STROLLING I have been considering purchasing a lot on which to build a home if and when I ever retire. The location is near Orlando. However an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer is enough to make one think two or three times about such a move. Cincinnati has the fewest pedestrian deaths of the 49 major urban areas in this country according to Washington’s Surface Transportation Policy Project. Cincinnati has an average of 0.7 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 people, compared with 3.3 fatalities per 100,000 people in Orlando which is tops on the hit list. The article goes on to say, “Florida, in general, isn’t the best place to walk. The Sunshine State placed five cities in the report’s six most dangerous places of pedestrians." What’s going on here? Has the North sent all its slowest retired people to Florida so that they just can’t make it across the street before the light changes? Or are Florida drivers less observant? As usual, I have a theory. When I moved to Cincinnati as a teenager, I noticed that the people walked more quickly on the city streets than I, an immigrant from Appalachia. When I visited Chicago and New York, I found that people walked even more briskly, and so I picked up the habit. Now, as a senior citizen, I find that Duke and I move more quickly than most. By contrast, when I was out West and down South, I found that people “moseyed” or “ambled,” an annoyance to one who is attempting to move quickly toward a goal. Now stay with me on this. I have also observed that there are no native Floridians, as at least 50% of the population is from New York, Ohio, or West- by-God Virginia and 40% from foreign islands. After considering all the facts, I came to this conclusion. The horrendous rate of run-overs in Florida has to be the fault of the Damn Yankees and the Furriners. I say this to defend Southern Honor. It isn’t the moseying and ambling of any native Floridian that is the problem. The problem is that the Northern States send their “snow birds” to Florida. These birds are so decrepit that they can’t get out of the way of the Furriners, who, everyone knows, drive with reckless abandon. Obviously, the only solution to the problem is to partition the state into two zones. The one would be occupied by the snow birds, and nothing that can move faster than the tricycles with bicycle size wheels would be allowed to mingle with pedestrian traffic. Also, this area would be a no-jogging zone. Shuffling, ambling, strolling, and moseying will be the normal speed of human traffic. The other zone would have free ways with unlimited speed limits, and no traffic signals in the cities as these aren’t observed any way. What do you think? Charles _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail