This week involved too much energy getting around, so instead I attempted teleportation to meet with this week’s Podcast guest. It worked beautifully until I remembered I had also teleported my car and would still have to drive the damn thing home.

I crash landed at Greenway Farms in Hixson right beside Amanda Collins of Exploring Chatt. She nearly knocked my Roundabout North Chatt cap sideways, which resulted in almost consuming a butterfly that flew into my mouth. It lived… but I tasted it.

Needless to say, one of us handled the experience with dignity.

Anyway, we were supposed to talk about exercise — and we did — while navigating bridges, creeks, hired goats, and several other attempts to wander into danger. You’re essentially getting a bonus nature documentary packed into this week’s chat, so be ready to sweat alongside me while we talk all things exercise!

It’s showtime!

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I remember the Blizzard of ’67. The hub of the continent — the city of Chicago — became frozen.

It wasn’t only the climate. Every mode of transportation had stopped. Dad didn’t come home from work one night because all nine of Chicago’s rail lines and hundreds of buses were stuck in deep snow, the elevated trains were frozen to the tracks, and the Windy City’s expressways, tollways, and surface streets were buried beneath half-frozen cars.

All the schools in my south suburb of Park Forest were closed for several days. We kids were free while the adults were held captive by several feet of snow, blowing wind, and near-zero temperatures.

I started shoveling our driveway at the beginning of the blizzard. I got it down from five feet to two feet by the time Dad arrived home three days later.

“If you would have put in some concerted effort, you would have had the driveway cleared by today,” he said, cheerfully. 🙁

I also made several trips to the stores about a mile away. The kids had started a trail at the beginning of the blizzard, and we kept it open until the snow melted in the spring.

Now what does this have to do with exercise? EVERYTHING, because…

My suburb was designed in the late 1940s to be kid-friendly. A park was little more than a block away from any house. Kids walked or rode their bikes to school, came home for lunch, returned to school, then came home again at 3:30. We had recess in both the morning and afternoon.

After school, it was FREEDOM TIME! We rode our bikes, jumped rope, played pickup games of softball and football, or just goofed off. During winter, that usually meant throwing snowballs at cars. During the warmer months, it meant splashing around in the creek. Hell, kids in my time got plenty of exercise by merely existing!

And in college? Freshmen weren’t allowed to drive at my university, and the distance between my dorm room and the communications building, where I studied radio and television, was a mile.

Sadly, it seems like today the only exercise some kids get is watching someone else exercise on their smartphones. Maybe scientists will eventually develop a pill that exercises the body without moving the muscles.

For some poor inactive souls, however, it may already be too late.

Amanda Collins is the person behind Exploring Chatt, and knows where trails begin, where creeks lead to and how high they get throughout the year, and why Greenway Farm employs goats and a guard dog.

We talked about why movement seems to happen naturally when you’re young but must be scheduled once adulthood puts you behind a desk. We also talked about kayaking, military fitness requirements, uphill neighborhoods, and whether being tired counts as a legitimate reason to avoid exercise (I say yes, but my doctor remains involved in the decision-making with this one).

When she isn’t guiding confused older men around Chattanooga’s parks, Amanda is also the host of Behind the Business Chatt, a podcast about the people behind Chattanooga’s businesses and what it’s taken to get where they are. Part one of Season two is fully available to binge, with Part two coming up later this month!

The show is available in audio and video format, allowing you to listen while on your brisk morning walk or while laying in bed recovering from heat stroke from said morning walk (it’s hot as hell down here!).

Throughout my tenure as an adult, I blamed the innovation of the internet for fat and lazy children.

We walked simply because that was what children did to get anywhere or do anything. We saved television time for nights in and special occasions, and today’s generation of accessible electronics have replaced the outdoors with simulated activities. Hell, you can sink hours into video games where you pretend to be a farmer with your friends. It was a simple explanation that I defaulted to for good reason, and I had grown rather comfortable with it.

Amanda however pointed out the part I had conveniently overlooked: many children today can’t safely walk or ride their bikes anywhere. Because Park Forest’s infrastructure was built to support walkability for schools, parks, and stores close enough for us to reach on our own, so exercise slipped into the day before anybody bothered calling it exercise.

The internet may still have something to answer for, but I had been giving my generation credit for the work of a town planner. We didn’t necessarily have more discipline, just a designated place to go and a safe way for us to get there.

A child cannot walk to school on a sidewalk nobody will build for them.

WELL I’LL BE DAMNED.