Posted on 05/03/2005 7:05:25 PM PDT by kingattax
Steve Vaught tells everyone he's walking across America because he's fat and doesn't want to be. He fears he'll be dead before his children grow up.
"There aren't that many 50-year-old 375-pound guys waddling around," he says with a smile.
Vaught, 39, who lives in Valley Center with his wife and two kids, began walking from Oceanside April 10, bound for New York City.
But if you sit and talk with Vaught, he'll eventually tell you there's more to his story than excess weight. He has demons that need exorcising, memories that need to be dealt with.
Fifteen years ago, Vaught, a fit ex-Marine, was driving into the sun when an elderly couple crossed his path. His car struck them both. The woman went through the windshield; Vaught spent the night in jail with her blood in his hair.
That brief moment was the beginning of a downward spiral into depression and obesity.
Now Vaught is walking to lose weight – and to get his life back.
"There are a lot of evils that need to be worked out," he said.
Vaught, who grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, spent three years in the Marines and was honorably discharged in 1986 as a lance corporal. He has managed automotive repair businesses, and was part owner of a Pacific Beach towing company in the 1990s.
In March, he took a job as the manager of an Escondido muffler repair shop, but quit after a week. On March 31, as he struggled to walk through the Target store in Escondido, Vaught said, the notion of a cross-country walk was born.
"My back was all pinched up. I was out of breath," he said. "I said to April, 'I'd like to walk across the United States.' I thought she'd say I was crazy. Instead, she said, 'Well, go ahead.' "
A journey Vaught has tried losing weight before, without success. He's won't consider stomach-reduction surgery, calling it desperate and too expensive.
He long ago dismissed an idea so mundane as joining a gym. "If I don't dedicate myself completely, it goes to the wayside," he said last week while taping his feet in a small motel near Riverside.
But a cross-country walk, he said, would be a commitment, and a journey of discovery. "I have to look at it like it's part of an adventure. Just looking at it as a way of getting in shape, I'm not sure that would work."
Vaught, who decided not to consult a doctor before embarking on his trek, created a Web site and has sought donations for each mile he travels, and advertising for the site. He said goodbye to his wife, his daughter Melanie, 8, and his son, Marcus, 3.
And then he started walking.
Carrying a 50-pound backpack that holds a tent, food and lots of water, he has walked along state Route 76 to Interstate 15, along Old Highway 395 and through southern Riverside County on various lesser roads. In the desert, he says, he expects to be carrying about 10 extra pounds of water.
But progress has been painfully slow. Last week, the owner of The Circle Inn Motel in Glen Avon, about six miles west of Riverside, let him stay two nights for free while he rested his throbbing knee.
Wednesday afternoon, after meeting with his family at the motel, he walked five more miles. But before he could begin heading up the Cajon Pass and into the desert, he had to stop.
From a pay phone he called April, and she drove him home. A doctor diagnosed a strained ligament in his knee, which Vaught thinks he hurt when he fell hard on state Route 76 in Oceanside his second day out. Anti-inflammatory drugs and painkillers "have worked wonders," Vaught said Friday.
On Sunday his wife drove him back to where he left off, and yesterday he was heading north out of Riverside, she said.
Life-changing Police said Vaught was traveling too fast Oct. 8, 1990, given the poor visibility in the setting sun, when Zoltan and Emily Vegvary got off a bus. Vaught's 1980 Nissan 280ZX hit the couple at the intersection of Balboa and Mount Culebra avenues.
"I never saw them," Vaught said. "I still don't feel like I did anything wrong. But it changed my life forever."
Emily Vegvary, 75, died instantly. Her 81-year-old husband died three weeks later.
Vaught was arrested at the scene and released the next day. Six months later he was charged with felony vehicular manslaughter. He eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and spent 10 days in jail.
Vaught's name was Stephen Liller then. He had it legally changed about five years ago to his biological father's last name, according to court records.
The three years that followed the accident, Vaught says, are still a blur.
"I didn't care about anything," he said. He wandered aimlessly through life, and began eating more and exercising less. He was eventually able to pull himself together to a degree, but after eight years and more than 100 pounds he was diagnosed with depression. He's been on medication ever since, and for the most part has continued to get larger. He has weighed as much as 410 pounds.
"It's a thing that torments me," he said about the accident.
It certainly isn't lost on Vaught that walking across America along highways and back roads exposes him to the same danger that killed the Vegvarys. A couple of times already, he said, cars have veered toward him, seemingly on purpose.
But he says he's looking forward to the long, lonely stretches of road ahead. "There will be large expanses where it will just be me, and that's by design."
Kindness of strangers Vaught is not a rich man, and knows his journey will be a financial hardship on his family, who live with April's mother in Valley Center. He said he expects he will lose a house he owns in North Carolina, and probably will have to give up one of two cars because he won't be able to make payments. He hopes donations will help.
Except for a few days, Vaught has camped along the road: next to a taco shop in Temecula, in an open field south of Perris, and near a golf course close to March Air Force Base. Eventually he hopes to follow historic Route 66 into the Midwest.
He said he's often mistaken for a homeless man. He's learning how to lie low and conceal himself and his tent. Otherwise, sleep is restless.
He has a small canister of pepper spray, and as of Sunday a cell phone that April insisted he carry. "I worry about him," she said.
A few television, radio and newspaper stories about Vaught's quest to lose weight appeared last month. His Web site, at www.thefatmanwalking.com, has a daily journal chronicling his progress, and he said it has gotten several thousand hits. Neither the site nor most of the news stories have mentioned the 1990 accident.
April said people have been e-mailing from all over the place with encouraging words and offers to put him up.
He hopes his pace will speed up dramatically as his fitness improves and he learns the secrets of walking, walking, walking. He'd like to be in New York by October.
"Of the hundreds of people I've met so far only two of the experiences have been negative," he said. "People have been very gracious. It gives me hope."
Ex-Marine PING
Hat's off to this guy.
Definitely
I started doing racewalking with my sister. I really like to run personally now even though my j.lo azz slows me down considerably. Oh well what a burden :o)
Unusual, to say the least ... but best wishes to the gentleman and his family.
I hope he is successful not only with the walk but with unburdening his soul. It is obvious to anyone that while he says he thinks he didn't do anything wrong, his lifestyle says different.
He weighs 375 and he is carrying 50 lbs of backpack , Thats 425 lbs on his knees and ankles, Pretty hard , the knees werent made for that kind of strain. He would be better off pushing a hand cart for the pack or pulling a little red wagon.
"I do not have a receipt, I won it as a door prize at the Star Trek convention, although I find their choice of prize highly illogical as the average Trekker has no use for a medium-sized belt."
lol..very good
Definitely. Even if the law doesn't hold a person accountable, his conscience knows if he was negligent. Too late to bring the old couple back, so I hope this man finds some healing.
And...
Vaught, who decided not to consult a doctor before embarking on his trek, created a Web site and has sought donations for each mile he travels, and advertising for the site. He said goodbye to his wife, his daughter Melanie, 8, and his son, Marcus, 3. ...
I hope he makes it but this appears foolhardy, considering his very poor physical condition. Suicide by big rig? He is, after all, haunted by the elderly couple he turned into roadkill. Donations... to financially help his family after he's gone? Something doesn't seem quite right.
Reading some of his journal entries leads me to believe that his progress at first is so slow, that his wife could pick him up at the end of the day, he could spend the night at home and be dropped of the next day where he left off. The first week he only logged about ten miles.
We've seen yer pic Cyborg your far from that big'a booty !
Considering how mushy she's been looking lately, I agree! :o)
Yeah an working with hanoi jane makes her all azz......what ever career she had left was flushed when she appeared with that trash on the screen.
Stay safe C !
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