The Walker

January 8, 2014 § 2 Comments

He comes to mind periodically, usually when I myself am out walking. We called him The Walker and for years we’d see him striding briskly through Silverlake and environs, always shirtless and in gym shorts, his head bent down over a periodical.

Over time, he caught the media’s attention and through their stories we learned he was a cardiologist in private practice somewhere in the Valley and that he walked long distances–10 miles comes to mind–every day.

He became a fixture; if you mentioned The Walker, everyone knew who you meant.

I sometimes wondered how a busy cardiologist could have time for a daily 2-3 hour exercise program.

A few years back, we learned the answer when he was indicted for running an opiod prescription mill. The case had not progressed very far before the walking doctor was found dead in his hot tub. He had committed suicide.

The man lives on, however, in two Silverlake murals. The students at Micheltorena School included him in a mural at the far end of their school yard.

Then there’s the artist who wryly inserted him into another Sunset Boulevard mural: Amidst chiaroscuro scenes of bygone L.A. days, The Walker is the sole figure in color. Now he, too, is gone.