Column needed to take a hike

One of the things about getting older is that you tend to start repeating yourself.
And if you’re someone who has written a weekly column for more than 20 years, the chances are pretty good that you’re plowing familiar ground now and then.
Take this weekend.
On Saturday afternoon, after a morning divided between snapping a few pictures at the Delts’ craft show and helping my wife with her Riverwatch duties on the upper Wabash, I found myself writing a column about hiking.
We’ve hiked quite a bit this year, and I was sort of taking inventory as the year begins to wind down.
I recounted hikes in Brown County State Park, McCormick’s Creek State Park, Ouabache State Park, ACRES Land Trust sites in Jay and Wells counties, the Bell-Croft preserve on county road 300 South and even walks around the pond at Hudson Family Park.
“Take a hike,” I urged.
It was a pretty good column, at least I felt good about it.
Here’s a sample:
“Fitness and health advocates would argue for the benefits of exercise.
“But what we’ve found is the value of disconnecting from the world of infomercials, 24/7 news coverage, congressional gridlock, hyper-materialism and all the other stuff my father would have described in his typically eloquent manner as ‘crap’ that gets in the way these days.
“Think about it: We are awash in information, we are awash in stuff and we are awash in information about stuff.
“Under those circumstances, doesn’t a walk in the woods sound like a good idea?”
Okay, so it’s not deathless prose. But it’s okay, and it has the advantage of being good advice.
That was Saturday.
On Sunday, with the column still buzzing in my head on some sort of mental tape rewind, I found myself wondering: Why does this all seem so familiar?
Have I said all this before? Have I stepped up onto the soapbox and preached the virtues of hiking more than once?
By noon, I looked over the column again.
The words were fresh, for the most part, but the sentiments had a been-there-said-that feel to them.
And even some of the words told me I’d said them before. “Take a hike,” for instance. Not very original, and it’s even less original if I’ve written them and published them on another occasion.
One summer vacation when I was a kid — a smart-alecky teenager to be more specific — I had the temerity to point out to my parents that they were regaling us with stories and anecdotes we’d heard long before.
Summer re-runs, I called them. (And, yes, that was pretty obnoxious on my part.)
And now, here I am, in the last few days of my 65th year, repeating myself, quacking on and on about how great it is to take a walk in the woods now and then, when folks have already heard all that.
So, Sunday evening, having suffered through more of the Colts game than anyone should be required to watch, I spiked the column I had written Saturday.
It was, at best, “old news.”
My only hope now is that I haven’t previously written a column about repeating myself while writing a column about repeating myself.
Or something like that.
I think I’ll take a hike.[[In-content Ad]]