MALL WALKERS TURE TO TASK: 7,778 MILES

Lorn and Mary Honey might well view West Park Mall as their own personal exercise track. In the past 7 years, they've walked 7,778 miles over the mall's parquet floor.

That's more than twice the distance between the East and West coasts.

The Honeys are faithful mall walkers. Almost daily they make the 26-mile trip from their Tamms, Ill., Route 1 home to the Cape Girardeau mall, arriving around 8 or 8:15 a.m. The mall opens at 8 a.m., although most of the stores don't open that early.

Lorn, 68, and Mary, 65, generally walk each morning Monday through Saturday. "Sometimes we are here seven days," said Lorn Honey.

"We started walking in September '85," he recalled. "I had a heart attack and they wanted me to start walking."

In March of last year Lorn Honey had heart surgery. But within weeks, with the blessing of his doctor, he returned to his daily mall walk.

The Honeys keep track of all those footsteps. The interior perimeter of the mall corridors is about three-fourths of a mile in length. Four trips around the mall amounts to a distance of three miles, said Lorn Honey.

"We used to walk four miles a day," he pointed out. But they've cut back now to about 2 to 3 miles a day, a distance they cover in about an hour.

"We just walk a pretty good pace," he said.

The Honeys aren't the only people who walk there. They estimate the mall is visited by about 150 to 200 walkers almost daily.

There's a camaraderie among the walkers. "We like to do the walking, but we like to do the visiting too," said Lorn Honey.

After the workout, Lorn and some of his walking buddies will generally congregate at the A&W Hog Dogs stand in the mall for some friendly conversation. "You can go in there and find out about anything you want to know from politics to dirty jokes," he smilingly observed.

The women have their own gathering spot in front of the mall's Cookie Corner shop.

It's usually 10 or 10:30 a.m. before the Honeys leave the mall.

Lorn Honey said the climate-controlled mall is a perfect place to walk year-round. It's perfect, too, for those who need to take a break from all that walking. "In here, within 50 feet of you, there is a place to sit down all the time," he said.

On their mall walks, they see all the stores. "You can do that window shopping while they (the stores) are closed," he said.

For those thinking of taking up walking, the Honeys have some advice: wear the proper shoes. "You need really good walking shoes," said Lorn Honey.

"If we have to keep the grandkids, we just drag them along, too," said Mary Honey. "They know when they stay they're going to walk."

The Honeys live on a farm, although they no longer do any farming themselves.

"We just live there now and mow grass. That's about all we do," he said.

That, and walk, and walk and walk.