Man making tracks across America

By MARK SAGE/Staff

Al Slusser walked out of the Pacific Ocean in San Diego, Calif., and kept going.
Last week, he pulled his homemade support vehicle, a 140-pound, three-wheeled cart, into Meadowview, near the beginning of his ninth state in less than a year. The 71-year-old Arizona man said he’s in the best shape of his life and though he’s been laughed at, called a fool, trudged through wind, snow, rain and hail, worn out three pairs of shoes and seen temperatures soar above a hundred and plunge below freezing, he’s not once thought of calling it quits. He made his decision to go for it last July and never looked back.
“I’m going to make it,” he said. “I can do this.”
He believes he’ll be the oldest man to walk coast to coast across America once he arrives in Washington, D.C. The record for the oldest person to accomplish such a feat belongs to Doris Haddock. Now deceased, Haddock, who penned a book about her travels, made the journey from sea to sea in 2000, when she was 90. Where Haddock had walked to call attention to the need for campaign finance reform, Slusser is dedicating his walk to seniors and the disabled. Slusser, who worked with seniors and the disabled as a vocational rehabilitation specialist, said he hopes to encourage others to fulfill their dreams. This trip, he said, has long been his dream, even if he might have been the person least likely to realize it.
At 2.5 mph, Slusser gets a chance to meet the people and smell the roses of the country.
“I get to see America in a way I’ve never seen it before,” he said. Brotherly love and hospitality, he said, are alive and well. Everywhere everyone has been “incredibly supportive.”
That’s been the best part of the journey, he said, meeting people and having the time and opportunity to experience their lives. He’s taken side trips with folks he’s met along the way, visiting state and national parks, work places and homes. He’s stayed in 20 or so houses, on church grounds, and even inside churches. One congregation even put him up for the night in their sanctuary. He’s slept in the tent he carries in the cart behind him, but also in motels, garages and, during an Oklahoma sandstorm, in a storage shed.
People have fed him and generally treated him “as if they had known me all their lives,” he said.
Though it’s not a political walk, Slusser said he’s gained a lot of perspective on what worries are dragging on people. The biggest complaint he hears, he said, is Social Security.
“Everyone says it’s not enough to live on,” he said.
People can’t understand, he said, why the banks and businesses got bailed out but common folk haven’t been afforded a cost of living increase. It’s a question he doesn’t have an answer for.
The toughest part of the trip, aside from the hills and mountains on either side of the continent, is negotiating two-lane roads with his 42-inch wide cart trailing. He designed the metal box that carries everything he needs from food and clothes to camping gear and that last pair of extra shoes. A friend who once built racing bikes constructed it, insulating the inside so even though the top burns in the sun, everything inside stays cool. The smaller front tire, near the duct-tape drink holder he added as an after-market accessory, has been replaced six times. The bike tires on the back, though, are the same ones he left California with.
Through the first five states, Slusser walked the interstates. In Arkansas, he had to get off the federal highways and take back roads. If he had to do it again, he said he’d stick to those blue highways the whole way, wandering.
He’s not on schedule. He hopes to be in Washington, D.C., by Oct. 10, but “I’ll get there when I get there,” he said. Likely it will be sooner. He reached Wytheville on Sunday afternoon.
Once in the nation’s capitol, he wants to do three things: Pray for the nation on the Capitol steps, meet with his Arizona senators and maybe, just maybe, get President Obama to sign his album. After that, it’s up in the air.
He plans to continue on to the Atlantic Ocean and then find a way home. His son may drive out and get him or he may put his rig on a train. He’s not too worried about those details.
“The Lord has got me out here,” he said. “He’ll get me home.”
The only sure thing, he said, is he’s not walking back.