Walk of Discovery : Fred Turner’s Truck Broke Down in South Carolina, so He Hoofed It to California, Finding Good People Along the Way

Ever heard of Earp, Calif.? Well, Fred Turner says, “You should have. It exists.”

So does Ocmulgee State Park, in Georgia, and Surprise, Ariz. Deleon, Texas, has the best peach and melon festival around. Turner should know, since the town’s mayor placed him under house arrest--as a guest in the mayoral manor--for the two-day fest.

Limping slightly and flashing red suspenders, Turner arrived in Carlsbad in San Diego County on Wednesday after walking America’s back roads all the way from Beaufort, S.C.

With his ruddy tan and hollow cheeks, Turner, 53, is 25 pounds lighter than when he set out on his cross-country walk May 5. But the philosophy that motivated the Sparks, Nev., man remains unchanged: Less than 1% of the people out there are bad, and the rest are gold, Turner says.

He got a taste of the dastardly 1% eight days after he set out when he was robbed on a highway bridge that separates Georgia from South Carolina.

Turner said he flipped over a three-foot railing, plunged 80 feet into the Savannah River and lost consciousness--along with some precious belongings, such as $480, his right shoe, his hat and his walking stick.

The mishap put Turner on the fast track to media fame, when newscasts nationwide featured his story. He used the opportunity to express his view that good outweighs evil in America’s heartland. He prefers to talk about the good.

“I used to say it wasn’t my day. But it was my day. I didn’t die,” Turner said of his river fall. “I’m a positive thinker.”

When the hubbub died down, he resumed his trek across the United States.

Walking along with a micro-cassette recorder, Turner recorded hours of musings. He entered the names of nearly 400 people he met into a computerized data-holder and got a local official to stamp his little white notebook in every small town he passed through.

In Show Low, Ariz., it was Police Officer 134 who signed. In Albany, Tex., the only official stamp around was the city of Albany Cemetery Trust Account.

Turner’s odyssey began when he was vacationing in Beaufort and the alternator in his 14-year-old Ford pickup broke. While he had his head under the hood repairing it, a stranger walked by, noticed Turner’s Nevada license plates, and joked that he might just have to walk home.

“I weighed the pros and the cons, and the only con I could find was that some people would think I was crazy,” Turner said. “So I thought I’d walk, take the back roads and stop at every dot.”

The final page of Turner’s notebook is marked by the official gold seal of Carlsbad.