Hello Walkers and Readers,
My name is Ben Epperson and I am very late in getting this to you.
My apologies.
I work at the Knox County Health Department as the program manager for Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities (HKHC from now on, probably). HKHC is a national initiative funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to help battle childhood obesity through community organization and advocacy for policy change surrounding how we design, implement and renovate our neighborhoods and communities. More on that later.
May I be frank? We’re buddies right?
I had a heck of a time getting an audio book. My problems stemmed, mostly, from the fact that I was being stubborn and refused to do things the “old-fashioned-way.”
Let me explain.
I have an iPhone. Very handy tool sometimes. Certainly very addictive. Sleek, versatile, clever and very, very distracting.
I mostly use my smart phone for listening to music and looking at maps when I’m lost or trying to find something. When I heard that I could download an audio book from the library directly to my phone, I made another mental check mark in the list of “justifiable reasons to spend hard earned money on my gadget” and began looking online and downloading the OverDrive app in order to find a suitable book.
My excitement quickly dwindled. All this technology was making it harder rather than easier to find what I needed. (story of my life, but I digress)
The OverDrive app only uses windows audio files, which are not compatible with an iPhone and so I would have to search for a book from my computer at home and download it in order to convert the files to mp3 so that they would be compatible with my phone. My computer at home was on the fritz, I was stuck and couldn’t figure out, for the life of me, how to use my work computer to download audio books without raising Cain with our IT guys and gals.
Then I remembered.
I check out about four audio books (on CD mind you) every year when my family and I go on a road trip for vacation or to visit friends. It’s simple. You walk into the library, browse, check out and pop the CD into your CD player. Now, you need to have hung onto your cd player and all its component parts since the mp3-player craze swept the nation. Luckily I did.
I rode my bike over to the library just now and picked up my audio book.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
For those of you who don’t know, McCarthy lives in Knox County and a large number of his works are situated in or near Appalachia, except for The Border Trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain) which is set at the Mexico-American border.
Cormac McCarthy is my favorite author. Mr. McCarthy, if you’re reading this, forgive my ineloquence.
The Road is a story of a father and son making their way to the coast across a barren and lifeless Tennessee. Something terrible has recently happened, some sort of nuclear apocalypse or the like, and only a few bands of roving humans have survived: no plants, no animals, no crops, no food, no sunshine, no life.
Sounds, pretty bleak I know. We’ll see how it goes.
I plan on listen-reading my book as I rebuild my little house in Parkridge. My Wife and I bought our “dream home” in January, a 750 square foot worker’s cottage on a corner lot in east Knoxville. We’re rebuilding the entire thing from the ground up in our spare time. Stay tuned as I recount my harrowing tale of despair and hope, of demolition and construction and of trying to live a healthy life by remaining active in my daily labors and being mindful of how I nourish my body.
Thanks for reading and keep it up all you active livers in Knox County!
Ben
