Taking A Walk

by Dwayne Phillips

I was walking though Trussville, Alabama – a northern suburb of Birmingham. It was a weekday afternoon, sunny, hot, and lots of vehicles on the road. Oh, if there were only a sidewalk.

Well, there wasn’t a sidewalk. I was pushing my bicycle while walking on the edge of the road. It seemed as if everyone in Alabama was shopping here. Traffic made the afternoon just plain awful. Every now and then there was a break in traffic due to a traffic light, but that was only momentary.

Did I mention that it was hot? Did I mention that it was sunny? It was hot and sunny.

To catch a break, I exited Route 11 and went up a hill to a giant shopping center. It was one of those places that has a Best Buy and a hundred and one other stores all in a row. The parking lot was big enough to hold ten thousand cars (well, maybe not that many, but you get the picture).

I had ascended into heaven. I walked freely in the parking lot without worry of being hit for ten minutes. I wished the parking lot was ten miles long. The big things that I noticed,

the temperature in the parking lot was at least ten degrees cooler than on the road

and

the glare of the sun was half as much as on the road

As I thought about this, I remembered noticing this in a few other place on the walk. Off the road in a heavy traffic area was much cooler than on the road. Until I experienced it, I wouldn’t have believed it.

Cars generate a lot of heat. Those engines churn and grind and pump and all that creates heat that dissipates into the air surrounding the cars. And then there are the tires. Those black rubber circles pulling against the friction of the road also dissipate heat into the air.

And then there is the reflection of the sun. Have you ever noticed how shiny cars are? Cars have great paint jobs that shine in the sun. And the windshields. They block much of the sun’s rays away from the eyes of the driver. That blocking, however, reflects it out onto the road. All that shining and reflection goes right into the eyes of anyone who is walking into the flow of traffic. All that reflection multiplies the rays of the sun and the amount of burning on the skin on the face.

Ahhh, the parking lot. Especially a big parking lot where I don’t have to hop the curbs every ten steps.

And a few sidewalks in the suburbs would be nice.