![The Regional Review](regional_review.jpg)
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Vol. II |
April, 1939 |
No. 4 |
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OUR CONTRIBUTORS
More than usual interest has been accorded two
articles which appeared in The Review last issue: Wilton P.
Ledet's "Acadians Find Peace in Louisiana" and H.S. Ladd's "Nature
Trails Under the Sea." The study of the Acadian exiles has brought a
number of letters of commendation from widely separated states in Region
One and at least one Louisiana newspaper has reproduced the article in
full . Meanwhile, Dr. Ladd's excellent description of his submarine hike
in the Florida Keys has been used as the basis for a special press
release distributed by the Everglades National Park Association,
Inc.
FEET NOTES
Evidence now piling up each day, the recreational
specialists report, tends to substantiate the belief that Americans are
on their feet again. Park visitors are interested more than ever before
in leaving automobiles behind and faring forth afoot to inhale the
atmosphere and explore even the more distant sites to which the
expanding systems of nature trails may lead. In short, the revival of
walking is growing apace.
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The Review, loath to be caught behind hand in
the onward march of pedestrianism, took straighway to its books to
inquire into the basic truths of that method of self-propulsion which
proceeds, as our grandmothers so vaguely phrased it, from movements of
the nether extremities. To walk, the 15-pound office dictionary (edition
of 1937) disclosed, means "To advance by steps, to go at a moderate
pace; specif., of two-legged creatures, to proceed without running, or
lifting one foot entirely before the other touches the ground..." That
description appeared altogether encouraging. The concession that one is
entitled to move forward at a moderate velocity was, within itself, a
welcome development, but the lexicographical authority permitting the
walker to keep one foot always on the ground is the stalwart rock upon
which we shall rear the edifice of our personal athleticism.
Yet, still to be weighed against the sane opinions
just cited, there is the disquieting revelation set forth in Websterian
definition No. 9 under the heading: "To walk Spanish." That peculiar
exercise, it is explained, consists in walking "on tiptoe involuntarily
through another's lifting one by the seat of the trousers..." However
salutary may be the practice of such a form of recreation, we feel
impelled nevertheless to warn against it as an un-American activity
whose insidious seeds are being sown among us by wily foreign
propagandists.
Genuinely alarmed, we then probed superficially into
the philological aspects of the every-day variety of walking.
Webster's of 1920 was consulted with a view of determining what
glossological ground had been gained, during the intervening 17 years,
in its technique. It is with some relief therefore that we report the
happy evidence that auto-locomotion, undismayed by the ferment of
progress, has held doggedly to its older definitions. In every essential
it remains lexigraphically unchanged. The Review accordingly
assumes, with many agreeable sensations, that reasonable walking is here
to stay. We shall continue to endorse it as top-bracket exercise for man
and beast.--H.R.A.
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