A ‘Walk Across America’
Given the opportunity Frank Harrison just might walk his way into your heart.
Who can resist a guy with a passion for life and adventure, so much so that on his 68th birthday he decides to embark on his “Walk Across America.”
It took him four years, nine months, and one week to finish his personal pledge but given the road bumps he had along the way it’s understandably so. The walk didn’t involve pledges of money from shoe empires or nonprofit societies—just Frank’s will.
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After the Jasper County native lost the top of his right lung to cancer in April, 1996 he got the notion to walk from ocean to ocean, a notion he shared with his wife of 49.5 years, Liz. So the parents of three and grandparents of three joined in one accord, loaded up their recreational vehicle (RV) and headed for Tybee Island.
On February 19, 1999 the trek got underway with Frank strapping on his backpack after grabbing a handful of sand as he gazed across the Atlantic Ocean. He then turned to Liz said “I’ll be walking down Highway 80” and with those words the Harrisons’ journey began.
He describes his first day as trying only making it eight miles before dusk set in. His second day produced another eight miles. Within weeks he had made it up to 15 miles per day and at the peak of walk was traveling some 25 miles per day.
Liz would navigate the motor coach dropping him off each morning just past sunrise at the previous days’ stop before returning back to the RV headquarters, usually a motor park. She then went about her day just as she would have ordinarily.
“I would keep busy like I would at home—cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, shopping, reading and watching TV. If we were near a city with good shops I would go antique shopping,” said the doting wife.
Around sunset her day of solitude would come to end as she would then travel to pick up her U.S. Navy and civil service retired husband at some point along the stretch of highway.
“It worried me so to know he was out there by himself on the lonely highway. Anything could have happened to him.”
The couple wasn’t short on communication tools by any means. They kept in constant contact by cellular phone and two-way radio. When Frank encountered a friendly face or vice-versa, Liz would know right away.
The hearty 72 year-old recalls the one time he got away from Liz. It was early on during his journey in Reidsville, Ga. He had walked 25 miles and was awaiting a 5 p.m. pick up. He glanced ever so often for the RV but kept on walking right up until 6 p.m.
“When it turned 6 and Liz hadn’t come I turned around and headed back toward the camp. Not too much longer after that I saw some sheriff cars headed for me and I knew it was Liz. When they stopped, I said ‘she sent you didn’t she.'”
After that Liz never lost track of him again.
On May 18, some three months into the walk, Frank had made his way halfway across the nation beyond I-20 and onto I-10 and into the heart of Dallas, Texas.
Feeling the urge to return home the Harrisons did. Not long after that return Frank learned that cancer had spread to his left lung. Not feeling the need for chemotherapy or much else in terms of medical treatment, Frank recuperated for sometime before deciding it was time to walk again.
They loaded up the RV and headed back to Texas. The journey from Dallas took him to Abilene, Texas before deciding he needed a rest. So home again they came where he was then diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The treatments began and it wasn’t much later that he decided he needed to walk again. So back to Texas they went; starting in Abilene and concluding in Van Horn,Tex. before returning home.
In normal fashion, he visited the doctor on his return. And in normal fashion he was diagnosed with yet another bodily malfunction—heart disease which required a quadruple bypass operation.
The surgery was a success and after a lengthy recovery period then came the news by way of a CT scan that the cancer had returned to his left lung. Feeling as if though this diagnosis was his death sentence and having been told by doctors that his body couldn’t stand another surgery, he told Liz he wanted to walk.
So the self-pronounced Atheist and his Christian wife set out for Texas a third and final time to complete the 827 mile walk across the Lone Star state. From Van Horn he walked to Deming, New Mexico.
The couple returned home to learn that their eldest son had been diagnosed with a terminal liver disease. Planning a return visit to the doctor Frank saw an immunologist and two other physicians recommended by his ailing son.
All three doctors, puzzled by the CT scan, amazingly diagnosed that cancer was no longer found anywhere in Frank’s body.
Armored with the good news there was but one thing left to do— finish “the walk.” Frank made his last doctor’s visit September 9, 2003 and five days later he was headed to New Mexico but this time without Liz.
With an ailing son in Georgia, Liz felt compelled to stay at home. Needing a driver Frank advertised for a volunteer in search of an adventure out West. From five responses and hindsight being 20/20 he knows now he chose the wrong one then. Lester was an older fellow from Cincinnati who was everything Frank wasn’t.
As the days wore on from Deming en route to Boulevard, California, a total of 545 miles, Lester wore Frank’s patience thin. His volunteer headed back home before the walk was complete but not before tallying up 8,000 new miles on the RV.
Not to worry, Liz was headed West to wrap up the journey they started together. Before her arrival, Frank found the kindness of a stranger named Kelly helpful. Kelly and her boyfriend were camped in the same motor park when Lester bailed and she became his morning and evening escort.
Even after Liz’s arrival Kelly continued to make the rounds and for that Frank was grateful.
Less than three weeks ago, on November 26, Frank and Liz Harrison finished the walk in Ocean Beach. They walked directly into television cameras from Channel 6 in San Diego.
He shrugs off the accomplishment as he remembers the many faces and oddities of the journey. He remembers those always willing to give an old man a ride, for whatever reason. All of which he denied.
There was Melvin, a young African-American in Arizona, who offered him a ride to California. Melvin recently sent Frank a card of congratulations.
How about the El Paso state patrolman who thought he was on the run from a nursing home.
Then there was the California patrolman who stopped him to say that numerous calls had come in about an old man walking down the road wearing only one shoe. He was wearing both but passersby couldn’t differentiate between his white Reebok and sock especially since he was wearing a black Reebok on the other foot, just for fun.
He remembers the two Decatur, Mississippi yuppie ladies who stopped their luxury SUV to give him a ride. After all an old man with a dog wouldn’t harm them. The dog was a stray.
And he can never forget the southern California bum with brilliant blue eyes that advised him to be on the lookout for tarantulas. Frank was warned the brown ones are poisonous and the black ones are not.
He had done it—2,380 miles, more than 6 million steps, 8 pairs of New Balance, 2 pairs of Reeboks, bouts with lung cancer, prostate cancer, and quadruple bypass—Frank Harrison walked across America.