Fat man walking

	Mel Evans, Associated Press Steve Vaught walks along Rt. 46 in Little Ferry, N.J., Tuesday, just a few miles from New York and the end of his year-long walk across America. Click photo for larger image.

Steve Vaught walked into New York City to some attention on Tuesday, feeling "a little weirded out." You would, too, if you'd just spent 13 months walking 2,843 miles from Oceanside, Calif., dropping more than 100 pounds along the way. That got him down to 305. Before the trip, the 40-year-old ex-Marine who grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, explained his motivation on his Web site, TheFatManWalking.com: "Being fat is physically and emotionally painful. It diminishes the quality of the good things in life. And it will ultimately bring about an early demise. So being overweight darkens every good thing that you achieve in your life and even prevents some things from happening at all." This could be troubling news for the 98 percent of so of Americans who are obese -- at least we think that's the latest figure, based on increasingly rigorous government definitions.

Originally envisioning a six-month walk, Vaught slept in a tent or motels and got slowed down by bouts of depression in New Mexico and Texas. As the trip went on, he gained more and more media exposure, which he called a mixed blessing. "I like talking to them, but some of them are just awful. They don't try, and they'll put words in my mouth I never said," he said. Or, at least, that's what The San Diego Union-Tribune claims he said. Assuming they didn't make it up.

Take it all off

From Tony Tierney of Ireland, among hundreds leaving messages on Vaught's Web site: "Brilliant! I was overweight once and it's awful. Exercise helps but it's the diet that's the key -- if it's not going in it can't go on. This was a truly inspirational walk -- congratulations."

Walk the world

If Tierney thinks Vaught is inspirational, one can only imagine his admiration for Dave Kunst, the first man verified to walk around the world, though at a horrible cost.

Kunst was 30 when he set out on June 20, 1970 from Waseca, Minn., with his brother John, 24, and a pack mule named Willie Makeit. They started with $1,000, a tent and a letter of recommendation from U.S. Hubert Humphrey to use for help at embassies and military bases. The letter did them no good with six men who approached them menacingly in the Kabul Gorge of Afghanistan two years into the trip in 1972. Kunst said he fired his shotgun as a warning, and the bandits opened fire, wounding him and killing John. Kunst spent 25 days in an Afghan hospital, went home for treatment, then returned to Afghanistan to finish the trip, this time with brother Pete.

Kunst returned home from the western direction on Oct. 5, 1974, after walking to New York City, touching the Atlantic ocean, flying to Lisbon, Portugal, walking across Europe and Asia to Calcutta, India, touching the Indian Ocean, flying to Perth, Australia, walking to Sydney, touching the Pacific Ocean, flying to Los Angeles, and walking back to Waseca, where, if he wanted to join most Americans, promptly began the habit of driving two blocks to the nearest convenience store if he wanted a snack.

There's always a critic

"Fat man" Vaught's Webb site contains a few comments from critics like "tg": "It is obvious this dumb walk is doing nothing to change the reasons you are a lardass. You will just gain it all back when you end this idiotic spectacle. If you really wanted to lose weight you would stay home and change your behaviors in positive ways. I hate idiots like you who crave attention on the web."

Back in the day

Raise your hand if you have not yet crossed the country on foot, by bike, in a wheelchair, on a horse, riding a lawnmower or by some other means that raised money and was unique, except for the fact that so many people have done it now. Just as I suspected -- I see very few hands.

Well, none of you has anything on Helga Estby of Spokane, Wash., who reached for her walking boots in 1896. She had read that $10,000 would go to the first woman who walked across the country to New York. Her farm family was destitute, so she and her 18-year-old daughter took a 3,500-mile hike in full-length skirts, attracting press attention just as Vaught did, and rebuffing aggressive hobos near Chicago by brandishing revolvers.

They somehow made it, only to find out the alleged sponsor was unwilling to pay $10,000. A wealthy man who felt sorry for them bought them a train ticket home, where Helga Estby was shunned instead of cheered. Her own children and her "Little Norway" community of immigrants felt she had embarrassed her husband and done harm to the family. She later became active in the women's suffrage movement, and her story was told in a 2003 book: "Bold Spirit: Helga Estby's Forgotten Walk Across Victorian America."