Day 244 – 1/23/12 – Fifteen Miles of Fame

Evansville to Newburgh; Distance = 15 Miles; People Met = 22+

The first person we ran into today was Joe, walking his bicycle up Broadway Avenue from the opposite side we were walking down.  He began telling us his life story, though we could not quite catch most of it with traffic moving in between us.  We did pick up that he was going to be a traveling evangelist.  When he learned we were hiking 5,000 miles for Housing, Health and Hunger issues he called us over to say a prayer for us. Before he said the prayer he mentioned he had healed someone once.  He started quivering at the telling of this.  Whether it happened or not, he certainly believed it happened, and he believed it would come true when he blessed us to be “healthy, wealth and wise.”

Joe

Joe was unique in other ways, namely, he had no idea who we were.  After both a front page story on the second section of the Evansville Courier-Press, and a television spot on ABC News, we became famous for a day.  We had no sooner turned away from Joe when Jeff Hille stopped his old truck across the street, thrilled to greet us.

Jeff Hille

Throughout the day people beeped and waved at us.  We stopped at the Evansville Visitor Center where Charlene told us she had been following our story.

Charlene

Yesterday was ABC, today was NBC.  Herb Thompson came out to do a spot on us while we were hiking on a poorer section of Riverside Avenue.  Joe Lewis yelled out that he saw us on TV and wanted to get a picture of us.  We went over to oblige, and soon a few of Joe’s friends came over as well.  We gathered inside a small store with Bashere as proprietor.

Herb Thompson

Bashere

We got a taste of celebrity status.  Joe and his friends wanted to shake our hands and have their pictures taken with us.  At one point Joe shouted out “this is HISTORY right here.”

Joe, Terrell, Shondra and Darus

A few miles later Valerie stopped her car in the middle of the road wanting to get our picture.  In fact, she had turned around from the direction she was heading to do so.

Valerie

The icing on the cake came after stopping to talk to Bob.  We wanted some clarification on the route we were taking and he obliged us, mentioning as well that he saw us on TV.  About fifteen minutes we encountered Bob again, this time with his daughter Nicole.  She wanted her picture taken with us.  Bob also gave us a donation.

Nicole and Bob

They talk about everyone having their fifteen minutes of fame.  On Day 244, exactly two-thirds of the way through our trip, we had our fifteen miles of fame.

Other Photos

We approached Nick for directions

Billy Lunsford obliged us with the use of his restroom