays and Thursdays, and on Thursdays PR plays at the Scrabble club and she'd have to consider giving that up, which, I'll be the first to admit, is an outrage.
    What's more, people like the RGWP become very attached to their particular instructor. "I was in another walking group (How many are there? I asked incredulously. You'd be surprised, she said), but the instructor was a male chauvinist pig (in Hebrew: MC"P, pronounced "machap"), so I didn't last long. He made rude comments about how women were walking, like, 'open your legs, you walk like a nun.' "
    Unless the RGWP gets two more members, their walking instructor will be out of a job, walking the streets; without a paid walking instructor, the walkers will stand around, helpless. That is why this is a matter of urgency.
     Please, if you can afford the cost of walking in a circle in Ramat Gan, contact PR immediately (she's listed) and save the RGWP. It's really a good cause.