Your Voice: Reader laments loss of Traveling Trail

By Jim R. Carlisle

The sub­ject of this let­ter is the future of what we Clark Countians know as The Traveling Trail, and at its con­clu­sion, I wish to make two appeals.

The own­er of this trail prop­er­ty is The Greater Clark Foundation (125 South Main Street). Part of the foun­da­tion’s mis­sion state­ment describes it as “a health lega­cy foun­da­tion” and states that it favors “invest­ment in peo­ple over projects” and “ambi­tion for a vibrant com­mu­ni­ty.” It goes on to say that it believes in the abun­dant capac­i­ty of peo­ple to cre­ate com­mu­ni­ties they cher­ish,” and that it inspires “vision and action for a com­pelling future.”

To address the health lega­cy and peo­ple invest­ment mis­sion seg­ments, I quote Kenneth Cooper, MD, known world­wide as “the father of aer­o­bics, who said that the United States spends twice as much mon­ey as any oth­er coun­try on health­care, but Americans’ longevi­ty ranks 47^th world­wide. He also main­tains that genes account for 20% of our health qual­i­ty, but lifestyle accounts for the oth­er 80%; and that the best return on our fit­ness invest­ment is to sim­ply avoid inactivity.

To improve my own lifestyle years ago, I seized the oppor­tu­ni­ty when it appeared and began walk­ing The Traveling Trail. During those walks, from the old­er per­son strolling with a canine com­pan­ion, to fam­i­lies walk­ing with their kids (even babies in back­packs) to the seri­ous run­ner who will lap me at least once before I fin­ish, I have met so many smil­ing faces that all seem to say, “Aren’t we for­tu­nate to have a place like this right here in Winchester?” I always leave feel­ing not just bet­ter phys­i­cal­ly after a few brisk trips around the almost-mile perime­ter, but con­scious­ly real­iz­ing that the peace­ful set­ting of this true icon of per­son­al health has also pro­vid­ed me with a psy­cho­log­i­cal uplift— a “day­mak­er,” as I call it.

Concerning the remain­ing mis­sion seg­ments men­tioned, noth­ing could pro­vide a bet­ter land­mark around which to iden­ti­fy our Clark County capac­i­ty to cre­ate a vibrant com­mu­ni­ty that we cher­ish, than this delight­ful gem of qui­et­ly undis­turbed land­scape, right on the increas­ing­ly busy bypass around our city.

A predica­ment, how­ev­er, exists there­with. Now that the Mayor and City Council have approved rezon­ing the 30-acre trail prop­er­ty to gen­er­al busi­ness (B4), the stage is set for this price­less Winchester asset to be soon destroyed by the bull­doz­er and then pro­faned by asphalt and concrete.

We human beings are fun­ny peo­ple. We often fail to real­ize the true val­ue of some­thing until it is gone. There is no bet­ter exam­ple of this than the pas­sen­ger pigeon, whose pop­u­la­tion in the untold mil­lions we care­less­ly saw as lim­it­less, and then pro­ceed­ed to kill the species into extinc­tion, final­ly stand­ing amazed and unbe­liev­ing, in 1902, as we watched the very last one— a lit­tle female some­one had named Martha—die qui­et­ly in captivity.

My first appeal is to The Greater Clark Foundation: Please do not allow the anni­hi­la­tion of ”our” Traveling Trail on beau­ti­ful and irre­place­able rolling land­scape that sup­ports the exer­cise and fresh air breath­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty that so many enjoy and would con­tin­ue to enjoy into the future. Such an action would per­mit no turn­ing back, no change of mind ever! The only remain­ing poten­tial is seri­ous regret.

Just as the lead­ers in New York City saw fit to pre­serve 843 acres of very expen­sive real estate right next to their mega-com­mer­cial and finan­cial dis­trict, for the cre­ation of Central Park and the bet­ter­ment of their cit­i­zens’ phys­i­cal and men­tal health, that same fleet­ing choice is yours.

My sec­ond appeal is to the read­ers of this let­ter: If you enjoy The Traveling Trail and you agree with the fore­go­ing state­ments regard­ing its health­ful impor­tance to our res­i­dents, and if you care about the approach­ing crit­i­cal threat to its con­tin­ued exis­tence, please con­vey your thoughts, in writ­ing today to the iden­ti­fied prop­er­ty owner.