The Woman Who Has Been Walking the Same Route Every Morning for 22 Years

If you live anywhere near the center of town and you're up before 7 a.m., you've probably seen her. Carol Ann Pruitt walks the same three-mile loop every morning, starting at her house on Maple, down to the library, around the green, past the elementary school, and back. She has done this every day for 22 years. She has missed, by her own count, eleven days.

I caught up with her on a Tuesday in October, which is the best month for walking, according to her. She was wearing a reflective vest over a fleece, carrying a small flashlight even though it was fully light out. She walks at a steady clip, maybe 3.5 miles an hour, and she talks the way she walks — no wasted motion.

"I started because my doctor told me to," she said. "I kept going because I liked it. Now I don't really think about it. It's just what I do."

Carol Ann is 74. She retired from the post office in 2001 after 30 years behind the counter. She knows almost everyone in town, or at least she knows their faces, which isn't the same thing but is close. She can tell you which houses have changed hands, which dogs are new, which driveways got repaved this summer. She notices things.

What 22 Years of Walking Teaches You

I asked her what's changed the most since she started. She didn't hesitate.

"The trees," she said. "The ones on Elm got taken down for the sewer project in '09 and they never replanted them. That whole block is hotter now in the summer. You can feel it."

She also mentioned the sidewalks. The town replaced the ones on Third Street about six years ago, and she said it made a real difference for her knees. She wishes they'd do the same on the block near the school, where the concrete has heaved from tree roots and she has to watch her step.

She's seen other things too. She watched the old diner on Main get torn down and replaced with a bank. She watched the bank close and become a coffee shop. She watched the coffee shop change owners twice. She said she doesn't have opinions about any of it, really — she just notices.

The people she sees regularly have become part of the routine. There's a man who walks his beagle at the same time every morning and always waves. There's a woman who waits for the bus at the corner of Maple and Second and has been doing so for as long as Carol Ann can remember. There are the school crossing guards, who she knows by name.

"You get to know people without ever really talking to them," she said. "That sounds strange, but it's true. You just nod. You both know you're out there."

The One Rule

Carol Ann has one rule about her walks: she doesn't skip them. Not for weather, not for mood, not for anything short of a real emergency. She's walked in blizzards, in heat waves, in the kind of cold that makes your eyes water. She said the only times she's missed were for a surgery, a family funeral, and a bout of the flu in 2015 that lasted a week.

She doesn't listen to music. She doesn't listen to podcasts. She just walks and looks around. She said it's the only hour of the day when nobody needs anything from her, and she's not willing to give it up.

If you see her out there, she'll wave. She always does.