Oh, for heaven's sake! Now look here, Ebbie, there is a very good reason why I don't walk to the conservation site. Actually several good reasons.

1. It's too damned far away! Do you realize have far a car can go in 2 minutes (or thereabouts)? It may be more like 3 minutes. Or 4. I haven't exactly timed it.

2. I would be so tired by the time I finally got there that I'd have no energy left to walk the beautiful forest trails, which is where I WANT to do my walking.

3. The route from my house to the conservation site is along some quite busy 2-lane highways with traffic whipping by at about 60 miles an hour, 3 feet away from me as they go by, hurling slush, toxic exhaust, and buffeting wind in my general direction, plus the possibility that some drunk will drift onto the shoulder and hit me. Is it pleasant to walk in such conditions? NO!

Now, the forest trails where I do choose to walk are silent (except for bird calls and the breeze rustling in the trees), peaceful, beautiful, and unpolluted, and I have solitude there away from the mad rush of humanity. The main loop trail which I walk around is about a mile long, and that's about the distance I like to walk at this point.

Enough said.

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Bill!!!!!!!!!   That sentence you wrote to Shambles wins the prize. It's incredible. I've printed out a copy of it to laminate and hang on my office wall. It may be the greatest example of excessive wordiness combined with gentle satire in the history of mankind. You have rendered Amos completely moribund and obsolete. You have left me (almost) mute with admiration. I shall henceforth doff my hat in humble salute whenever we cross paths, aware that I am in the presence of a true Master.