You’ve probably heard some form of the expression, “I walked to school uphill both ways,” at some point in your life, and it was probably an exaggeration.

Unless you grew up in Mt. Lebanon.

When I moved to Lebo in the summer of 1997 with first grade at Jefferson Elementary School on the horizon, it wasn’t long before I realized just exactly what it meant to reside in a walking community.

And I loved it.

Living somewhere without school buses as an option meant there were two choices to make it to the classroom: hitching a ride from a parent — or a friend’s mom — or lacing up the sneakers and hitting the pavement. For me, the latter was almost always the preferred method, especially when snowflakes were flying.

That first experience of walking to school every day wasn’t a long trek. Our first house in town sat on the corner of Bower Hill Road and Parkview Drive, just a block away from Jefferson Elementary — but to a 6-year-old, the journey down a four-lane road with cars whizzing by certainly got the senses going early in the morning. The reward for making it to Ruth Street was tasting the honeysuckle plants that grew along the sidewalk in the warmer months.

A couple of years later, we moved out of our rental and into a house on Sylvandell Drive, which was much closer to Hoover Elementary than Jefferson. Thankfully, my mom somehow convinced the powers that be to let me stay with my friends and continue attending my first choice.

Of course, that meant a much further commute which usually – and thankfully – comprised a ride in the morning, but then a walk all the way down Bower Hill past St. Clair Hospital in the afternoon. On warmer days, I remember stopping at the Rite Aid next to the old Food Gallery for a sugar-filled beverage that I’m sure was more than enough hydration for a preteen.

Our residence on Sylvandell remained home until the summer of 2003 when I hit the jackpot before the start of eighth grade.

My mom and stepdad purchased a house on Ella Street, right across from the path that led from my driveway to the Bower Hill Road crosswalk, up Moffett Street and straight to the front door for my final year at Jefferson Middle School.

Not only did I now walk with friends up that path just about every morning, but many of us took that same thruway back down to my house after school once the bell rang at 2:58 in the afternoon. The extra attention at the front door wasn’t always favored, but I appreciated living at a rest stop for friends more often than not.

That convenience factor was short-lived, however, with freshman year at the high school next on the docket in the fall of 2004. The most direct route from Ella Street to the Lebanon Avenue entrance of the building meant hiking up Hollycrest Drive, really putting that “uphill to school” mantra to good use.

That was my route for all four years, hitching the occasional ride during a downpour, but otherwise braving the elements. If I was wearing a jacket or coat as the seasons changed, I’d be lucky to not be dripping with sweat by the time my friends and I reached the summit, but that was all part of the experience.

The only times I rode a school bus in Mt. Lebanon was for the occasional field trip in the early years — shoutout to the high school planetarium — and then as a member of the drumline to away football games on Friday nights in the fall. I’ve always had an uneasy stomach in the car anyway, so getting my steps in across those 12 years to make it to and from school was honestly a welcomed necessity.

We have hills in Nashville, where I’ve lived for the last decade, but I miss those peaks and valleys in Mt. Lebanon that led to our educational institutions each morning. I miss my friends I shared those journeys with, I miss the crossing guards who kept us safe, and I even miss having to decide between freezing with shorts in the morning or sweating with pants in the afternoon during those seesaw Pittsburgh temperatures. Pro tip? Embrace the morning chill and let the legs breathe.

As a new school year begins, perhaps we could all take a lesson from the new generation still making it up Hollycrest and get our steps in.