It's a bit of a tangent but my dad literally told me he walked 7 miles to school every day, this was in S. Caroline during the depression.
He had been gone years and I had an aunt over there who was getting quite elderly, and I had been promising a visit. One fine day, I got off my butt and did go visit. At one point I mentioned the 7-mile thing and she allowed that it was about right, but why guess, it turns out both the house they grew up in, and the schoolhouse, were still standing. So we took a drive to get a measurement.
That walk ended up being 6.8 miles... Close enough for me.
