the long walk

The man who walked 35 miles to work, [it was 21 actually] has been given a car and an apartment by people who were sorry for him.

That's brilliant, there are decent people out there.

Brilliant news!
What a lovely thing to do x

be interesting to see if he takes up th eoffer wont it....


after all as we all know he did the walk out of pure enjoyment....

darknessss wrote:be interesting to see if he takes up th eoffer wont it....


after all Didge is convinced he did the walk out of pure enjoyment....

He did have a car, it was the cost of petrol so it would be interesting to see how he is being helped.

whichever way it is ....will he take up the offer??

clearly if he does then he didnt do the walk out of enjoyment.....

DAVIS CITY, Ia. – I was back in Steve and Renee Simoffs' basement apartment to hear from them after they had weathered a media frenzy.

Renee grabbed a gallon Ziploc bag from a nearby table and pulled out cards and letters to help illustrate.
Steve became famous two weeks ago as the janitor who commutes by foot from home to his job 35 miles north at the casino in Osceola. He doesn't stroll along a serene, shady trail: He walks along Interstate 35, or what Fox News dramatically described as "four lanes of thundering traffic."
A bouquet of flowers had been anonymously delivered with a simple note: "I was moved by your love for each other. Celebrate it!"
"I respect your walking to work and that you are a great worker," Renee read from a letter. "I'm glad that you are paying your bills and kissing your wife goodbye."
The Simoffs, both 61, struggle with their monthly budget. The couple has had a minivan in recent years but not always the money to fill the gas tank.
The same Sunday my original column was published, a man arrived on the couple's doorstep with a $500 check and a bag of canned food as the first sign of what was to come.
A GoFundMe.com drive with a goal of $5,000, launched by a woman in Florida, raised nearly $27,000 from 678 donors in 10 days. The Simoffs shut it down Friday because they didn't want to be seen as taking advantage of the situation.
"We didn't ask for all of this," Renee said.
True: I emphasized in my original column that the Simoffs didn't have an angle. They weren't trying to cash in after noticing that another marathon pedestrian commuter whose story went viral, James Robinson of Detroit, had received a windfall.
I happened to hear of Simoff later and arrived unsolicited.
Rest assured that Steve was more content being known in southern Iowa merely as "that man who walks."
The Simoffs' adopted son (Renee's grandson) who lives with them, Steven III, has endured flak on Facebook for being unemployed while Steve walks and Renee is disabled. The 22-year-old injured his rotator cuff on the job in November, he says, and continues to look for work.
Steve made his debut on live national TV on March 6 on "Fox and Friends." The network hired a black Lincoln to pick up Renee and Steven in Davis City and then Steve at the casino to deliver them to the TV studio in Des Moines.
"There was nobody behind the camera," Steve marveled. "I was talking to a screen."
Other news outlets have been less responsible. They merely skim the top few paragraphs, grab a photo or two and slap on a wildly misleading headline.
So as Steve's epic walk shot around the globe he was credited with, say, walking 70 miles one way to work and nearly everything else short of flying to the casino in a Superman cape.
The detail of how countless drivers have picked up Steve along the road so that often he doesn't need to hoof it the entire way got lost in the noise.
But the Simoffs have made some remarkable connections. Cyntthia Johnson of Clearwater, Fla., started the GoFundMe campaign. She empathized: Johnson, 50, and her son were homeless for a year. And the son had to walk half a dozen miles to work while still a teenager.
Five years later, her son, 20, is in the Navy and just returned from Japan. And she's back in college, studying criminology.
Another benefactor is Denny Hardy, a farmer from rural Churdan, who tracked down the Simoffs in Davis City. He's even helping the family find affordable housing in Osceola, closer to Steve's job.
"His days of walking are over if I have anything to do with it," Hardy told me.
Steve already is driving a car that gets better gas mileage. The Simoffs' minivan broke down, so the couple bought a used Hyundai Sante Fe from Renee's daughter.
I was as stymied as many readers about why the Simoffs hadn't moved to Osceola years ago. Renee cites the extra cash necessary to relocate, pay a rental deposit, etc.
"I don't just pick up from my home and go on a whim," Steve added.
Steve still bears the traces of a Chicago accent where he spent a hardscrabble childhood in an unstable home and says he quit high school as a sophomore.
As early as age 10, he says, he got a job as a "lumper" loading soap, food and other goods onto trucks at a manufacturer down the street from his home. He got used to walking long distances and apparently never stopped.
Would he change anything about his life, I wondered?
"I'd just leave it like it is," he said.
"Yeah, I've had some rough goes and stuff like that. But that's what makes life."
"You can't expect somebody that had a perfect life or a silver spoon put in their mouth to understand where us people are coming from that had to do things a lot different, you know.
"In other words, I'm a simple working man, and that's me, and it always will be. Money ain't going to change my attitude to the simple life."
His days of walking to work may be over, but Steve still prefers one step at a time.
Kyle Munson can be reached at 515-284-8124 or kmunson@dmreg.com. See more of his columns and video at DesMoinesRegister.com/KyleMunson. Connect with him on Facebook (/KyleMunson) and Twitter (@KyleMunson).


http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/local/kyle-munson/2015/03/14/steve-simoff-iowa-walker-reaction/70283188/