Word: malle
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Sweat-suited and sneaker-footed, with pedometers clipped firmly at waists, they appear, sometimes before dawn, and slip quietly through the shopping-mall entrance with a wave to smiling guards. Early-bird bargain hunters? Well, no. These are not sales stalkers but a growing breed of fitness faddists, the mall walkers...
Walking is the preferred exercise of more and more Americans, especially the aging and ailing. "It's aerobic, it burns calories, and it's less intense than jogging," says Gary Yanker, editor of Walking World. "More people are regular walkers than runners, about 55 million compared with 34 million." Malls--conveniently located, climate controlled and security patrolled--have rapidly emerged as the ideal site for stress-free strutting. "We don't have to bother with dogs, traffic problems, rocks, hills or pollen," exults Helen Gulledge, 69. An arthritis sufferer, she and her husband Luther, 75, who has heart trouble, tick...
Community-relations-minded shopping centers have begun to court strollers. ) Many open their doors before regular store hours; some are measuring off courses and issuing walkers' maps. The quarter-mile circuit at the Northwoods mall in Peoria, Ill., even includes half a dozen stations for stretching and light calisthenics. The Ward Parkway Shopping Center in Kansas City, a pioneer that has been welcoming mall walkers for 25 years, actually opens for three hours on holidays just to accommodate its habitual hikers...
With local hospitals or health organizations, the malls are also establishing walkers' clubs that offer T shirts and buttons, merchant discounts, occasional free breakfasts and, most important, mileage logs for members. Walkers keep as close tabs on their totals as runners do of their times. "I'm on my 600th mile," boasts Ruth Kaufman, 60, a member of the Galleria Mall GoGetters in Glendale, Calif. "I could have gone to San Francisco by now." Observes Pat Garmer of Peoria's Northwoods center: "Let me tell you, you don't get in their...
...Saturday a march in Bonn sponsored by the leftist Green political party attracted 7,000 political radicals, peace activists and leather-jacketed punkers. They carried banners with anti-NATO and pro- Communist slogans. Police charged one group of marchers burning an American flag in Munsterplatz, a cobblestoned pedestrian mall in the city center, and used tear gas to break up some of the crowd. In the ensuing melee, eleven officers and some of the protesters were injured. Some 35 demonstrators were arrested...