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Cancer survivor takes in America one step at a time
Rick and Valda Hammersley's current home rests -- right now -- under the cottonwoods at Karrer Park. Maybe you noticed it as you drove along Highway 34 the last few days, but maybe not. It's a small RV, emblazoned with logos for a shoemaker, a mail-forwarding service, and a "healthy chocolate company." And maybe you noticed the sun-weathered man who might be walking a few miles behind it, dressed in safety orange. Or maybe you didn't.
No matter. The vehicle is neat and cozy inside, and the air conditioner is doing a splendid job, which provides a welcome respite from the warmth outside. Valda offers a cold drink to a visitor, and the option of sitting inside their temperate cabin, invitations that do not seem out of character for either of these people. "That heat," she observes, looking out at the bright summer day, "just seemed to hit us as we came out of the mountains."
Rick is inside, finishing his lunch. When he appears a few moments later, fed and finally rested from his 11-mile morning walk -- "it's the ninth or tenth day in a row that I've done that," he says -- he selects a shaded picnic bench to sit and chat.
He's been bronzed by the sun, trimmed by his steps, and his eyes are blue and sharp and clear. When he's asked if he'd prefer to be inside right now, instead of out in the 95-degree sunshine, he smiles and says, "No. I prefer this kind of weather."
Rick has wanted to make this kind of excursion for a while now. Not across the United States, mind you -- his first dream trek was along the Appalachian Trail, which winds from Georgia to Maine. But for one reason or another, he could never quite get past the planning stage. "I talked about it too much," he admits now, and chuckles at the good-natured ribbing he still occasionally takes from friends and family.
The idea of undertaking this current walk came during another journey -- in June of 2003, Rick says, after a routine colonoscopy, "the doctor looked down at me and said, 'We have a problem.'" A few days later, he was under the knife. "They removed two feet of bowel, and a tumor the size of a grapefruit," he says. Then it was on to chemotherapy.
During these months of treatment, Rick saw a documentary on television about a man who walked the Appalachian Trail and filmed the experience. Watching the struggles of the other subject, which included miles of rugged -- sometimes even dangerous -- terrain, made him discard his years-old dream. "I couldn't do what that other man did," he says.
After his doctor told him he was cancer-free in February 2004, Rick went back to work as an gas pipeline inspector. It was during the next year or so of working -- which involved traveling several miles a day on foot -- that the idea of walking across America began to take root in him. He had a few requirements for the route: "My son lived in New York at the time, and I wanted to cross the Brooklyn Bridge," he says, "and I wanted to go through Indianapolis, because that's where I'm from. And I wanted to go through Hastings, Neb., because I lived there for a few months that summer, and it's so close to the geographic center of the United States."
He plotted the highways west from Hastings to the Pacific Ocean, and settled on a point of departure -- Bodega Bay, Calif., which sits north of San Francisco. Rick says that he considered starting in San Francisco or Los Angeles, but decided against beginning his journey in either metropolis. "Too much traffic, too much stress," he says.
Now he had a plan, but there was one more hurdle to get past. During the holiday season of 2005, "I got up the courage to tell the wife," he says with a laugh. "It took her some months to embrace the idea." By April 2006, though, the concept had grown on her as well, and she gave him the go-ahead to pursue it.
Rick started talking to people about his plan, and started trying to line up sponsors. His son, who had moved to Seattle by the time Rick was readying for his eventual trip, set up a website, which saw interest right away. Yet businesses interested in backing him were few and far between. "I got a shoe sponsor, and a shirt sponsor, and a deal on the RV," he says, gesturing toward his vehicle, "but no money for daily expenses." (The mail-forwarding company, which is among the logos on the vehicle, did waive their monthly fee for the length of the trip; the chocolate company provides free products.)
Lining up a charitable organization with which to affiliate his quest was also a challenge. After some time and searching, he was guided by his son to Gateway for Cancer Research Foundation, a non-profit group based in Schaumberg, Ill., that, according to their website, "provides funding for conventional, integrative and complementary phase I and phase II cancer research studies done by some of the most pioneering researchers from around the world." Remarkably, this organization, because its daily operating expenses are underwritten, spends 99 cents of every donated dollar on funding research.
That was something Rick could get enthusiastic about. He had a link to the foundation's website put on his, added a page that allowed for directed donations to the organization, and then, as his own way to raise additional funds for the group, put forward a unique challenge to those who were coming to his website.
"I can't walk across a coin without picking it up," he says. "I'd toss those coins in a jar, and at the end of the year, give it to my grandkids." So Rick decided to do the same for his charity of choice. Then he put out the call for people who were watching his site to match his found coin collection. "I had about a dozen takers right away," he says. (The total he's discovered over the road is just over $54 as of this printing, and Rick thinks he'll finish with $160 or better. "Crossing the Brooklyn Bridge will probably take me over the top," he laughs.)
As the months went by, Rick says that finally -- even if he had to go into debt to do it -- the time had come to start. He quit his job, and headed for the northern California coast. The days on the road have done him good, physically and spiritually. "I had conceptions about the desert," he says, referring to the portion of his sojourn that took him through Nevada along Highway 50, referred to by the natives as 'The Loneliest Highway in America.' "They were misconceptions. My wife said, 'You're gonna miss that desert.'" He smiles a bit and admits that as soon as they reached the next city -- which was Provo, Utah -- he agreed with his better half: "I liked it out there."
He likes Nebraska, too -- although the mid-July temperatures are a bit of a test. And he hasn't found the amount of money on the roadside he did in previous states. "Over the last couple of days, I've found twenty-six cents," he says with a twinkle in his eye. "Folks around here know how to hang on to their wallets."
Throughout the conversation, Rick talks about the people he's met along the way; the generosity of strangers he and his wife have met along the way seems to be a constant source of spiritual refreshment. "People who are driving by will stop and ask if I need help," he says. "And I'll say no, and then they'll ask me why I'm doing what I'm doing." He relates various stories of people who would reach into their own pockets to give him money for gas and food after he has shared with them, even when it looked like they themselves could have used the money more. The common thread of human frailty -- and our shared knowledge of our own mortality -- seems to tie his visitors to him. "I think cancer is something that touches everyone's life at one time or another," he says, and sadly, he's right.
Rick's mood lightens as he starts thinking about the end of his walk. McCook marks significant progress across the country -- in fact, he's not too far west of the halfway point. He will finish at famed Coney Island, just south of Brooklyn, New York, and says that at the end of his walk, "I'm gonna have two Nathan's hot dogs, and maybe even let myself have a beer." He grins at the prospect. "I feel like I earned that."
He has more miles to walk today and the afternoon heat is building. "I don't know why I'm doing this," he says, wiping sweat off his brow. "If somebody asks me, and that's a question I hear a lot, I say it's because I wanted to do it. And because I didn't die five years ago." Something he doesn't want to be known as is a hero. "I don't want that," he says clearly. "I didn't get a calling to do this."
He merely speaks from the heart about his experiences, and hopes that people will be able to take something from what he is doing. "I've lost 43 pounds so far on this trip," he says. "I'm almost at basic training weight. My blood sugar's better. My blood pressure's better. I'm getting as much out of this as anybody."
And he's raising awareness about a cause that is obviously important to him. Rick says, "I'm not a doctor, I'm not a surgeon, I'm not a researcher. But I can walk and pick up change and give my time and my story." He hopes that maybe people, whether young or old, will see his example and decide to do something worthwhile with their lives, no matter what that might be, whether it's getting into better shape, or paying more attention to the world around them.
There is one thing he knows for sure. "My journey's not gonna end at Coney Island," he promises, looking at the cars that whiz by on the nearby Highway 6 and 34, perhaps hungry to get some more miles behind him. "Maybe this journey," he says, "is my purpose in life."