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updated 3:14 p.m. ET March 9, 2005

UNITY, Maine - For nearly a quarter century of winter snowstorms, spring rains and summer heat, Jimmy Hubbard has hoofed it to and from his job as a custodian, a daily round trip of five miles across central Maine’s farming country.

The rail-thin 60-something isn’t interested in being a model of environmentalism at the ecology-minded Unity College where he works. He shows scant interest in the state’s media campaigns to get people to walk more and live healthier lives.

“I don’t do it to be a model,” Hubbard said with a wide, toothless grin. “I do it 'cause I have to get places.”

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Power-walking around the Earth
So far, his daily treks have amounted to power-walking around the Earth, or hiking the Appalachian Trail 14 times. He has no interest in buying a car and no intention of quitting his daily jaunts until his retirement in a couple more years.

“I don’t mind,” Hubbard said on a recent morning after making his way to work through a late-winter rain that washed away part of the snow left by a blizzard a few days earlier. “It’s just the idea that I have to get where I’m going and just keep going 'til I get there.”

He had a car years ago — he doesn’t remember the year or model — but gave it to his brother. He never bothered to go for his driver’s license after getting his permit. “I’m just a person who doesn’t have to have a lot of fancy stuff,” he said.

Once in a while, he accepts a ride if someone offers it and the weather’s especially bad.

Hubbard lives in the little yellow house where he was born. It sits close to a road that winds through the woods at the edge of this town of about 1,800 people. On his 20 acres, he keeps a variety of pets, including three llamas, a bobcat, coyote, Canadian lynx and foxes, sheep, pheasants and peacocks.

Feeding and caring for his animals gets Hubbard up at 4 or 5 a.m., keeps him busy well into the evening after he returns from work, and costs $600 a month. “I’ve had animals ever since I was a kid,” said Hubbard, who is no longer married but lives with a son and teenage grandchildren. “It’s just a hobby.”

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