Munson: 35 miles in Steve's shoes

DAVIS CITY, Ia. – Steve Simoff's daily commute to and from work can be more than a full-time job.

His route stretches 35 miles from this "deader-than-a-doornail" small town near the Missouri border all the way north to Lakeside Casino in Osceola.

And Simoff, 61, often hoofs it to work. That's right, he walks along Interstate Highway 35, the lone figure striding along the shoulder of the road, dwarfed by semitrailer trucks that whoosh by at 70 miles per hour.

He doesn't clock in until 11 p.m. for his overnight shift as a janitor. But to give himself time to get there on foot, he bounds out of the front door of his basement apartment at 3:30 p.m.

On those days, his 2002 Ford Windstar minivan with 105,000 miles on its odometer stays parked in the driveway. The Simoffs haven't always had a car. But even now that they do, gas money is tight.

Simoff doesn't see himself as extraordinary. He lives here with his wife, Renee, and their grandson, Steven III, whom they adopted. In his mind, he merely takes the necessary steps — pun intended — to help his household scrape by.

"First of all, when you got a family, and you've got a job," he said, "you've got to be able to support your family. And you've got to keep your job — the most two important things I can think of."

KINDRED SOUL IN DETROIT

If Simoff's story has a familiar ring to it, it's because of his kindred soul in Detroit.

James Robertson, 56, made national headlines last month when it was revealed that he spent years walking 21 miles round trip through city streets to and from his factory job.

Instant fame bestowed both financial boon and inevitable complications. Robertson received a $350,000 windfall from a GoFundMe campaign and a new Ford Taurus. But he also had to move amid concerns that he'd become an easy target.

Now we have Robertson's rural Iowa doppelganger, also clinging to the socioeconomic fringe while hidden in plain sight as an extreme pedestrian commuter.

On average, Simoff says he catches rides perhaps three out of the five days during his Thursday-to-Tuesday work week. Sundays are the sparsest.

Some days, he might walk for only an hour or two. Other days, he might trudge along for six or more. Overall, he probably averages nearly four hours a day walking to work.

Lately, Simoff has been hitching a ride most of the way home with a co-worker who lives in Leon, leaving him a morning jaunt of barely more than eight miles.

Simoff has become "a public figure, but nobody really knows him," said Steven, 22, who has been unemployed since January. He considers his grandfather his hero. When Steven worked an overnight warehouse job for several months, the extra money meant the two of them could put gas in the minivan and carpool.

Unlike the Detroit commuter, Simoff doesn't blend into the city landscape among typical pedestrians.

But that also is an asset: Since he's more visible, Simoff benefits from sympathetic good Samaritans who stop and ask if he needs a lift. He doesn't thumb rides.

"It all depends on weather and what people feel like that day, if they're going to stop and pick you up," he said.

Simoff has cultivated a diverse patchwork of road friends in his on-and-off decade as southern Iowa's epic walker.

"He can't go into the grocery store without seeing one of them," Renee said.

On milder winter days, Simoff usually pulls on his pair of black SAS shoes, bundles in a warm coat and slaps a ballcap atop his thick head of salt-and-pepper hair. No gloves.

A RECENT COMMUTE

Register photographer Rodney White and I decided to join Simoff on one of his recent commutes.

• 3:30 p.m. — Simoff gave Renee a final kiss and stepped out into the crisp cold and bright sunshine. His weather-beaten face appears flaky red from sun and wind.

Early in his trek west along U.S. Highway 69 toward the interstate, Simoff walked along a narrow strip of pavement. Occasionally as traffic approached, he veered onto the gravel shoulder, following the tracks of Amish buggy wheels and horses' hooves.

He might spot the occasional lucky penny. But mostly, his commute is strewn with tire shreds, beer cans and fast-food debris.

• 4:10 p.m. — Sheena Melody Lee of rural Leon and her two great-grandsons were en route to the bank in Lamoni when they saw Simoff. She chauffeured him a couple miles along Highway 69 and dropped him off at the entrance ramp to I-35.

• 4:30 p.m. — Simoff strolled beneath the I-35 overpass at 280th St., about 51/ 2 miles into his commute. Cattle in a nearby field stared at him.

• 5:46 p.m. — He reached the stretch of I-35 where the median widens with a patch of timber. Simoff had walked fewer than 10 miles at this point. Minutes later, Emil Segebart pulled alongside Simoff in his Mercury sedan. Segebart, general manager of utilities in Lamoni, has been giving rides to Simoff for a decade and admires the man's fortitude.

"He's trying to earn a living," Segebart said. "That's how I look at it. You're trying to earn a living and doing what it takes. And this is what it takes."

The two men met on an I-35 entrance ramp, "and we've been sort-of friends ever since," Simoff said, turning to Segebart. "I guess that's the way you'd classify us. Otherwise you wouldn't pick me up all the time."

• 6:12 p.m. — Since he wasn't in a hurry, Segebart went out of his way to drop off Simoff at the front door of the casino. On this day, the janitor had to trudge less than one-third the distance to work.

"Now all it is is the waiting game," Simoff said.

He wound his way into the bowels of the gambling complex. He poured a coffee and sat in the break room, where a free buffet and a blaring TV are provided for employees.

"It's just an iffy thing," he said of his commute. "Today I got lucky."

Julio Camacho works security at the casino.

"He's dedicated, and he works his buns off," Camacho said of Simoff. "If I see him, I pick him up."

The morning after White and I followed him, Simoff made it back to Davis City before 9:30 a.m.

PLAYING THE ROADSIDE ODDS

Simoff says he has walked in rain, sleet, even calf-deep snow.

His commute would be slightly shorter — and more scenic — if he headed straight north along U.S. Highway 69. But swinging west to the interstate offers higher traffic volume: For a guy who works at the casino, Simoff knows how to play the roadside odds.

"Everybody in the county knows him as far as I know," said Herbert Muir, who has been sheriff of Decatur County for 17 years. He and his deputies have given Simoff rides.

Muir first met Simoff after his office began receiving calls in winter "about a guy in black walking up the highway."

"There's no danger about him or anything," the sheriff added. "He's personable. He's not been in trouble. He just walks."

MONEY STILL TIGHT

Simoff says he's never been injured while walking to work. He still cuts a reasonably trim figure. A case of osteoarthritis in his right knee nags at him.

He's doesn't take any medication beyond the occasional aspirin or Tylenol. He swigs a lot of coffee. A lump of Grizzly Wintergreen Long Cut chewing tobacco tucked between his cheek and gums is his "only downfall," he says.

"I may have slowed up a heck, but it don't feel any different," he said of covering so much ground at his age. "I try to find my comfort zone."

Simoff also spends his eight-hour shift on his feet cleaning the casino, except for two 15-minute breaks and a half hour for lunch.

After Renee, 61, suffered a stroke nine years ago, walking became empowerment.

Hand-in-hand with her husband around Lamoni, in ever longer distances, Renee leveraged her stubbornness to retrain her body and brain to walk.

Renee then suffered a pair of heart attacks within the same day in 2010 and required heart bypass surgery.

Her disability — Renee's Supplemental Security Income checks add a little cushion to Simoff's $9.07-per-hour job — prodded Simoff to walk to work on a more regular basis.

"When you add everything up, I feel like we're going broke," Renee said.

A RELIABLE EMPLOYEE

The couple is often asked why they haven't just moved closer to Simoff's job.

Renee's daughter, Melinda Lee, 40, lives in Truro. In the next year or two, the Simoffs may relocate closer to her.

"He's been a dad to me in every way possible since I was 15," Lee said of Simoff.

In this sense, the Simoffs' situation also seems to echo Robertson in Detroit: Low-wage earners may keep such a tenacious grip on any sort of stable housing — such a core sense of security — that they'll go to extraordinary lengths in their everyday routines.

Robertson more or less benefited from free housing in Detroit.

Monthly rent of $400 in Davis City is the Simoffs' biggest expense, followed by groceries.

Simoff has been a steady, reliable employee, cultivating a long career in security jobs. He worked at the casino from about 2000 to 2006, then got jobs at the detention center in Bethany, Mo., and at Graceland University in Lamoni before returning to the casino about five years ago.

Simoff is proud of every merit pin awarded by the casino, which he adds to his name badge.

"If I don't get to work," he said, "bills don't get paid. As long as my two feet are good and my health is good, I don't think I'll change."

MARATHON COMMUTERS

To be clear, Simoff didn't seek me out. I first heard about him after posting a link online to the story of the Detroit commuter.

There's a guy in southern Iowa who walks even farther, somebody told me on Twitter.

At first I couldn't believe it.

But when I began to independently poll some contacts in and around Decatur County, it seemed nearly everyone had heard of Simoff, seen him or given him a ride.

I stopped a woman at random in Davis City. Melissa Adams lives in Lamoni and was visiting town. She didn't remember Simoff's name or where he lived, but she had once given him a ride.

"It's amazing to me that he can actually walk that far," Adams said.

It's almost as if these marathon commuters — Simoff, Robertson and untold others — are all-too-visible illustrations of America's wider gulf between the haves and the have-nots.

And at some point, not even the most industrious, tireless walker is able to bridge the gap.

Kyle Munson can be reached at 515-284-8124 or kmunson@dmreg.com. See more of his columns and video at DesMoinesRegister.com/KyleMunson. Connect with him on Facebook (/KyleMunson) and Twitter (@KyleMunson).

THE AMERICAN WALK TO WORK

According to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, marathon walking commuter Steve Simoff of Davis represents a slim minority.

Among all American workers — nearly 140 million people age 16 and older — fewer than 3 percent commute on foot.

In Iowa, 3.6 percent of workers are walking commuters — compared with 2.2 percent in Michigan, where newly famous walking commuter James Robertson has trod the streets of Detroit.

Contrast that with the 6.4 percent of New Yorkers who walk to work. A whopping 22 percent of New Yorkers don't even have access to a vehicle, compared with 4 percent in Iowa, where mass transit is less common.

Among all workers nationwide, according to these five-year estimates from 2013, only about 8 percent need an hour or more to get to their jobs.