Sam had had enough.
He had been walking for weeks now (or was it months?), working his way from his home in Maine to California to find his fame and fortune. He was traveling the LONG WAY, just like his Grandfather had taught him.
But here, on the banks of the Mississippi river, he had finally met his match.
The LONG WAY.
"Thanks Grandpa", he muttered to himself as he trudged alongside the highways of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, "thanks for teaching me that the LONG WAY was the only WAY worth traveling."
"Thanks for telling me that the LONG WAY", he said under his breath as he limped through the ditches by the roads in New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, "was the answer, the question, and the instinct. That it taught character, morals; that it was the only way to live."
"You told me that the LONG WAY", he cursed to no-one in particular on the streets of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, "was the way to live without sacrificing truth, the only way to be true to yourself."
"Grandpa, you said that the LONG WAY", he spat through his teeth as he was passed by cars travelling through Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, "could not be ignored, and taking the EASY WAY was for the weak, the small, and the insignificant."
"But Grandpa," he said as he stood on the banks of the Mississippi river, looking across it at the Western side, "You never taught me how to SWIM!"
