The sun was low, painting the sky orange, as school ended at Los Fresnos High School. Most students hopped in cars or buses, but a few chose the sidewalk shuffle, known as “the long walk home.”
Noah Reyes, a junior, lived close, less than a mile down Texas State Highway 100.
“The bus takes forever,” he said. “I can walk it in fifteen minutes.” He liked the short walk a lot better than taking the bus. He lives at the Rojo Apartments and his route often takes him past the Los Fresnos Nature Park on North Arroyo Boulevard.
Christian Rodriguez, a senior coming directly from the CTEC building, concurred. Living closer still, his ten-minute walk was his “me time.”
“It’s a nice cool-down period,” he observed, a quiet buffer between school and home. He lives in the neighborhood near the Los Cuates Cemetery off of West Ocean Boulevard.
Then there was Dillan McClain and his junior friends. They didn’t leave right away. Rather, they headed across South Corral Drive to the Los Fresnos Community Park, dropping their heavy backpacks near the benches and immediately starting a game of pickup basketball.
They stayed until the sun had almost completely disappeared and the park lights flickered on. The delay meant that their actual walk home took much later compared to everybody else. Dillan lives in Camino Del Rey near Liberty Memorial Middle School, a route that takes them along West Seventh Street and past the local branch of Texas Regional Bank.
“Our parents are still at work when the final bell rings,” Dillan explained as they finally laced up their shoes to leave the park. “We can either wait around an hour and a half for someone to pick us up from school, or we can just hang here, play ball, and walk home after.”
By the time they began the final leg of the journey home, it was dark. The long walk home became a necessity and a daily routine filled with shared friendship and the satisfied exhaustion of a good game.
To all of them, the walk was about independence or efficiency, or shared friendship. As others were waiting, they just continued walking, finding their own way home, one step at a time, through the streets of Los Fresnos.