One of my favorite aspects of what I have the opportunity to do here is meeting some very interesting people. Some of those people are local, such as the person in Greenville who had a chicken that consistently laid triple-yolked eggs. When you hear about something like that, you just have to see it for yourself and write about it. Some of the people may be just “passing through” our fair county and may have an interesting story to tell. A couple of days ago, I had an encounter of the latter sort.
Paul Webb is a person I met about a year ago in Lee. He was on his way across the United States on his bicycle and had stopped in Lee to camp next to Lee Town Hall (with permission, of course). He was making the trek as a way of raising funds for a charity with which he had become involved. There will be a more detailed story about him in a later edition of your newspaper, so stay tuned. Actually, Webb not only rides his bicycle across the U.S., he rides from California to Florida, then from Florida to Maine, then across to Washington State before heading back down to California. The “loop” takes him a year to complete. He is currently on his third loop, with the goal of making nine more, for a total of 12 loops.
Of course, doing that much riding by himself allows for a great deal of thinking and reflection. As I was visiting with Webb earlier this week, he told me about a sign he saw at a church. It was a sort of “checklist” of three “positive addictions.” Admittedly, one doesn’t often hear the word “addiction” with anything positive. Most often, we hear about addictions in a negative way, such as gambling addictions, drug and alcohol addictions, etc. Webb told me he had the thought that two of his “positive addictions” were fresh air and clean water, with the third left to be filled in. He told me he was going to have cards printed and ask people to “fill in the blank” for that third “positive addiction.” Then, when he would meet them again, he would ask what they have done to become “addicted” to that third, positive aspect.
I wonder what it would be like if we all decided to develop three “positive” addictions. It just might make the “Sunny Side” even sunnier.