In just a few weeks my wife and I will depart for Seattle and a long bike tour along the Pacific Coast Highway. We would love it if you would continue along with us. The miles are daunting – almost 2,000 but we are looking forward to the scenery, the people and the time together. My first post about this journey is on the new blog http://afterfiftyadventureman.com/the-cyclists-leap/ .
All new stories will be posted to the new blog. Follow me there.
Elisabeth, superhero at Western Lake along the Timpoochie Trail
My wife, Elisabeth, and I agree to embark on a day of cycling the Timpoochee Trail, near Destin, Florida. Located on the shore of the Florida Panhandle, the Timpoochee is an example of the great bike trails proliferating around the nation, as more and more people turn to cycling for fun and exercise. At 18.6 paved miles, the Timpoochee Trail parallels the entire length of Scenic Highway 30A from Dune Allen to Inlet Beach.
Unfortunately, this once pristine section of the Gulf Coast has been overtaken by developers, whose profit-driven schemes are responsible for the profusion of luxury condominiums, restaurants, shops, and other lifestyle-related accoutrement. However, the destruction of natural Florida is not news – it has become the backdrop to all who live in the Sunshine State. So I will attempt to tell this particular adventure without further ranting.
(Well. Without too much further ranting.)
* * *
We start our day with a hefty breakfast at the Donut Hole, a Destin favorite. And while, sadly, we don’t actually eat any donuts, the apple crumb variety awakens fond boyhood memories of feasting on those very same delights at Mims Bakery (Jacksonville) in the 1960s. After fueling ourselves, we make our way to Topsail Hill Preserve State Park, which is directly across the street from the Timpoochee trailhead, and park (it costs $6, but, hey, it’s easy), hop on our trusty bikes, and wind our way to the trail, which parallels the beach.
The calm waters of the Gulf of Mexico beside us, we pedal east, passing some of the rarest ecology in the world – a unique cluster of coastal dune lakes. These fragile ecosystems exist only in certain areas of New Zealand, Australia, Madagascar, Oregon, South Carolina, and, yes, the Florida Panhandle. Walton County is home to fifteen such lakes, and during our ride we passed eleven of them. These exquisite forms are created when the freshwater from higher inland elevations flow into lowland basins, which are separated from the Gulf of Mexico by a single row of high sand dunes. A mixture of salt water and fresh, the lakes appear almost black, a coloration derived from the tannins in fallen leaves, and look like misshapen black pearls against the brilliant white sand and deep azure of the ocean sky.
Beneath the wild blue yonder, a cool breeze blows in from the north and the entire scene seems postcard perfect. Almost.
We ride slowly through the small villages of Dune Allen and Gulf Place, weaving in and around throngs of tourists dragging assorted coolers, chairs, and umbrellas. As we pedal past the luxury condominiums and palatial mansions that line the beachfront, we notice the occasional older beach home tucked in between them. These as-yet-unbulldozed relics of the nineteen fifties, ’sixties, and ’seventies stand as sad and lonely sentinels of an earlier, less congested time.
By the time we reach Blue Mountain Beach, which is both the highest point in the entire Gulf of Mexico and approximately eight miles from our starting point, I find myself thinking of what desert environmentalist Edward Abbey says in his 1977 book, The Journey Home: Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. Surrounded by the sprawl that has been created despite attempts to block it, it is difficult to find fault with his sentiment. But as we crest the mountain at a nosebleed elevation of sixty-four feet, I come to a halt.
There, at the very top of Blue Mountain, is a lone red brick home. A mansion by nineteen-fifty standards, this home has presence; it exudes authority. If the old beach relics we passed earlier were lonely sentinels, this is their tribal chieftain. Fittingly, its grounds do not suffer from neglect. The lawn is manicured, and I even spy a fresh coat of white paint glistening on the window trim. The yard, which comprises acres of freshly mown grass, leads to an expansive view of the Gulf. It is a view that conjures a bluff high above the New England coast and a lonely widow waiting, hoping against hope that her husband will return from the sea.
My heart sinks. I am no captain’s widow, yet I have a sense of impending doom. It is not the sea that threatens, however. It is developers, circling this house like sharks, waiting to tear it to pieces in a bloody assault.
When I turn and see Elisabeth sailing down the other side of Blue Mountain, I begin pedaling to catch up. But inside I am grieving. I hate – and I never say that word and mean it, but I do now in this moment – I hate that the state I love has come to this.
* * *
For us, the Timpoochee Trail is proving itself a game of environmental hopscotch. Our emotions continue to rollercoaster as, after Blue Mountain, we ride, alternately, past the magnificent ecological treasures of the dune lakes and through mutant coastal communities: Grayton Beach, Water Color, Seaside, Seagrove, Water Sound, Prominence, and finally Alys Beach, each of which, once a pristine place of natural Florida beauty, is now an overly sophisticated, thoughtlessly developed abomination.
Still, as we bicycle, I notice myself thinking that, well, maybe, if we were to find a home on the outskirts of one of these towns – closer to the nature part of the roller coaster, possibly by one of the dune lakes – it might be a fun place to live. Lots of night life. Neatly planned communities. Pretty houses. But when I turn and share these thoughts with Elisabeth, she comes to a squealing stop and, hands clenching her handlebars, barks, “Have you lost your fucking mind, Hugh?”
Ah. Good question.
I believe I must stop here and reveal my inner duality. There is Ardent Hugh, he with whom I am proud to be associated, who is righteously overcome by the horror of what we see as we pedal. Honest with himself, he recognizes that he is a member of the generation responsible for inflicting such injury on his beloved landscape and vows to do something about it.
The Yielding Hugh, whom I try to keep shoved quietly out of sight in a single small chamber of my heart, tries to negotiate with the damage. He not only attempts to find the positive in a land that Ardent Hugh sees teetering on the edge of destruction, he actually finds something alluring about the trendy, always accessible luxury. He responds to the fabulous foods and the architectural facades, and he envies, just a bit, the crowds of beautiful people whose fancy cars and fine clothes say, We made it.
Those two aspects of my personality generate a friction that has plagued me for most of my adult life. Ardent Hugh would have me be an activist. But the other half of me prefers an easier road: He wants to go with the flow, not dig in and make a stand. And as these two hang in the balance, I am afraid I don’t have the courage to be as responsible or honest as Ardent Hugh would have me be. Am I a hedonist? Maybe. Because, while Rome may be burning, I could definitely go for a microbrew right now.
I glance at Elisabeth. Standing astride her blue Orbea speed bike, clad in skintight spandex cycling garb and wearing a blue helmet and mirrored shades, she looks like some kind of superhero. And like a superhero, she is immune to the fever that is infecting me. She is the rock. But I, Yielding, am the willow that bends.
The trendy shops, more at home in cities like Atlanta, Los Angeles, or Miami than in north Florida, murmuring slogans with mood words like calm, grace, and serenity are brick-and-mortar streetwalkers, which, with the restaurants, the new beach architecture, and the finely tuned graphics are out to seduce me. It’s ok, they whisper. This is what you want. You belong here. Spend freely. Relax, and enjoy the contact with “nature.” You can have it all. Right here. Right now. And Grace Point, Water Sound, Hidden Harbor at Redfish – each subdivision name tugs at me. Now, facing a sleek new condo that coos, Relaxation is an art form, and displays the sexy silhouette of a woman, I am ready to sign a lease.
No wonder a generation of baby boomers has flocked to this coastal destination. The subliminal mind fuck got to them. But Elisabeth is stronger than all that. With a snap of her head she looks away from the mirage and says, “This is crazy. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Right. It is crazy. But even as I push off and follow in my wife’s super-powered slipstream, I know that as we slip in and out of these perfectly manicured villages, my Achilles heel is exposed. Despite my desire to cleave to Ardent Hugh’s convictions, the need I have had all of my life – to belong, to fit in – but have never been able to really achieve leaves me vulnerable to the false promises of the manufactured paradise we are cycling through.
Now, as we enter Seaside, the jewel in the crown of Florida’s master-planned communities, I have to laugh. This is where The Truman Show was filmed. In the movie, Seaside itself is an elaborate stage, upon which the main character, Truman, lives the perfect life, surrounded by loads of happy, smiling people, who love him. The whole thing is a charade, though. Truman’s entire life is actually a reality TV show, and everyone in his village is in on it – except for Truman.
As I pedal through the quaint, looks-like-handcrafted beauty of the business district and residential neighborhoods, I long, just for a moment, to be Truman, living a peaceful, if deceived, life at home in this small city of perfection, where everything is nice and sweet and clean – and uncomplicated. How blissful to be completely unaware of real life. (Hush, Ardent Hugh!)
The creators of Seaside knew what they were doing. Knew exactly which buttons to push, when they crafted this place. They created a town that’s a drug too potent to fit in a bottle – it emanates its numbing vibe from every side, and each and every detail is a reminder of how much you need its soothing high. Chrome bike stands on every corner, stripe-awning covered shops beckoning softly, small Airstream food trucks lining the town center. Yeah. They’re good.
I approach one of the adorable food trucks and pay $11.75 for a teacup-sized “bowl” of granola – and I’m smiling to myself because it comes with sliced bananas and organic almond milk. As I spoon each precious morsel, a small bag of organic coconut macaroons catches my eye. Perfect macaroons. Sweet. Organic. Almost as if I were hypnotized, I hand over an additional $8.95. I slip them into my pocket before Elisabeth can see.
Back on our bikes, we pedal through a neighborhood of houses – “residences,” as they are called – a tribute to the architecturally sublime. Each one looks as if it has won an award from Southern Living. At first, I feel the heat of envy rising, but as each street flows into the next, rows and neighborhoods seem to clone themselves, one after another, and I begin to wonder, Is this an architectural Garden of Eden or a giant maze, a dark Disney World from which there is no escape?
But there is still that part of me who can picture myself walking out the front door of my perfect “residence” each morning, perfectly brewed cup of coffee cup in hand, reaching for the perfect paper – the one filled with only happy news. My perfectly friendly neighbor waves at me with a satisfied grin, and, together, we listen to the perfect, endless piped-in loop of perfect, chirping birds.
Content. Safe. Uncomplicated. Perfect. I repeat these words like a mantra.
I stop to photograph a small, lavender home that looks as if it was conceived in a storybook land and has just been made real in this world. I want to capture it to view later. To prove to myself that the story is true. But when I when I look up, I am completely alone. Elisabeth is nowhere in sight, and there are no inhabitants – no people – in view on this storybook street. An eerie stillness pervades the neighborhood. Then, two houses down, something catches my eye. I look over and see my doppelgänger standing on the perfect stoop of a perfect, sky-blue “residence.” He is wearing blue jeans and an old T-shirt with a faded peace sign. Like the one balled up in my laundry basket. And he is smiling. He doesn’t look like he fits in, as I would not if I lived here, but I am pleased that he looks so happy.
He (or is it me?) points to me and raises his mug in a toast. He is trying to tell me something, but I am just a bit too far to hear what he is saying. Then Elisabeth appears, making a swooping circle and beckoning me to come on. I mount my bike and turn, wanting to see myself on my beautiful, vine-covered porch, one more time. But the apparition has vanished.
And I follow suit.
Elisabeth is in the lead, beating feet for the next stretch of scrub oak and pine forest, all the while making happy comments about nature and our escape from Seaside. But in my mind, I am still back at the perfect sky-blue “residence,” focused on the vision of a better version of myself. A new and welcome addition to my complex personality. This is Clear-eyed Hugh, the voice of reason, the me I have been waiting for nearly six decades. He wears no cape, but his insignia, a peace sign emblazoned on his chest, reminds me of an action figure straight out of the nineteen sixties. Might there be two superheroes lurking in this family?
* * *
Ever since I was a child, I have dreamed I would be a part of something, that I would fit in and not remain standing on the outside looking in. A part of me has longed for the perfect surroundings, the just-right circumstances in which I would feel accepted and safe. I have always thought that people who live in towns like Seaside must know something I do not – something that provides them passage to such a safe harbor as that.
This angst about who I am and where I fit in the world has only become sharper as I have aged.
Granted, I am a bit slow on the uptake. Understanding some of life’s important details sometimes takes me longer than it does others. It is the primary reason that, for fifty-nine years, I have struggled to find my place in the world. But I have a feeling that’s all behind me now.
You see, for all those years I have waited for a sign from above. Today, I simply rode into the arms of Clear-eyed Hugh – and, circling back towards Destin, his message sent a jolt of electricity straight to my brain. You don’t belong here, at all, he was saying. You were never meant to stand on the stoop of this perfect residence. Your life is about asking questions and writing down the answers you find. Your role in life is different. You can only play your part if you sit in the bleachers. It’s the only way to view the show.
Elisabeth’s voice brings me out of my reverie. “Look,” she says. “Isn’t it beautiful?” I glide to a stop and hop off my Surly. There before us is Eastern Lake, a black pool of brackish water stretching for a half mile towards the Gulf of Mexico. “It is beautiful,” I agree.
The sun warms our faces and I feel as if I have received the blessing I have desired for so long. Whatever happens, starting today, the memory of today’s tiny journey will stand out for me as the day when I put doubting aside and began acting like my Clear-eyed, superhero self.
* * *
We live in a complex world. We don’t always fit into the ideal that society wants to sell us. What distinguishes us is our uniqueness. So much of the time it seems we are pulled along in a way that goes against our nature. And the struggle is to find what feels right. Sometimes that can take a while, as it has for me. The important thing is to make the effort to rise above the subliminal message that our culture churns out. This can be a difficult thing to do. But maybe it’s enough to know that we can stop pedaling and head in another direction.
Clear Eyed Hugh notwithstanding, after today’s meeting with myself, I realize I must accept that I am not the guy that joins a community action committee and attempts to block the new development from being built. I am, however, the guy who can talk about it and ask a few questions. I am the observer, the guy who writes about the things he sees. But that doesn’t keep me from making a few suggestions now and again. I offer this one, today: Take a tiny adventure. Take many of them. I can’t say what may happen for you, but if you step into each one with an open mind, I believe your adventures will guide you where you need to go.
Fervent Advice Columnist The AF Man. Who just so happens to bare a striking resemblance to the author while donning his Dear Abby wig
Good morning, everyone,
I need your help. I really do.
More precisely, I need you to dig deep down into your . . .
I know you’re thinking, He’s gonna say “pockets!” Crap, he’s getting ready to hit me up for money! What has the world come to? Won’t anyone just leave me alone?!?
But it’s not your pockets I’m after. It’s your soul! Today, I am asking you to dig deep into your heart, your soul, and your dreams and pull out just a question or two to share with me. (I realize this sounds a little quirky. But, hey, consider the source!)
I have been working feverishly of late, like a little squirrel saving his nuts for the winter, building a new website for my adventure stories. It is a place to share tales from my bike ride to New Mexico, stories from the Appalachian Trail, and yarns about many more adventures yet to come.
This site is called (drum roll, please) AfterFiftyAdventureMan.com
Catchy, huh?
The thing is, and I believe I have mentioned this more than once, I ain’t getting any younger.
After the Appalachian Trail adventure this fall, I realized I needed to make a few decisions. Like, what will I do when I grow up? How would I like to spend my golden years? What kind of trouble can I get into next? (Did I say that out loud? Oops.)
AfterFiftyAdventureMan.com is the answer to those questions.
But let me back up a step. . . .
One cheery afternoon, about a year ago, I was at Marshall’s buying a pair of jeans, and I took a peek in the mirror. You know. One of those floor-to-ceiling models that makes your nose bleed just looking at it. At first, I thought something was wrong with the lighting, or that maybe the store had installed one of those fun-house mirrors that makes you look like Fred Flintstone.
Marshall’s would do something like that, I thought, so I started looking for the video camera. When I failed to find it, I just stood there with the jeans I had pulled on dangling around my knees, squinted at the mirror again – and got a power jolt. A hit that measured BIG on the Richter scale of my life. “Who the f**k is that?” I asked. Because the fellow staring back at me from the mirror was older than I remembered being. Fatter too. Much older, in fact, and much fatter.
I was appropriately shocked. Overwhelmed. Gob-smacked. So I did the only thing I could. I dropped onto the cold, hard, plastic bench in that shitty little dressing room – and got a pin in the ass for my trouble.
It wasn’t pretty. But a shock like that can mobilize a person to make big changes in their life, and sometimes even reinvent themselves entirely. In my case, however, that is exactly what did not happen. Instead, I left the store, jeans in a heap in the shitty dressing room with the faulty mirror, and drove home to sulk over a nice bowl of Talenti gelato. (Banana Chocolate Swirl, if you must know.)
It took me a year before I figured it out. Sort of. And got my sorry (large-ish) ass on the Appalachian Trail.
Which pretty much brings us up to date.
At this point, I am attempting to do several things simultaneously.
1. Stall any further advancement in the aging process by engaging myself in wild, erratic, impulsive, mid-life adventures.
2. Reassure my beautiful, understanding wife, Elisabeth, who wants nothing more than for me to be happy, that I have, in fact, retained all of my marbles.
3. Start a conversation with men and women who have the same wild, erratic, impulsive mid-life notions as me, because there is strength in numbers.
4. Entertain you in the process.
This is where AfterFiftyAdventureMan.com comes in. While the After-Fifty Adventure Man is a fictional character, who just happens to bear a striking resemblance to yours truly, whether you’re a guy or a gal, he may be a lot like you, too. Because at my age (our age, that mid-life age) it seems questions arise and start running around in our old noggins. Questions like the ones I asked myself after hiking the AT. Questions like the ones I want you to dig into your adventure-lusting heart for.
You see, from now on, I am going to wander off on adventures big and small and write stories about my travels, like I did this fall.
“But what about me?” I hear you saying. Exactly. It won’t be just my stories up on the website. It will be your questions, too. And my answers – in my, um, Advice column. Which will be called, Ask the AF Man (“AF” standing for “After-Fifty”). Which is where you come in. I hope.
Because, like I said at the beginning, I need your help. I really do. The website is not live yet, and I wish to launch with a bunch of lively questions from my mid-life or future mid-life friends. Help a fellow out? I need just a question or two!
What kinds of questions? Inner adventure questions! Outer adventure questions! Hiking questions! Biking questions! Ask about anything from how to slake your secret wander-lust, to ways to create a mini-retreat in the midst a too-busy life, to what gear will give you the most bang for your hard-earned buck. Or ask questions about the biggest adventure of all – navigating the rapids of mid-life.
Just message, email, or snail mail me your questions (anonymously if you wish), and I, in the role of The AF Man, will answer.
Thanking you in advance,
Yours truly,
The After-Fifty Adventure Man
Ways to contact:
FB messaging:
Text the question, etc., and I will follow up.
Email:
afterfiftyadventureman(at)geemaildotcom
Snail Mail:
The AF Man
28 West Castillo Drive
St. Augustine, Florida 32084
Enjoying a “Tiny Adventure” last Saturday afternoon
When I was a young boy, my family lived in a small development in south Jacksonville, about a half-mile north of Goodbys Lake. The neighborhood was named Montclair, and was made up of three parallel streets – Darnall Place, Leewood Lane, and Montclair Drive. From the time I was three until I was thirteen, 3628 Darnall Place was my home, and those three streets, my world.
Once I had my own bicycle, each afternoon after school I would take a tiny adventure. Hopping on my red Schwinn Stingray with its white banana seat, I would pedal my way around the neighborhood, always starting with the one-block loop from Darnall Place to Leewood Lane. In fact, I might complete that circuit several times before working up my courage to venture another block north onto Montclair Drive – the outer edge of my known world.
Those rides gave me such confidence and freedom, my bike might as well have been a space ship, carrying me into new dimensions when I rounded the corner at the end of our street. I always packed a snack, maybe a bologna sandwich, or a PB&J, a bag of Lays potato chips, and my red-and-black checked thermos topped up with cherry Kool-Aid, which kept me nourished as I expanded my possibilities.
When it was time to rest from my adventures, I would seek the security of one of my favorite destinations – either the thick stand of bamboo at the western end of our street or the giant live oak that sat on a rise above the eastern bank of the vast St. Johns River. Those places were my sanctuaries. If I needed time to think or just felt like being alone, I would pedal the Stingray for all I was worth and disappear from view. Nestled among the hundreds of shoots of bamboo or peering out towards the sun glistening on the river, my thoughts were free to roam, and I could just sit and listen to the sounds around me and watch for the next new thing to enter my world.
***
I mention these memories because it has been months and months since I have pedaled my trusty Surly Long Haul Trucker, well, anywhere. This is the bike I rode from St. Augustine to Taos, New Mexico, in the summer of 2010. I was fifty-four when I departed on that journey, fifty-five when I arrived in Taos. And after spending almost two thousand miles atop the Surly, she was no longer just a bicycle. She had become a part of me. Like the old red Stingray, she was a partner in my adventures.
While automobiles and airplanes can whisk us away quickly to far away places, a bike, well, it’s simply different. A bicycle is a romantic device. One that requires you to expend maximum effort to get where you intend to go. A bike is not a ticket in a seat or a heavy foot on the accelerator. It’s a love affair – and bike and rider are in it together.
I awoke yesterday, to a day that was bright and sunny and hinting of the warmth that speaks of spring –and noticed an ache deep inside that stretched back to the 1960s and 3628 Darnall Place. Over coffee, when my wife, Elisabeth, suggested we ride our bikes, I knew that was exactly the thing that could ease the ache.
Even now, at fifty-nine, just like when I was a kid, I have favorite places to visit on my bike. If I want to eyeball the comings and goings of a crowd, I pedal the six-and-a-half miles to Starbucks at the Publix plaza on the beach. It’s a good warm-up ride for an old guy who hasn’t pedaled anywhere in months. (Also, the short ride reminds me of the months leading up to my big bike tour of 2010, when I didn’t have time to really train for the long trip in front of me, but wanted to do something, so that when Departure Day arrived, I could say I had trained – at least a little.)
And that Starbucks was what Elisabeth suggested as our destination. We arrived and settled in to wait for my hot chocolate and her grande dirty chai, watching the other patrons: girls in workout clothes looking at their nails and pulling on strands of blond hair, old guys huddled outside the double doors talking politics and laughing at dirty jokes, and the impatient guy in madras shorts, who kept shifting his stance, digging his hands deep in his pockets, and sighing every time he spoke, like the mere act of ordering his java was all he could possibly undertake in this lifetime. The pretty girl behind the counter, meanwhile, seemed to be thinking of everything but coffee, and kept apologizing to those waiting for her mistakes – which were many.
It was a wonderful panorama of everyday folks out for an afternoon, a cup of coffee, a chance at conversation. The view around us was a snapshot of the world we have created. It wasn’t perfect, but it was reassuring, as if life may not be so complicated after all. I suddenly realized I felt better than I have in weeks, maybe months, and that it was the bike ride that had made the difference – the tiny adventure we conjured for ourselves had allowed me out of my head into a space of peace and hope, found in the most innocuous of places.
On the ride home I vowed to undertake more “tiny adventures” and made a mental list.
Ride my bike to Gainesville, eat lunch at the Southern Charm Kitchen, and visit with my friend Ken and his wife, Jennifer.
Ride to “The Hammock,” just south of Washington Oaks State Park and spend the night at a small motel.
Ride to Port Orange, south of Daytona, and stay over with my friends Frank and Nadine.
Order the Adventure Cycling maps for the Florida Connector, a cross- state bike trail from St. Augustine to Naples – then ride to Naples and catch the ferry to Key West.
Sometime soon, ride my Trusty Surly to San Diego, completing the Southern Tier bike trail – a distance of 3054 miles.
And then there’s the Pacific Coast bike route from Vancouver, B.C., to Imperial Beach, California – 1852 miles worth. Elisabeth wants to make that trip with me. Which will be fun, but we will have to wait until she finishes medical school.
(O.K. So numbers 4, 5, and 6 are not “tiny” adventures. But they are goals, and I plan to complete them.)
The truth of the matter is that I have come to a place where the road ahead of me is shorter than the rode behind me. Since the Appalachian Trail journey this fall, I’ve realized “I ain’t getting any younger.” So I’m asking – with renewed urgency – “What do I want in my life?” The answer? Less stuff and more of the stuff of life.
***
Elisabeth and I enjoying time at Starbucks. Our “Tiny Adventure” late Saturday afternoon.
A few years ago, I was in Jacksonville and took a drive around the old neighborhood. 3628 Darnall Place, my family home, still looked the same. Even the playhouse my dad built for me when I was in third grade was there. But the stand of bamboo that hosted so many of my daydreaming afternoons and picnics was gone, replaced by a small mansion. And the dirt path that led to the old live oak tree and the bluff overlooking the St. Johns was paved and blocked by huge wrought iron gates. Even so, when I closed my eyes, I could remember the feel of the soft ground beneath me as I leaned against the massive oak and ate my bologna sandwich, while gazing out across the river, a blaze of sunlit diamonds shimmering on the surface of its dark water. When I opened my eyes, I said a brief prayer of thanks to that old tree, hoping it had managed to survive the years.
As I drove away, leaving the new Jacksonville behind, I was taken aback at how small my old neighborhood actually was. To my ten-year-old self, it had been a vast world – one in which the longest ride of my life took me and my old red Stingray around and around a one-block loop, until, finally, I heeded the call of adventure and pedaled all the way to Montclair Drive.
The Sky overhead at Cable Gap Shelter – our final morning on the AT
The trail has been good to us in every way we could possibly imagine. Then, on our last night, Fireman Stephen crashed our idyllic scene. First he tried to oust us from our place inside the shelter, then he launched into a manic rant about his days as a child in the mountains of North Carolina, recounted his endless expeditions on the AT, and, finally, claimed to be a king among outdoorsmen.
And then he wept.
* * *
Alexander shifts one of the larger logs at the base of the flame. The new opening in the fire allows for a funnel of air to rush in. The flames leap high and, with a sucking sound, the fire draws what it needs from the atmosphere around us. I have to wonder if Alexander’s slow and methodical stoking of the fire is a catalyst, as the rising intensity of the flames seems to be Stephen’s cue – and he erupts in a flood of emotion. Words rise out of him as if he were channeling a Shakespearian soliloquy. This highly repressed man seems to have chosen us to hear him out. Like the mournful cry of a weeping swan, his monologue gives Alexander and me an experience of the very depths of the man’s troubled soul.
Then Stephen, who has rarely exposed the contents of the secret chambers of his ailing heart, lets down his final guard, and allows the tiny pools of tears previously held at bay by the lashed precipice of his lower eyelids to trail down his stained face. The cadence of his words follows an on again/off again rhythm, as he stops every few moments to wipe away the river of tears with the backs of his soiled hands. For the next fifteen minutes, Stephen speaks exclusively of his third son, little Stevie.
He explains that Stevie is the child he and his wife never planned. Stevie was an accident, the product of a wild night of passion. Stephen says he remembers the night his son was conceived. It was hot and humid, a typical night in the Florida tropics. He and his wife had been out for dinner with friends. “There was a lot of drinking,” he informs us. He lifts his eyes as if to add emphasis to the scene he is painting. “Well. You know,” he adds, “we weren’t really surprised when my wife turned up pregnant.” He says this quietly, then he shifts his position and looks the other way.
“It was as if Stevie had been there with us all along. It’s hard to describe, but I swear it felt like there was someone else in the bedroom besides us that night. I can still feel it. My wife kept looking around while we were doing it. She got really freaked. It was like a cloud was floating above us. My wife was a little drunk. Me, too. But I swear he was there! I think we just made an opening that night. You know. A place where Stevie could enter. Shit.” Stephen whimpers, as if the tale he is unraveling has unnerved him.
When he looks directly at me, his eyes seem like a keyhole into another realm. And the gaze that traverses the distance between us is magnetic. I can feel him trying to pull me in, cranking me into his world so I can feel what he experienced that night. A shiver runs through me as his stare connects. I glance over at Alexander. He is shaking his head slowly side to side, as if he is acknowledging everything Stephen is saying, but is too overwhelmed by the gravity of the admissions to take his eyes from the man.
For a long moment, Stephen is silent, as if thinking which words to say next. Then, abruptly, he picks up his narrative. “From the very first moment, he was trouble,” he says, almost shouting the word. Then he drops his voice to a whisper. “As a baby, Stevie never slept. I never knew people could get by on so little sleep. Him or us. He exhausted us from the very beginning, and he has never let up. He’s not like our other two. He requires so much from us.” And with that Stephen hesitates, waiting a long ten count before adding, “Almost more than either of us has to give.” And then, as quickly as his secrets erupted, Stephen ceases to say even one more word. For the first time in almost two and a half hours, Stephen is completely quiet.
In the silence left behind Stephen’s torrent of words, the only sound is the popping and cracking of Alexander’s wonderful fire, and the rise and fall of our syncopated breaths. Then, after the passing of incalculable minutes, Stephen speaks again. He doesn’t look at either of us, though, and he moans as if his words are being pulled from the deepest recesses of his being. “He is such a little pain in the ass,” he says. “But I love him so desperately.” Stephen shakes as he lets that loose, then slumps where he sits, like uttering that statement was closer to the act of giving birth than it was a sharing of mere words.
Stephen’s confession is heartrending. Stevie is Stephen’s burden, but it is clear that the love he feels for his third child is monumental. I am so overtaken by his admissions that I have to remind myself to breathe. Alexander catches my eye, and I know we are thinking the same thing – Stephen has never said this to anyone. Maybe not even his wife. I would bet a million bucks on that. Yet, I believe there is something else buried inside those feelings about Stevie. As if he hears my thoughts, Stephen says, “My favorite sport of all is not hiking the AT, but coaching Stevie’s soccer team.” He looks at us, eyes wide, a sheen of desperate perspiration upon his face, as if he is shocked to have said something so revealing.
At that moment, I think, This guy is either the most emotionally repressed person I have ever met, or the bravest son of a bitch on the planet.
Before I can decide which it is, Stephen continues. “My grandfather died before Little Stevie was born. He was Scottish, you know – red hair, big drinker, big time fighter, and one hell-raising son of a bitch. Just like Stevie. Well, everything but the drinking bit. Stevie reminds me of him.” When he speaks next, the words dribble out of his mouth like water moving in a small stream. “If we had known the trouble that little bastard would bring us, I don’t think we would have ever had him. But I love him so much,” he mumbles.
Then he looks directly at me and asks in a pleading sort of a way, “Do you believe in reincarnation?”
So there it is. The something else. Reincarnation. It oozes out of him like he is squeezing the last bit of toothpaste left in a tube. I can tell it took everything he has to get it out – and now I have to ask myself, Is this really the same guy who walked into camp a few short hours ago, all piss and vinegar? Because it’s one thing for Stephen to reveal his hidden angst, but it is an entirely different thing for him to throw open the door on something like reincarnation.
A subject like that is not run-of-the-mill for someone with a closed mind. And up until recently, Stephen has exhibited all the signs of a man whose world view is as big as, well, Stephen, himself. Now, however, he has delved into much deeper philosophical territory, and I am intrigued by his wide range of competing complexities. Or is that “competing personalities”? Either way, the reincarnation question is an easy one for me. I have always believed in the concept of such a thing, and so I shoot right back, but gently, “Yes, Stephen I do.”
“Well, me too,” he says. Then, seemingly emboldened at having found another believer, he shouts, “Stevie is my grandfather! I just know it! I look in his eyes and see my grandfather in there looking back at me. It kind of freaks me out.” He hollers this as if he has been struck by the power of the Holy Spirit.
His statement raises the hair on my arms. It is as if Stephen has conjured the spirit of his grandfather, and that red-haired hell raiser is with us now, watching and waiting. I think we all sense the same thing, a subtle surge of current dances through the air holding the three of us captive – tethered in space, in the new reality where Stephen has taken us. We all just look at one another for a long and uncomfortable moment.
I, too, experienced a vision on this trip. I was visited by the spirit of my father. He was there as I struggled up the approach trail on our first day. But unlike Stephen’s vision of his grandfather, my father’s presence comforted for me. He was a warm and peaceful reminder of the closeness we shared when he was alive. As I think of my father, and my relationship with Alexander, who has always been a blessing to me, the dichotomy between Stephen’s life and my own is sharp. It makes me ache for him. As difficult as he is, it is impossible not to feel compassion for his struggle.
Stephen picks up a short stick and digs around the edge of Alexander’s fire, playing with the hot coals and drawing shapes in the thick bed of ashes. He seems to look through the burning embers to a point somewhere near the center of the earth. I think he is considering all that he has revealed and is trying to reassemble himself. Unsure of what to say, I decide to let Stephen make the next move. But the “real” Stephen, the quiet, emotive, philosopher king has gone – he’s retreated through a hidden doorway. A funereal quiet hangs in the air around Alexander’s fire. The three of us sit like mannequins arranged in an elaborate, sporting-goods window display. It is as if we are on a stage, while the audience sits patiently awaiting the next act. But the curtain has been drawn closed. Stephen stands, brushes himself off, and mutters, “I’m going to setup my hammock,” before he exits, stage right.
There is no adequate response one can make in a moment like this. Alexander and I have entered a strange reality where there are no rules to follow, how one might possibly find his way back – or even how to comment successfully on the events witnessed. One simply needs time to reorient himself so the pieces of the mental labyrinth can reassemble the pathway out – or risk losing the thread of logic that would guide one home. It is as if we are astronauts reentering earth’s atmosphere after a long journey into deep space. I sit for many moments with my tea mug glued to my lower lip, until finally, with almost Herculean effort, I am able to mutter, “Holy crap,” softly under my breath.
It is Alexander who comments first, making the most insightful remark I can possibly imagine. “Did you get the sense that he was really talking about himself, instead of his son?” he asks.
While that thought has not occurred to me, when I revisit Stephen’s confession, it makes sense. It’s not that I doubt that the trials Stephen and his family are experiencing with little Stevie are real. However, cued by Alexander’s comment, I can imagine those struggles hit very close to home for Stephen. I certainly saw for myself that he is confused about his feelings and his role as a father to his youngest son.
Earlier, Stephen mentioned that he spent his summers as a young boy in North Carolina with his grandparents. He never once mentioned his own mother and father, and after all we have heard from Stephen since, it seems the omission of their memory spoke volumes about the turbulent state of Stephen’s childhood. Like little Stevie, I can imagine young Stephen must have been a real handful in those days. He may well have created the same sort of problems for his parents that Stevie does for Stephen and his wife. But familial issues like this don’t appear out of the blue. Like feuds, they are handed down from generation to generation. Can Stephen muster the strength and the tools necessary to break this generational disaster? I guess that is the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.
* * *
When Stephen returns to our circle of fire half an hour later, he is the same puffed up, swaggering pain in the ass we first met. But he seems oddly renewed, like his confessions lifted a huge weight from his shoulders. He is the alcoholic who, having just told his story for the first time at an AA meeting, feels so bolstered by the freedom of his admissions that he is ready to march into the first bar he can find and have a drink to celebrate. Stephen is reignited, and he pauses momentarily in a rant about his buddies and their poor hiking abilities to zoom in on our heavy, older style, Whisper Lite camp stove.
“You really like that old stove?” he shoots at Alexander, who is cooking our dinner. “It’s awful heavy. Ain’t it?”
Alexander calmly answers, “I love it, Stephen.”
It seems that, since he can’t get a rise out of Alexander, Stephen needs to pace around the shelter like a peacock, strutting his feathers, running a hand through his reddish blond hair, eyes darting back and forth as if something were after him. Finally, a sound down the trail gets his attention. With uncharacteristic enthusiasm, he announces, “My buddies are here!”
It is curious to me that Stephen is so excited about his two firemen pals’ arrival, for he has done nothing but complain about their slowness and ineptitude as outdoorsmen while in our company. Maybe he is just nervous regarding his confession, and his buddies offer him an easy out – a way to deflect the discomfort he must feel about the private flood of truth he has revealed to us. Whatever thoughts he might be having, he easily wipes them all away by making a statement that is classic Stephen. “I knew they would make it. Told ya they would be here at 7. I was right wasn’t I?”
He was right. It is 7:04.
Stephen stands with his hands on his hips yelling at his friends. “Where in the hell have you slow pokes been? You should let me give you hiking lessons! You boys have to get more organized.”
And with that, the peace and tranquility Alexander and I so desperately desire on our last night on the trail is lost. My mind turns to our friend from last night, old pal Stuart. More than anything, I wish it was him arriving with his little double-time scoot. His company around Alexander’s great fire would reestablish the order and magic of the AT that we have come to so lovingly appreciate – and, yes, I have to admit, expect. The magic we had counted on when we decided to extend our hike for just one more night.
If only Stuart were with us now, I think, instead of the two burly cretins who are clumping the last few yards to reach Stephen, I would listen to his golden tales of hiking and carpet cleaning, and in a single brilliant moment everything would be set right again. In the morning, Alexander and I would rise with the dawn, pack our supplies and gear almost effortlessly, and then hand in hand we would walk happily to the end of the trail.
But Stephen refuses me even this moment of fantasy. “What took you so long, you bunch of assholes!” he yells.
Alexander and I, perched as we are on the sidelines and under the cover of the shelter, watch the “happy reunion” of Stephen and his muscle bound compadres. Like two old hens whose nest had suddenly been rearranged and robbed of its trove of precious eggs, we sit shaking our heads – and wait for something to happen.
Due to the trail’s close proximity (it is at most thirty feet from the shelter) it is possible to remain under the cover of the roof, our legs dangling and cups of tea in hand, watching the trailside drama unfold. Stephen’s pals, caught up in the excitement of their reunion, have not yet acknowledged our existence. Stephen, for his part, continues with his show of male dominance, making nervous circles as he dances around his pals, bossing them, inspecting their packs, and ordering everyone to be seated. I fully expect him to start peeing on the shelter walls to mark his territory like a feral dog, but thankfully we are spared that excess.
The two cretins seem oblivious to Stephen’s rudeness – in fact, it appears this is standard operating procedure. They drop their packs in the dirt where they stand and swap stories like sailors who have just landed in port. I, however, have a plan to derail any stake these Neanderthals might wish to claim in the peace and tranquility of our snug and humble adobe.
Earlier, when Stephen first mentioned his two buddies, he relayed a salient piece of information: These guys snore like a pair of Mack trucks. You might recall the night we spent with Snorzilla, back at Sassafras Gap shelter. He was the two hundred eighty-pound couch potato from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, whose highest aspiration in life was to snore and fart his way down the Appalachian Trail. Alexander and I lost an entire night’s sleep thanks to him, and we vowed not to relive that experience.
So I lean over and ask Alexander to pass me the trail log and pen. A minute later I pass him back a single page on which I have written, THIS IS A NO SNORE SHELTER!!!!! And I ask him to post it in a prominent location, where any idiot can read it. He smiles broadly at his dad and tacks the notice to the corner post at the left front of the shelter.
Stephen, of course, is busy issuing more orders, and a moment later, he shuffles out of sight with one of his pals. We can hear them discussing the guy’s hammock location as they drift behind the shelter. But the second guy, the one who looks like he has biceps bulging on top of his biceps, ambles over to read the newly posted sign. He considers the six-word notice as if he is contemplating a major life decision. Then he mumbles, not quite coherently, “I’m Chris.”
Next, with what seems like painful effort, Chris screws up his face like he is preparing to take an enormous shit. However, I believe the contorted look is supposed to send us the message that he is, in fact, a real badass. He makes a few grunt-like sounds and asks in a voice that sounds like a large mynah bird attempting to imitate Arnold Schwarzenegger (but the accent is way off), “You boys mind if I bunk in with you?”
“Absolutely!” I say. Then I inquire, in a tone as friendly as if I were an Appalachian Trail ambassador, “Oh, by the way, do you snore?”
To which he replies, “Only when I sleep on my side.”
No, I think. We are not doing this again. So, as Chris starts unrolling his air mattress, I say, “Sorry. We already took the flat part of the floor. As you can see, it slants pretty bad towards the wall on your side. Right there by the rat hole.”
To which he replies, “What rat?”
I say, “The big one they talk about in the log book. But you should be OK. Just shove a little toilet paper in the hole. Apparently, the big, fat rat likes toilet paper. If you shove enough TP in the hole, he will just nibble on that and won’t crawl all over you in the dark.”
To which he replies, “I’ll be right back.”
Alexander looks like he is getting ready to bust a gut. Instead, we share a small smile and suppress our inclination to howl. A few minutes later, Mr. Side Snorer returns and informs us he is setting up his hammock near his buddies.
* * *
After a night with no snoring to interfere with our sleep, I wake before dawn, and am lying in my sleeping bag listening to the mice scurry about the shelter, while I think about Stephen and the tidal wave of truth that erupted from deep inside his soul. I am trying to make sense of it all, when the noise of Stephen and his group breaking camp distracts me. I hear the hushed tones of Stephen issuing more orders, telling his friends how to pack, and why their gear sucks. “Get going, you bunch of slow pokes,” Stephen hisses. “We are burning daylight!”
His manic rant seems like a comic vignette. He’s like a small puppy shredding garbage all over the kitchen floor. For the briefest of moments, I actually entertain the idea of missing Stephen and his insane antics.
Nah.
The noise doesn’t last much longer, and Stephen and his compadres depart camp before first light. Most likely they will arrive at the Fontana Dam parking lot and be driving back to Florida long before Alexander and I have taken our first steps down the trail. If Stephen has anything to do with it, he and his pals will make record time.
As I lie peering out of the shelter, the morning light renegotiates the amorphous gray shapes surrounding us and begins to recreate the illuminated color of an ordered world.
I think about Alexander’s remark from the night before. He read Stephen so clearly. In contrast, I feel bad that I had been so quick to judge the man. Had I met up with a young boy acting the way Stephen did, I would have shown more compassion towards him. I would have tried to help. Stephen however, has long since passed his boyhood years. The fact is, he has three boys of his own. This thought frightens me – both for Stephen and his boys, especially little Stevie.
I am worried because I have been in Stephen’s shoes. And I know what can go wrong.
When I was in my mid-thirties and married to Alexander’s mom, Elizabeth, I found myself a new father to three boys – baby Alexander, as well as Elizabeth’s two sons from a previous marriage, Ryan and Christopher. On occasion, I found myself unprepared for the stresses that faced me as a parent. I suppose many mothers and fathers feel this from time to time; I believe it comes with the territory. But one day, I abandoned my capacity to negotiate life’s stresses and gave in to darker forces. On that early spring afternoon, I gave our oldest boy, Ryan, a walloping that I have always regretted.
It has been almost twenty-five years since that afternoon – a significant marker of time, and one which might have brought a man a sense of peace regarding issues that have haunted him. But in matters of the heart, there is no statute of limitations. And so I find myself, on the last morning of our Appalachian Trail journey, deeply concerned for a man I barely know – and in the same instant, coming full circle to find myself face to face with a memory I would much rather forget.
The truth is that the early years of Ryan’s young life were tumultuous. His mom divorced his dad and married me. Some children of divorce roll with the changes, and some, as in Ryan’s case, simply don’t. But there was more to it. Ryan was an incredibly bright child, and I believe he saw the troubles that his mother and I faced, both as individuals and as a couple. That little boy knew us better than we knew ourselves, and in his mind I believe he could tell that trouble lay ahead. Ryan fought back against the tide of uncertainty by acting out in the only way he knew – testing his mom and me daily.
In retrospect, I can see that taking things to the outer edge of the envelope was his way of ferreting out a champion to stand by his side, no matter what. But he did not find that champion in his new stepfather. That failure, to offer Ryan the unconditional love he needed, is my greatest failure.
And then there is the beating I gave him.
I could call it a “spanking,” but, to be truthful, it went way beyond that. In the flash of a bright spring day, I unleashed on a small and defenseless young boy all of my frustrations – as a father, in the impending failure of my marriage, and regarding the mass of doubts and insecurities I had about myself. Ryan’s only mistake was asking me to be the person in the world that would love him no matter what.
There are moments in my life that stand out. Events that are indelibly etched in the fabric of my memory. Do they actually resonate at a higher pitch than other vignettes from my life? Or am I supposed to recall these snapshots for some inexplicable reason?
It’s like there is a file drawer that exists in my head, and when I open it, things just start to spill out – tiny explosions like a Roman candle going off in my mind. Some of these memories are happy, like the first time I kissed a girl, rode my bicycle without training wheels, and went to school without my mother by my side. But darker ones live inside that drawer, too. If my good memories reinforce my feeling that I have lived a generally sound and happy life, their darker counterparts make me question all of that. They place a stain upon my being like a shadow blocks the sun.
In the case of Ryan, I remember that moment as clearly as any moment in my life. I carry enormous regret for having succumbed to my inner demons and failing him so completely. I believe, now, that what I saw in Ryan as “difficult” was in fact his knowingness. He knew that I had failed him, and he simply had the ability, at seven years old, to shine that failure back at me. I didn’t like him holding up that mirror, so when he pulled at those fraying seams, I beat him.
I have never adequately apologized to him for that breach of trust, but Ryan, who has grown into a wonderful young man, seems to have generously forgiven the harsh treatment that befell him as a young boy. I look at him now and wonder how he did that.
* * *
As I lie in the chill of the shelter, I hear Stephen and his two Cro-Magnon pals lumbering away up the trail. When the sounds recede, I am left with nothing but the stillness of the forest and my thoughts about myself and Ryan and Stephen and his three boys. Luckily, Alexander is with me at this moment. Even as he sleeps, his peaceful presence helps mitigate the swirl of doubt and angst I feel for both Ryan and the troubled young fireman who just departed camp.
This trip began with the three of us – Ryan, Alexander, and me. Our mutual experience, I believe, strengthened the bonds we share. As we hiked those early miles, for the first time, I truly felt like a father to Ryan. I hope he also felt my love for him as my son. In the company of these two boys, my sons, I understood, possibly for the first time, the miraculous nature of fatherhood, and how one generation flows into the next. That realization is a powerful force. Along with it comes the knowledge that my failure almost a quarter of a century ago can never be undone. However, this journey has helped heal some of the wounds for Ryan and for me.
As for Stephen, I can almost feel the pain and trepidation he must be experiencing as he heads home to parent his troubled youngest son. The Stephen we witnessed yesterday seemed a person on the edge – one who could create disaster if his capabilities as a parent are pushed too far.
I know he loves his son. He told us so in a very sincere way. But his love also seems a burden he finds difficult to place. I doubt Stephen has seen much unconditional love in his life. I just hope the frightened young boy inside him finds a measure of peace so he can be the dad his young son needs. Otherwise, with his anxiety about his belief that his grandfather has returned – reincarnated as little Stevie – there may well be a showdown looming in his future. One where two hell raisers will have to enter the ring and either duke it out or work it out.
Another thought nags my pre-dawn brain. Why, after thirty-four nights on the trail, had Stephen entered our camp at all? Until yesterday afternoon, the AT had been such a hospitable and friendly environment for us. In so many ways, I felt the trip was especially blessed. We made friends at almost every stop along our way. We have been given gifts freely from those we have met and from our allies in the forest. But on our very last night, instead of gifts, the trail conjured the manic and troubled Stephen. I wonder, had the army of forest spirits, who gave us so many weeks of wonder and merriment, simply packed their bags and left town? Had we done something to alienate ourselves from them? Was our desire to remain in the forest another night breaking some spiritual protocol, and Stephen was our punishment?
Suddenly, as night turns to day, and I find myself, as I have on so many previous mornings, warm as toast and tucked neatly in my Kelty sleeping bag in the early-morning-forest fucking fabulous, I believe the events of yesterday are no punishment. They are, instead, a part of the metric that has shaped our incomparable journey from our very first step upon the trail. I believe the spirits of the trail and all of our wonderful forest allies want me to tell me something. I dig deep. More than ever, I want to make sense of the spiritual concepts in which I place my trust and faith. I stepped onto this trail to release myself, for a little while, from the concrete demands of my daily world so that I could hear clearly the messages from my unseen, etheric friends – and I am ready to hear them now.
A moment of clarity suddenly blows over me. The spirits have not left. My allies – the owl, the snake, my favorite plants – are hovering around me at this very moment. I feel them. The warm breeze that just enveloped me is their breath. The Buddhists speak of this – a moment that transcends human consciousness, but which come only at the very end of one’s life. They call it “the dawn of understanding.” So that’s it, I am having a dawn of understanding! I check my breathing and pulse to make sure I haven’t just crossed over to the other side.
No. I’m still here. And so is my understanding.
Which is this: Alexander and I were supposed to have hiked through to Fontana Dam, yesterday. Our trip was supposed to have been over. I should at this exact moment be lying in a soft bed, nestled amongst clean, crisp, white sheets at the Fontana Village Resort, dreaming of hot coffee in a cup and served on a saucer. I should be preparing myself for an elaborate breakfast buffet. But we altered our plan – and I was, instead, in an old log hut amongst the mice, dirt, and, until about five minutes ago, Stephen and his unruly pals.
But why?
The answer is so simple it embarrasses me. To be honest, I feel guilty and self-absorbed for not having realized it as soon as Stephen walked into our camp. You see, Stephen came to us to receive a gift, not deliver one. He was in need. He had a story to tell, and he needed someone to tell it to. With help from the forest spirits and our allies and most notably Alexander’s wonderful ally fire, we have been living it up for weeks. We have been guided, protected, and given so much – friends, wonder, excitement, nurture, sustenance, and, most of all, a warm and peaceful space where we could simply absorb the beauty of nature.
So Alexander and I had a tiny bit of payback to perform. Yesterday, our allies nudged us into creating an extra night and led us to Cable Gap, where we were to deliver a gift to someone else – and that person was Stephen. But Alexander and I were slow on the uptake. Reveling in the largesse that has been so generously bestowed upon us, we became complacent and a bit selfish. We forgot one rule: It’s not always about receiving. Sometimes it’s a good idea for the receiver to become the giver. Our duty was tiny in the grand scheme of things. Nothing more was required of us than to listen.
* * *
It has been more than two months since that morning in Cable Gap shelter, and I am reminded that life is like an onion. There are so many layers to peel back, that even when you think you have arrived at the center of things, you discover there are layers yet to uncover. And so, as I look back on our strange encounter with Stephen, I understand there is still more to tell.
Despite his talk of reincarnation, I don’t get the feeling that Stephen is a religious – or even an overtly spiritual – man. But way down inside, I believe he was asking the larger questions, and that, consciously or not, Stephen came to the woods seeking their answers. I doubt Stephen’s life offers him much of a respite from the demons that haunt him. But the AT is one place where he has known a bit of happiness in his life, a place where he received, as a young boy climbing those mountains, some solace.
Perhaps, stepping onto the Appalachian Trail was for Stephen as it was for us, like stepping into an ancient cathedral – a place of deep peace, a place where spirituality is so present it is undeniable. But the struggle to allow that energy to soothe his worried soul may have simply been too much for him. I can just see him running through the forest, hurriedly moving from place to place in an attempt to distance himself from its power – and from his life and his problems. Yet, by the time he strode into our camp, Stephen obviously knew his time to negotiate a peace with himself was running out. The weight of his feelings for little Stevie was a storm that had been gathering inside of him for many years and was now threatening to come crashing down and obliterate him.
This, then, was the reason our allies kept us on the trail and delivered Stephen to us. And we, unwittingly, had spent five weeks preparing ourselves to receive him, to hear him out, to bear witness to his confession.
You see, for five weeks, we had invoked a sacred circle of fire every evening, creating a situation in which the spirits of the forest and our natural allies could easily reach us. This grounded our trail life almost from our very first night on the AT. The circle of rocks and the fire they contained were more than a source of warmth for Alexander and me; they formed a connection with the unseen world that beckoned to us at every turn of the trail.
It was Alexander who began this ritual and opened the door for the connection. Initially, I believe he approached the fire as a way to help him release his own burdens, even if he was not aware of this at first. And I think the fire taught him how to focus all that weighed upon him and release it into the smoke, so it could be carried aloft and dissipated into the universe. That he accomplished this night after night inside a circle of rock made it all the more powerful.
In Native American philosophy, more than mere geometry, the circle is seen as a doorway to universal energy. The simple act of creating a circle invokes an opening for communication. A warm and inviting place can be found within its circumference, where a person can experience the world of spirit. If approached consciously, the circle can help guide one’s life. But there is more. The energy of the circle is also healing and forgiving. It has no sharp corners, and, because of this, will assist anyone who prays inside its roundness. Alexander had, in his own way, established a rapport with the circle, as well as his ally fire – and even though he may not have consciously sought to extend that energy to those who sat around his magnificent fires, that is exactly what occurred. From our very first night atop Springer Mountain, Alexander invited our camp neighbors to join us in the generous bounty that emanated from his circle of flame. Fire became his gift, and he offered it willingly to anyone who wished to gather around the dedicated circle of rocks he established.
As our journey progressed, the circle became a repository where we placed all that we knew about ourselves and about one another. Within its circumference, we included all of our hopes, the contents of our dreams, and the things we aspired to achieve. As we traveled, the energy of our circles grew to the point where we could not deny the existence of the magic they contained. Over our five weeks on the trail, we became, unknowingly, accomplished practitioners in the art of circle energy.
Yet, it was always Alexander who acted as intermediary between us and the unseen world. He built every fire and assembled the stones each evening so the circle would remain active and complete, working its gentle way on our behalf. Then, on what was supposed to be the final morning of our journey, I awoke early with our friend Stuart at Brown Fork Gap shelter. In the wee hours before dawn, I chose to light the fire. For the first time in all the miles we travelled, I was the one who invoked the circle.
As I sat within the circle of stones that morning, sipping coffee, and gazing intently into the hot flames of the fire I created, I heard an audible click – the sound of closure. It was as if I had brought every step in our long journey forward into that very moment. A chill ran down my spine, and suddenly a slight breeze blew out of nowhere. In my mind’s eye, I saw a door open to my right, and I knew that the simple act of lighting the morning fire had been the key to unlock it.
So it was that, later that evening, when Stephen sauntered into camp and seated himself at our fire, he joined two guys who were fully engaged in circle energy. Our weeks in the circle had prepared us to do what the circle does best – simply be. We could listen to Stephen without engaging him in debate or taking issue with his extensive rants. The circle allowed us to offer him what he needed most – companionship.
When Stephen returned to the fire after his painful admissions, his demeanor had changed. He seemed lighter, as if the burden he had carried into camp had lifted, at least in part. (Don’t get me wrong – he was still a pain in the ass. Being in Stephen’s presence was like trying to push a lawn mower with a rope – a difficult task.) I believe Stephen experienced the magic of the circle, received its help and healing – and left the forest having experienced a measure of peace.
* * *
Now, as I reflect upon the events of last night, the birds are singing, the mice have scurried to wherever mice scurry to in the light of day, and I am left feeling proud that Alexander and I figured out that we had a responsibility to Stephen.
I am proud that we elevated ourselves from self-absorbed, spoiled journeyers of the Appalachian Trail to become allies for him. But it took time. We had to grow into the realization, much like a young boy leaping into manhood. In the process, we lived every minute of Stephen’s bombastic tirade and sat quietly through his metamorphosis from strutting peacock to weeping swan. The acceptance of our roles on Stephen’s behalf took lengthy hours and we achieved it slowly and, yes, maybe even a bit grudgingly.
I believe that the spirits of the forest and our natural allies are proud of our achievement, too. (And I believe they know that our boy Stephen did not make it easy for us!)
But there is more. There always is. And I should have seen it coming.
Our connection with Stephen took place inside the circle that Alexander and I have so diligently invoked for the past thirty-four nights. The circle is a healing place, and it has rules of its own. If I were to attempt to capture how its magic works upon us, I would sum it up like this. “What is given is also received. What is initiated must also be reconciled.”
That sounds so simple. Almost a cliché. But the fact is, our time with Stephen invoked the circle’s essential desire – to heal and establish peace. Together, Stephen, Alexander, and I unconsciously stepped into the same swirling brew of healing energy, and those effects are now actively pursuing each of us. For Stephen, the circle allowed him to unburden himself of his torment about little Stevie and the ghost of his grandfather. I’m certain that more will transpire for him. I just won’t be there to see it.
How it impacted Alexander I do not know. When he awakens, maybe I will ask him. But for now, his quiet breath serves as a peaceful cadence as I jot down these thoughts.
And for me? Last night, the power of the circle brought me an old memory – a ghost if you will – of my harsh treatment of Ryan when he was just a small boy. I find it perplexing that it took Stephen to remind me of a transgression that occurred twenty-five years ago – one I would have preferred to leave in my past. Of all people, he seems such an unlikely candidate to offer me a path to healing. But there I go, judging him, again. We each have our own faults, but maybe the troubled fireman and I have more in common than I realize.
Regardless of my desire to let an old memory remain in the past, I am on a different path now. The circle has seen to that.
The After Fifty Adventure Man enjoying a cup of tea while hiking the Appalachian Trail
Earlier this fall, I spent five fabulous weeks hiking the Appalachian Trail with my two sons, Ryan and Alexander. And during that period of time, I experienced a bit of a transformation. Amazingly, I went into the forest as Hugh, the overweight, middle-aged IT manager – and emerged five weeks later as Hugh, the (slightly less) overweight, middle-aged “After Fifty Adventure Man”!
The truth of the matter is that walking one hundred seventy-one miles of the Appalachian Trail can help a person do many things. The hike can help you lose weight. It can help you get in the best shape of your life. It can clear your mind and help you resolve your problems. By separating you from the consumer-driven world of city life and connecting you with the spiritual wonderland found under the forest canopy, it can help you gain a new perspective – one that will make you question everything from your work to your friendships. It can even help bring you closer to those you love.
And, I believe, hiking the Appalachian Trail can help make you a better man.
While, yes, it is true that I lost a respectable fifteen pounds and did get in the best shape of my life – and, yes, I was able to clear my mind of all the clutter and stress that had accumulated in my world – by the time I left the Trail, I was still (only slightly less) overweight and still (very) middle aged.
But somewhere between the start of the approach trail at Amicalola Falls State Park and mile one hundred sixty-three at Fontana Dam a transformation of sorts took place – and I became a different man.
This difference is not obvious in photos. Although you may be able to see that I acquired a thinner face and a brighter smile over the weeks on the Trail, the real difference is deeper down. The real difference is that I finally became the me I have always dreamed of being.
On the last day of our journey, as Alex and I sat in the lobby of the Fontana Village Resort sipping whiskey and celebrating our hike, I realized that in my heart I was no longer the burdened and burdensome man I was as we approached the Trail. I was a different kind of guy. A fellow I really liked. Someone I would enjoy being with. A guy who would be fun to talk with at a party. A guy I’d like to hang out with around a fire.
Only a handful of weeks before, I had stepped into the woods as a bona fide stressed-out Fat Boy. Then, through some immaculate stroke of luck – or maybe divine intervention – I managed to complete a feat of walking that, to me, bordered on the insane. And emerged from it as the fun-loving, life-affirming After Fifty Adventure Man.
To Alexander’s surprise, I started laughing so hard I spilled some of the sweet brown whiskey from my cup, as I realized that this – who I was at that very moment – this was the guy I had been wanting to become. I may have even been this guy at some previous period in my life – before life’s stresses and expectations and a heap of my own self-induced aspirations moved me so far away from that nice fellow that the only thing I had left for him was a grimace. No longer even a smile.
But on that late October afternoon, seated before a roaring fire, a plate of warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies by my side, a glistening glass of Crown Royal in my right hand, and my son at my left, I recognized him. That guy. The best me I could be. To get to him, though, had taken more sweat and ache than I could have ever imagined. In fact, had I known how much exertion hiking that section of the Appalachian Trail would take before hand, I most likely would have stayed home. But I hadn’t stayed home. I’d walked and sweated – and even hallucinated now and again – and I had made it.
My prize? I got to meet this new/old me, Mr. After Fifty Adventure Man.
And believe me, I have been looking for him for a while. I last searched for him on a two-thousand-mile bike ride from St. Augustine, Florida, to Taos, New Mexico, the summer of 2010, the year I turned fifty four. For that journey, something grabbed a hold of me and forced me to put my world on pause, while I got on top of a bike and started pedaling. It was a power that I was unable to deny, just like the one that placed me on the Appalachian Trail this September.
There seems to be a pattern emerging. I may not see the entire picture nor understand its implications for my life, but I do believe the spirit of the After Fifty Adventure Man is hard upon me.
The thing is, of course, the After Fifty Adventure Man (or Woman) lives inside all of us who have completed our first fifty years on this planet. The After Fifty Adventurer is an aspect of our real selves that is hidden so deep inside our stressed-out, over-responsible, overburdened, over-it-all civilized society personas that he (or she) may never be allowed out to play. Unless, say, one of our kids grabs us and drags us down the Appalachian Trail behind them.
Just last week, I hosted two cyclists traveling from their home in British Columbia to Patagonia, near the tip of South America. It will be a journey that will take them another year and a half, maybe two. They mentioned in passing that it would be great if I could ride with them. I did not let on that they were speaking directly to the spirit of the After Fifty Adventure Man, but later that night, when I lay in bed, I could see myself atop my Surly bicycle winding my way through Central and South America, stopping at every town along the road to meet the local people, eat their food, and listen to their stories.
But I am not getting any younger. The truth of that fact greets me in the bathroom mirror each and every morning. So the question is this: Do I continue down the old road of expectation and false responsibilities? Or do I allow myself the freedom to live life while I can still participate in a new adventure?
Frankly, I am always torn about such things. For now, I have returned home to my quiet life in St. Augustine, Florida, where I have been filling my days applying for jobs and tending to my garden. Secretly, I am already thinking about a new exploit. Whether that means picking up where Alexander and I left off, or heading down a new trail, I am not entirely certain.
In “The End of the Trail, Part 1,” I recounted the tale of what was meant to be the last morning of our Appalachian Trail journey. Alexander and I had spent the previous night with our friend Stuart, from Texas, at Brown Fork Gap Shelter. Stuart was a highly organized hiker, who liked to be on the trail at first light. His efficiency reawakened some misgivings I’d been harboring about my own competence as an outdoorsman. Luckily, Stuart’s generous nature and his willingness to share his trail knowledge helped me see that my shortcomings as a hiker were simply OK in the grand scheme of things. No matter that other hikers might be more adventurous, more experienced, or, like Stuart, more efficient. I am the man I am. No need to compare myself to anyone.
That morning, after Stuart left the shelter, I sat sipping coffee, awaiting Alexander’s awakening, the day dawning all around me. There is something magical about the forest when the sun makes its first appearance through the trees. And once Alexander awoke, we allowed ourselves to soak in all its wonder. We talked, we watched the morning develop, and we began to mourn, each in our own way, the ending of our time on the AT.
So it was that, later that day, over lunch, we made the choice to linger one more night in the forest. After checking our navigation app, we discovered there was another shelter located less than three miles ahead—four miles shy of our final destination at Fontana Dam. That small decision—to spend one more night on the AT—opened a doorway onto one of the most unusual encounters of our entire journey.
* * * *
We arrive at Cable Gap shelter a few minutes after 3:00 pm. About an hour later, we are joined by Stephen, a fireman from Asheville, North Carolina. Stephen is drenched in sweat and appears to have been running a race. Before he says “Hello,” or removes his pack, or even asks our names, Stephen barks out, “Are you guys sleeping in the shelter, or what?” By this point, Alexander and I have unpacked, inflated our pads, unrolled our sleeping bags, and arranged our gear neatly in the shelter. In a word, it is obvious that we have settled into the shelter for the night.
I think to myself, “This guy could really get under my nerves.” But to be fair, he just hiked fifteen miles in four hours and forty-seven minutes. (Stephen informed us straight off of his astounding pace—a bona fide hiking miracle. Or so he claimed.) “Maybe,” I think, “just maybe, he’s tired, and after all that zooming through the forest his blood sugar is low. It could happen to anyone. Right?” So I decide to give Stephen a break.
It turns out I was wrong.
An hour rolls by, and even though he has eaten a Clif Bar or two, he is still pissing me off with his tales of personal accomplishments. Finally, he asks how far we traveled before arriving at the shelter. But our six-mile day is not up to Stephen’s rigorous AT mileage standards. “You guys are sure taking your sweet time hiking,” he quips. Thankfully, my early morning revelation to relinquish all comparisons with other hikers has already brought me a measured peace.
However, even for a man basking in the afterglow of inner stillness, there is no effective way of communicating with a guy like this. There is only listening to his one-broadcast programming: The Stephen Show.
So I am sitting here wondering who this guy really is—and what he’s doing in our camp. Then I remember. Oh, yeah. It’s the People’s Trail. And I remind myself to be patient. That everyone has a right to be here. “Just sit with it a while longer, sport,” I tell myself. “Let’s see how far this peacock can take this crap.” But then there is that other part of my brain that can’t believe someone can actually behave like this for more than five minutes. Stephen has been going on for so long, I am looking up and down the trail, expecting Alan Funt to step out from behind a tree in a cheap bear suit and welcome Alexander and me to Candid Camera.
Stephen doesn’t sense any animosity from us, but I can’t believe he sees us as his willing audience, either. Then a wayward thought creeps into my mind. Maybe Stephen is at peace with himself, too. Just the idea of that is a bit frightening, so I slough if off, and consider the other—and more likely—possibility: Stephen is just a self-absorbed idiot.
Of course, we can all be idiots. Myself included. But I get the sense that Stephen is routinely oblivious to the effect he has on people. And right now, he is on a roll, so he just leans into his self-inflated view of the world, and, for the next twenty minutes, recites details of all the cool hiking trips he has made on the AT—despite the bumbling ineptitude of the fools who have traveled with him. It is at this point that we discover Stephen has left his two current hiking buddies behind hours ago. When I ask why he would leave the company of friends to hike alone, Stephen informs me he is simply too fast a hiker. “Most people do between one to two miles an hour on the trail. Me, I do like twice that. Maybe more,” he boasts.
Inner stillness or not, this guy is standing on my last nerve. My skin hurts just listening to him, but I smile and probe a bit, searching for signs that he has a heartbeat and may, in fact, be human. Instead, I learn that he has all the best gear, packs light, knows all the trails, doesn’t even need a map, and has been climbing every rock in this forest like a mountain goat since he was ten years old.
About then, Alexander leans way over onto his right butt cheek, leaving a gap of about six inches between his left butt cheek and the log he’s sitting on and mimes sticking something up his rear end. This, of course, is the universal sign for “This guy really has a stick up his butt.” Alexander and I both grin—and turn our attention back to the evening’s entertainment: more of Stephen’s amazing tales of Stephen.
It’s going on 6:00 pm, by now, and Stephen has been flat out for more than two hours. A part of me is impressed that he can keep his monologue on target for that long. Another part of me notices that, while he’s been talking, Stephen has also been keeping an eye on Alexander, as he builds one of his most excellent fires. I know Stephen doesn’t focus his attention on anyone that long unless he can find fault. Now, he continues to stare at Alexander, looking for some sign that Alexander is building his fire all wrong. Which would lead Stephen right into his next bit, “How a Proper Fire Should Actually Be Constructed.” God help us.
But Alexander is a fire-making master, and I can tell Stephen is growing frustrated because my son hasn’t made a slip.
As I watch, Alexander constructs his fire like an origami master folds a single sheet of paper into a weeping swan. He gives such delicate attention to every detail—to how and where he arranges each of the small bits of wood that make up the tight assemblage of sticks—that I can see Alexander has inherited my father’s penchant for engineering. I wonder, what is he thinking as he focuses on the structure before him? Obviously, he is weighing the practical questions: Which sticks are the driest? Which will catch fire quickest? Which will support the weight of the next? But to my eye, the whole affair goes way beyond the ordering of sticks and twigs. I get the sense that at the crux of Alexander’s fire-making initiative is the fact that he is an artist. A sculptor and fine blacksmith in his professional life, he approaches each fire as if it were an artistic creation.
But I sense something else, as well.
This hike has become a spiritual pursuit for each of us. Of course, we are here to spend time together—to enjoy each other’s company and cement the bonds between father and son. But we are also individuals, and we have our individual reasons for being here.
For myself, I am seeking to quicken those aspects of my mind and body that have become fallow. In negotiating the circuitous path of the Appalachian Trail, I have hoped to also uncover a new and more sympathetic path for my daily life back home. In that quest, I have been helped by the peace we’ve found in the forest, by the grueling intensity of the physical exertion, and by the “allies” I have met—the owl, the snake, and certain of the plants I have discovered. Like Native American cultures teach, these allies of the natural world have offered me assistance and allowed me to draw strength from them.
And for Alexander? While I cannot begin to assume his deeper purposes for this journey, what I can say is this: It appears he has discovered fire to be one of his allies. I believe he creates fire with a spiritual intent, and that is why he takes such time, gives such focus, such meticulous care to its preparation. It is my considered opinion that when Alexander sees a circle of rocks in the woods, he does not interpret them as a simple hearth for the purpose of providing us with warmth for the evening or heat for cooking. Rather, he sees them as an altar—a place where he may practice his own understanding.
Now, sitting on my log, about three feet from where Alexander is creating this evening’s fire, I have a commanding view of the cross section of his intricately layered twig pyramid, and I wonder quite seriously if he was in fact Archimedes or Michelangelo in a previous lifetime.
I glance over at Stephen. He is still watching Alexander at work. It’s impossible not to. But Stephen won’t allow himself the luxury of being a voyeur, of staring avidly, of gawking in outright ecstasy at the beauty of Alexander’s creation. Instead, he watches covertly, from the corner of his eye, only stealing longer glances when he thinks I am not looking.
The fire is lit now and is warming each of us. Whether we like it or not, Stephen has entered our sacred space. Alexander and I have become accustomed to being in this space, the four-foot radius that emanates from the center of the flames. We are familiar with the level of silent communication that takes place here. And, as always, Alexander’s fire radiates warmth, but it also radiates his love for our journey. Stephen is an outsider. An uninvited and uninitiated guest. I can feel his discomfort in our presence.
I see an itch start to form at the corner of Stephen’s eye, and his hands dig way down into his shorts, and then his fingers begin picking nervously at something in his pockets, or maybe just at the hair on his legs. I sense the pressure building in him as clearly as if he were blowing up a tightly stretched balloon that is about to pop. He starts grinding his teeth, and I realize it’s because he can’t find a way in. I believe Stephen can sense how Alexander and I feel inside our circle. The love we have for one another is very present, and I think it pushes him hard. I think he understands that Alexander is up to something more than just building a fire, and Stephen’s uncertainty of what that “something” might be troubles him. I wonder how insecure and unsettled he must be in the presence of such subtle and genuine feelings. So he does the only thing a guy like Stephen can do—he turns his back on us. But then he does something strange. Back still turned, he scooches a little closer to the flames. Is he just trying to keep warm? Or is he trying to stay connected to our circle?
That scooch is the only sign of concession he makes. No kudos to Alexander for his incredible fire-building exhibition. No “thank you” for the raging fire that now warms his backside. Then, without missing a beat, Stephen continues his litany of woodsman accomplishments—now talking with his back to us. There is a different inflection to his voice, however, and his words spill out faster and with less certainty than they did before. I can tell he is nervous. Alexander recognizes it, too, and looks over at me, making a face that says, “What’s up with him?” I shrug in reply, although some things seem to be coming into focus.
Next, Stephen stands and moves to the far side of the ring of stones that surround the dance of flames, but he continues talking, addressing an invisible audience, located, I presume somewhere on the other side of the small stream at the bottom of the short ravine. The scene is surreal. But as I gaze across at him—at the back of him—I no longer view him as the pain in the ass we have been dealing with for hours, but as a pitiful character, one who strikes me as both lonely and afraid. Yes, he is still acting like an idiot. Yes, he is still standing on my last nerve. But for some inexplicable reason I am seeing him differently. Is it the obtuseness of a man addressing us, while looking in the opposite direction? Or is it the dark hilarity of his invisible audience?
Whatever the case, I now realize that his feeble attempts to communicate are an effort to save face. A few short hours ago, this obnoxious character entered our camp with all of the finesse of a German tank rolling down a cobblestone street in a small village in France. Now, all I can see is a little boy who has been placed in time out. I no longer hear his whining drivel. Instead, I hear a cry for help.
Suddenly, Stephen does an about-face. He seats himself back at Alexander’s fire, looks me dead in the eye, and begins to talk about his wife and his three sons. This is the first time since his arrival that Stephen has spoken about someone other than himself. Alexander and I share a questioning glance. Were the last two hours just foreplay?
Then, Stephen’s entire demeanor changes. It is as if someone sunk a heroine syringe deep into a main artery and drove the plunger home. Tears well in his eyes, but he holds them at bay—small pools perched on his lower eyelids. He tilts his head back to keep the tiny pools from running down his face. Finally, he lifts a hand to wipe his tears away.
Our 33rd day on the Appalachian Trail was supposed to be our last day hiking—the end of our magnificent trip. I arose early at Brown Fork Gap Shelter with Stuart, our new friend from Austin, Texas. To be precise, I was awakened by Stuart and the sounds of him making oatmeal—in his JetBoil stove. (The word “jet” is key here, because, although I would not have mistaken his camp stove for, say, the high-pitched rumble of a Boeing 737, it does have a distinctive turbine-like sound.)
I checked my phone. It was 6:15 a.m.
“Wow,” I thought. “This guy likes to get an early start.” Inspired by Stuart’s promptitude, I decided I would roust Alexander, and the two of us would get an early start ourselves—on the final leg of our hike, the approximately eleven miles to Fontana Dam.
But as I prepared to snatch Alexander from sleep, my thoughts turned to the imminent and pressing end to our journey. I felt a simultaneous rush of sadness and of joy as, in one stream of illuminated remembrance, all the nights and early mornings Alexander and I perched ourselves upon a section of log or flat rock and huddled into the warm space near the fire rushed through my mind. Those moments were the best we have ever experienced as father and son. And it was Alexander who constructed the warm fire-side wombs where we began and ended our days. The four-foot radius emanating from the circle of his fires became a place of peace in which we radiated our love for one another—a safe place for a father and son to connect. When we communed around Alexander’s sacred hearth, we did so free of any personal differences or beliefs that might separate us.
But I had not created even one of those fires—and it occurred to me that it would bring closure of some kind if I were to build our last fire on our last morning in the woods. Then, I thought, I would light the stove, fetch the water, and have the coffee on the ready when I called Alexander. Awakening him to the primitive blessing of fire would be a way to say thanks for having taken such good care of me on this trip.
So, I emerged from the shelter, my headlamp illuminating the forested space before me, and ventured into the predawn world in search of firewood. Wanting Brown Fork Gap Shelter to remember the likes of Teatime and Mama Al and their roaring blaze of an early morning fire, I dragged in the small twigs and sticks and a bevy of large branches that would make that substantial blaze. When I had what I needed, I started huffing and puffing into last night’s bed of coals and arranged the smaller pieces in just the right orientation—until, after fifteen or twenty minutes, the fire caught and we were illuminated.
By the orange light of flame, I watched Stuart make ready for his day. He was an organized hiker. It only took him about five minutes to roll up his sleeping pad, stuff his bag in a sack, make a few adjustments to the straps and assorted buckles on his backpack—and in a flash he was ready to hit the trail. That kind of economy of movement is the product of enviable efficiency and planning.
Me, though, no matter how much I desire to be efficient and organized like Stuart, my entire plan invariably gets tripped up. I get a good start on the morning ritual of packing, but without fail, I notice I’ve forgotten something just as I am coming down the home stretch. Sometimes I get as far as buckling the pack and cinching the straps around my waist before I realize what I have forgotten—usually something that could easily be done away with. It might be just the bag of Q-Tips, or the coffee creamer, or at most my small vial of Advil, yet I go on a bit of a rampage attempting to locate that single item. I have to find it—or I will go mad! Eventually, I regurgitate the contents of my backpack onto the floor of the shelter or the ground around my tent, turn up the object, and start again. On the second pass, I am more deliberate. More focused. I usually get it right. It just takes me awhile.
I have thought a lot about why I do this and have developed two theories. One: the whole packing is kind of a Zen thing—I reorder my internal self by reassembling all of my external parts and gear. Two: I am a complete idiot and cannot remember where I put my stuff.
However, efficient or not, I was true to my inner word—I fetched water from the spring, lit the stove, boiled the water, and made the coffee, as Alexander slept on and Stuart finished his preparations. I was glad to share one last cup of joe with Stuart before he left us. Despite the vast differences in our hiking abilities and woodsman ways, he had proved himself to be kind and generous—quick to share his food, his knowledge, and his experience as a hiker and a fellow human being. He also told great stories about his life as the owner of a carpet-cleaning business back in Austin—managing to make even tales of removing cat piss from the luxurious pile of a Persian rug entertaining.
His coffee finished, Stuart said goodbye, departing camp before the sun was even visible. I watched as he crested the rise to the north, making a little double-time step, like he was an ex-military infantryman with a special little twist to his giddy up. It wasn’t until he pranced out of sight, disappearing behind a stand of hickory trees alongside the trail, that I realized just how much I longed to be like him.
Awash in the electric synthesis of the new day, I could just envision myself, efficient and organized, up and ready before daylight, bristling to attack the trail as soon as there was enough light to make out its winding path through the woods. If I were like Stuart, I could hold my head high at any shelter. I could trade stories of the miles I covered and the techniques I employed to cover them. Hell, I might even adopt that little double-time step of his. Rebrand it as the “North Florida Shuffle” and skip into the forest the envy of other hikers. But even as I longed to be other than a sorry, unorganized morning packer, I knew: I’m not a guy like Stuart, and never will be. As Popeye wisely said, “I yam who I yam.” And I “yam” the guy who will always be the last to depart camp.
Like it or not.
The truth is, there have always been hikers who graced our camp or stopped for a chat along the trail who were simply better than me. Better equipped. More experienced. More suited to the wild environs of the great outdoors. Because, let’s face it, I am a man built for comfort, not for speed. I’m the guy better suited to occupy the hotel lobby when the weather turns ugly. The guy who draws comfort from hot coffee served in a cup and saucer. The guy who knows his way around a breakfast buffet, not the mysterious American Wilderness.
I’ve come to understand that I may be better at writing about the great outdoors than actually remaining in it for too long. The woods frighten me on some intrinsic level. Maybe it’s the intense quiet I find there, or the long, dark shadows that linger throughout the day. Or maybe it’s the bears, the wildcats, or the rattlesnakes. Or maybe something deeper and less definable than that—the sum of the parts of the wild and its unknown threats. But in the past five weeks on the trail, I have also come to understand that I must release comparisons with my fellow hikers or face the gale of an ill wind. On this morning, as Stuart slipped away into the efficiency of his hiking day, I felt safe and mildly confident wrapped in the warm glow of the golden flames of the fire I built myself. I inhaled deeply and exhaled one long and relaxing breath. I felt at peace with myself.
In the midst of these revelations, I sipped a second cup of coffee and witnessed chipmunks scurrying across logs carrying acorns the size of golf balls, birds chirping their little hearts out, and the earliest rays of sunlight filtering through the trees like the golden fingers of God reaching down to make their first contact with earth. When Alexander finally arose, making his way out of his sleeping bag much like a young bear emerges from his first hibernation—yawning, in need of food, and a head of hair that would remain sideways for days—he was touched that I had built a nice fire for him—and even more grateful that I had coffee waiting.
We added more wood to the fire, made more coffee, and Mama Al stirred the last remaining morsels of oatmeal in the pot. And by 9:15, three full hours after I first awoke, when Alexander and I still sat sipping coffee around our flaming fire—not having made one move towards packing our belongings—it became clear that we were purposefully dragging our heels because we longed for one more day in the forest. Without saying a word to acknowledge that our time on the AT was almost up, we pushed back that reality by just being there together, soaking up all the wonder and beauty the forest had to give—as if we were two best friends lingering over the last day of the best summer of their lives.
Finally, at 10:30, we shared a look of utter despair—and rose to ready our packs. Predictably, twenty minutes later, I stood amidst the entirety of my belongings, which were heaped in the middle of the shelter floor. The culprit was a missing bag of G.O.R.P.—our custom trail mix, made mostly of dried fruit, chocolate pieces, and nuts. (In the old days, “G.O.R.P.” actually stood for “Good Ol’ Raisins and Peanuts,” because those were the ingredients one carried in one’s pocket to snack on throughout the day. The original G.O.R.P. relied heavily on M&Ms for an energy blast of sugar. Nowadays, it’s called “trail mix,” but I prefer the old nomenclature. It takes me back to my Boy Scout days in the 1960s, when my beleaguered Troop 36B would disappear into the wilds of north Florida for a weekend of camping, and the G.O.R.P. sustained us even when our alcoholic troop master was too plastered to rally his Scouts for an evening meal.)
Breaking camp that morning was like tearing flesh for us, but sometime after 11, G.O.R.P. recovered, Alexander and I, having succeeded in packing our bags, reluctantly departed Brown Fork Gap Shelter. Normally, Alexander would be in the lead as we made our way down the trail. At least that was the way we had done things since Ryan (aka Treebeard) left our company some 28 days ago. But this morning, Alexander said, “Dad, why don’t you go first.” When I protested, citing my slowness, he quietly said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be right here behind you all the way.”
That was the extent of our discussion about the hours we had remaining to us on The People’s Trail. What Alexander didn’t need to say was, “Let’s do these last miles together, regardless of how slow you have to take it, Dad. The important thing is we do them together because I have loved every minute of being here with you.” He didn’t say it because it was one of those perfect guy moments, when the incumbent structure of our biology overrides the necessity to communicate further.
That—and we both knew that more words would only compound our sadness. I can’t say whether tears welled in Alexander’s eyes, like they welled in mine—because I didn’t look up at him. I just said, “That sounds great,” and moved into the lead position.
The going was relatively easy, with no major climbs, and we made four of the eleven miles to our final destination, Fontana Dam, before stopping for lunch. The cold weather, which had moved in since we departed Nantahala Outdoor Center, had made a major impact on the color of the fall leaves. As we sat on a log, trailside, eating our lunch—a foil pack of Spam smeared with a quarter-inch of Hellman’s mayonnaise and several slices of cheddar cheese—we were stunned by the brilliantly hued leaves flickering all around us, bright reds, oranges, and golden yellows, set against the deep blue of the autumn sky. Alexander surveyed the beauty of our position, and then, mouth filled with Spam, he spat out (along with several bits of dry cracker), “When did all of this happen,” as if the profusion of color had descended overnight.
At that point, we had only seven more miles—just a handful of hours, really—left to spend in the beauty, the grandeur of these woods we’d come to think of as home.
Then my brilliant son asked, “What does Mr. Fucking Guthook have to say?”
(Mr. Effing Guthook—aka “MFG”—is the author of Guthook’s Guide to the AT, the GPS Appalachian Trail app, which had been our main map and source of trail information the entire trip. MFG is a navigation tool—and more. The App gives graphic representations of trail elevation. It would show our location as a little blue dot resting on the side of an uphill or downhill climb—letting us see clearly how brutal or mild the trail ahead might be and how far to the summit or how long the downhill section of trail that would be killing our knees. It also showed our orientation to the trail itself, with a compass arrow. Which was great, because if we happened to have gotten turned around, we could immediately tell we were heading in the wrong direction. Mr. Fucking Guthook would also show the location and distance to the next water source or the next shelter.)
We routinely consulted MFG many times each day. But at this final trailside stop, when Alexander asked, “What does Mr. Fucking Guthook have to say?” I understood him to mean, “How far is the next shelter?”
I consulted MFG. “2.4 miles,” I said, “to Cable Gap Shelter.”
Alexander raised his eyebrows, looked at me and smiled—but he didn’t need to say anything. It was another of those guy moments
“That’s a great idea,” I said.
* * *
About two hours later, around 3 p.m., Alexander and I stopped at Cable Gap, the oldest shelter we had encountered, save the stone building on Blood Mountain. Set just a few yards off the trail, with a stream flowing alongside, it looked like something I had seen on an episode of Little House on the Prairie. An old log cabin of sorts, it was open across the front, with a sloping roof complete with wooden shingles—it was our kind of perfect.
And with that, Mama Al and Teatime settled in for one last night on the AT.
Ian, Morgan, April, and Alexander atop Siler’s Bald
Monday morning, after Miss Beverly dropped us off at the AT trail head, we had only a six-mile hike from Winding Stair Gap to Siler’s Bald—but that hike was six miles of steady climb. Still, we were rested, and we were excited to make camp at the summit. Siler’s Bald is the first in a series of high mountain clearings that some believe are natural occurrences, but which others believe are man-made clearings for high-country cattle grazing. In any event, having read about Siler’s Bald in our guide books—and having seen videos by hikers who emphasized the magnificent views from the top—Alexander and I looked forward to camping at the summit on Monday night.
I arrived first, to survey the location, while Alexander stopped on a side trail to fill his large water bag, which we call “The Dromedary.” (The Drom has proved invaluable. Its six-liter capacity ensures we have enough water in the evening for cooking and washing up, and still have some left over to filter for drinking water to start out the next morning.)
Siler’s is situated on a quarter-mile side trail, which, from the base looks quite unassuming. When I arrived, I could see someone had recently mowed the high meadow, and a long serpentine path wound its way out of sight towards the bald. I started up the path, but quickly realized making it to the top would be no easy feat—and knew it would be even harder for Alexander, under the burden of the filled Drom. However, upon cresting the bald, I found the effort worthwhile. The world spread out before me as generously as if I had entered an open air cathedral, a sacred place where the beauty of the land was revealed for all to enjoy.
You see, the Appalachian Trail winds its way through a continuous canopy of forest. Although Siler’s marked mile 114 for us, since departing Springer Mountain, we have had just a handful of clear views. When you’re hiking the trail, most of the day, every day, you’re making your way through forest, the sunlight filtered by branches and leaves that brush your skin as you pass them. This biological buffer protects you, hides you from the hustle and bustle of the world that exists beyond the trail. You feel cradled by a benevolent primal force that speaks to you, should you care to listen, through the rustle of plants, birds songs, the intricate babble of brooks, the ancient wisdom of rocks, and the soil beneath your feet. Then, every so often, you emerge into bright light and blue sky, as we did Monday afternoon at Siler’s Bald. When that happens, you feel clean and renewed, as if you have been blessed by the spirits of the forest.
By the time Alexander (and the Drom) arrived, my tent was pitched under a perfectly clear sky, and we stood together, side by side, humbled by the majesty of the 360-degree view. It promised to be a spectacular, star-filled night.
We had been there for no more than twenty minutes when a couple from Ocala, Florida, arrived with their young daughter (who seemed less than thrilled with the steep hike). Fifteen minutes after that, a trio of campers from the University of Florida appeared. The Ocala family left, and we struck up a conversation with Ian, Morgan, and April—engineering and finance students respectively. As it turned out, these young hikers had divorced themselves from two others in their group, who, it seems, had a rather militaristic idea of a hiking trip. For that reason, Ian, Morgan, and April decided to go it alone—and at a much slower pace, so they could “smell the flowers,” instead of zooming past them. The only problem was the other guys had taken the stove, leaving Ian and his tribe dining on Clif Bars and dried ramen noodles.
Upon hearing this sad news, Alexander and I exchanged a quick look of compassion for our new friends. Then Alexander let them know we had plenty of food and that he would be glad to cook them a hot meal, should they decide to camp on the bald for the evening. They were overjoyed! The expressions on their faces showed as much delight as if he had handed them a winning lottery ticket. But realizing they had no water, the trio retreated back down the trail to resupply. Frankly, I thought we had lost them, but an hour later they made it back up the steep trail and pitched their tent about fifty yards below ours.
The rest of the evening counts as one of the most magical of our trip. Having shared a meal—and having cemented bonds of friendship I have no doubt shall continue long after our trip is over—the kids laughed and told tales around yet another of Alexander’s spectacular fires, while I busied myself with taking some of the best photos of our journey to date. The sun was setting as I snapped a beautiful panoramic shot of our promontory on the summit. But I failed to understand the significance of the billowing line of clouds on the horizon—a failure that would come back to haunt me.
* * *
Around two a.m., I awoke to flashes of light and the distant rumble of thunder. I was shocked. The weather hadn’t mentioned the approach of a thunderstorm. I reached for my phone, opened my weather app, and took a long, cold look at the radar on my iPhone’s screen. There it was. The hard red line of a cold front almost on top of us—and an unbroken line of thunderstorms rapidly approaching.
In less than a minute, the deluge began.
I yelled to Alexander at the top of my lungs. Suddenly, Siler’s Bald, a place that had seemed like a blessing from the spirits of the forest just hours earlier, was dangerously exposed. There was no cover from the driving rain. We had to decide—break camp and move off the mountain? Or ride out the storm? If we broke camp, our clothing would be soaked—and with temperatures in the low forties, hypothermia was a deadly concern. On the other hand, the lightning strikes had gotten ridiculously close—close enough to raise the hair upon my arms.
At that, Alexander suggested we squat on our feet inside our tents to minimize contact with the ground, a position we hoped would protect us from a deadly lightning strike. So for the next hour that is how we sat—balanced low on our feet, heads down, hands clasped behind our skulls. It was a scary, lonely feeling—and an unnecessary one. I had failed to read the signs that had been right in front of me. Signs that I had photographed. The building clouds that had stretched so beautifully across the horizon were all the sign a more experienced hiker would have needed to make a good decision—when their was still plenty of time to shift camp.
That hour, the one I spent squatting on my heels between two and three a.m., with the storm crashing around me, was the longest, most anxious hour I can remember. What did I think about besides my own stupidity? Well, to be honest, I thought of Miss Beverly in her leopard print velour pants. I wondered what Miss Beverly had seen as we flew up the mountain earlier that day. How far down the trail had she been able to see? Did she sense the storm was coming? Did she know that with her “life phrase” from the Book of Timothy she was giving us a tool to fight the fear that would challenge us?
Whatever vision or premonition Miss Beverly had, while I was cowering beneath that violent storm, I repeated her life phrase over and over to myself in earnest.
* * *
When I opened my eyes the next morning, I realized the storm had extracted its price—I was depleted and weak. While I couldn’t move from my tent, I was glad to hear Ian, Morgan, and April talking as they prepared to leave. Their tent had been stripped of its rain fly during the worst of the storm. As a result, everything they owned was soaked—their shoes, their packs, and most of their clothing. It was a miracle they did not freeze. But by the sound of their voices, I could tell they were simply happy to have survived the ordeal, and that their youthful exuberance had saved them any serious regret.
When I was finally able to emerge, I found the top of the mountain a solid cloud—I could see no more than thirty feet in any direction. But there was Alexander, busy over his Whisper-Lite stove, making us coffee and his signature oatmeal in a soulful affirmation of our daily routine. Alexander looked up, and for a long moment, caught in the illuminated whiteness that swirled all around us, we just held each other’s gaze. Then he asked what I had thought about during the storm. But before I could answer him, he said, “I repeated Miss Beverly’s scripture and prayed a lot!” I nodded in agreement, and then we both laughed long, nervous laughs. It was a release that said we were glad to have made it through the night safe and sound.
Then with that big, beaming smile of his, he asked, “Dad, How about a cup of coffee?”
So my son and I stood together, watching the clouds clear around us and the shapes of mountains re-emerging from the mists. Before our coffee cups were even empty, the warming rays of autumn sunlight shone upon our faces. Order had been restored to our world, and the violent threat of the night was now just a distant memory.
The storm has helped me see that there is a flip side to every coin we tumble. Alexander and I have been living in a perfect dream for weeks—but sometimes there is a price to be paid for the joy and beauty we experience in this life. Our awakening atop Siler’s Bald reminded us of the power of nature—and that we do well to be a bit more humble in its presence.
* * *
I haven’t yet reached out to Miss Beverly, but when I do, I will tell her that her scripture sustained us. That it brought a sense of peace to the maddening fright of the storm. In fact, during the worst of the flashes of light, when the lightning was crashing into the earth less than a second from where Alexander and I crouched, I found myself smiling briefly—because, even in the most fearful moments, I felt we had our own angel looking out for us. I may never know much of what resides in the Bible, but I will never forget the Book of Timothy, chapter one, verse seven. . . .
Alexander, Miss Beverly, and me: at Winding Stair Gap, on our way to Siler’s Bald
On Sunday, Alexander and I needed to make a trip to Three Eagles, the local hiker outfitter, for supplies. The store was an eight-mile round trip—a longer walk than we wanted to make on our last down day at the hotel—but when I called the front desk, I was told that the only taxi service in Franklin, North Carolina, did not operate on Sundays.
I called Three Eagles Outfitters next, to explain our wheel-less situation, and a very accommodating girl named Katelynn gave us the number of a local shuttle driver, a “Miss Beverly,” she said. Within twenty minutes, a gold Honda CRV rolled up to the hotel portico, and Miss Beverly greeted us decked out in her church finery—and immediately let us know that she did not shuttle folks during church time, but as Sunday morning services had concluded at her place of worship, she was officially open for business.
Displaying the vigor one might expect in a motivational speaker, she told us at length how, in her mid-seventies, she had become the “Go-to Gal” for hiker shuttles in and around Franklin. A year or so earlier, it seems, her grandson had completed a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail and had asked her to pick him up outside of Franklin. To Miss Beverly’s dismay, her grandson failed to give her either a specific time or a specific location for the pickup. So, on the appointed day, Miss Beverly drove to the only spot she knew near the trail, Standing Indian Campground. There she found several hikers, none of whom had met her grandson. The hikers asked Miss Beverly for his trail name, a concept with which Miss Beverly was entirely unfamiliar—but not for long.
As it turned out, Miss Beverly had just encountered her first group of clients. The dozen or so hikers thrust cash in her direction, requesting she give them rides to town and make food, cigarette, and NDBR’s (near-death beer runs) for them. To hear Miss Beverly tell it, when they displayed those greenbacks, she felt like someone had placed her at an altar that was gushing green abundance. Then her motherly instincts took over, and Miss Beverly brought all the hikers back to her house, where she cooked them meals, washed their clothes, and shuttled the entire bunch around Franklin over one very long weekend. In the process, she received a crash course in AT life and lingo that would stand her in very good stead in her new career. (Yes, she finally found her grandson—but not before she found a new niche for herself.)
Although Miss Beverly knew that opening her home as a hostel would be far too much work, she had really enjoyed being around all those young people, with their wide-eyed optimism and high energy. So she hung out her shingle and became Miss Beverly, the Hiker Shuttle-ist.
But the service Miss Beverly provides hikers is no ordinary taxi service, as Alexander and I found out upon our return from our trip to Three Eagles. You see, rather than having standard rates, Miss Beverly operates on a donation-only basis. And in our case, Miss Beverly refused payment of any kind, stating that it was her pleasure to run local trips for free because she felt the Franklin community needed hikers to help boost the local economy. With a big smile, she added that, regardless, it made her feel as if she was doing her part to help out. (In my book, her high ethical code elevates her to a station that nears “shuttle-driver sainthood,” if there exists such a canonical designation.)
Then, at promptly 11 o’clock the next morning, Miss Beverly arrived to shuttle us back to Winding Stair Gap, a manageable six miles from our destination, Siler’s Bald. Looking every inch the hikers’ cheerleader—adorned in leopard print velour pants, a black top, and a well-coiffed hairdo—she was ready to roll. On the way up to Winding Stair, Miss Beverly entertained us with stories of her past husbands and of current Franklin goings on. Then suddenly, as if a switch had been thrown, she began quoting the Bible in short, scriptural bursts that seemed to deliver the moral to whichever story she was relating. It seemed Miss Beverly had worked herself into a sort of spiritual frenzy, but somehow, the unexpected appearance of sacred writ in the midst of her monologue seemed as natural to Miss Beverly as her leopard print tights.
Alexander and I exchanged awe-struck glances as Miss Beverly pressed on. We were riveted. It was as if she had been seized by the Holy Spirit, and Alexander and I were her de facto backup chorus, chanting, “Tell it all, Miss Beverly,” and offering a solemn Amen! where we felt it was needed. As the gold Honda CRV bounded up the mountain, Alexander and I felt we were being transported in a spiritual capsule on wheels—one fueled not by unleaded gasoline, but by the sizzling power that had seized Miss Beverly.
Then, at the pinnacle of her story telling, Miss Beverly mentioned a recent evening of fellowship and cocktails she had spent on her neighbors’ outdoor patio, which overlooked the valley. These folks were from Florida, she explained, as if that should give us a clue as to what she had experienced. She continued on, telling us that during the course of good conversation and several glasses of wine a giant spider decided to perch itself on top of her right shoe. At that point, Miss Beverly informed us, she let loose a blood curdling scream as she kicked her right foot for all she was worth. Her scream nearly shattered every wine glass present and left her friends in a highly agitated state, she reported—and it was a good thing she had partaken of several glasses of wine, herself, or no telling what she might have said. (I had a few ideas, but I kept them to myself.)
At that point, Miss Beverly said, she began repeating her “life verse,” Timothy 1:7, much to the amazement of the entire company. She is usually not one to carry on, she assured us, “But that spider completely covered my entire foot, and I refused to be afraid!” The Book of Timothy, she said, was one of her favorite passages in the Bible, and Chapter one: Verse seven had long been a source of strength and guidance in her life. During times of trouble, or whenever she felt afraid—like the moment with the spider—she would quote Timothy 1:7. Then she told us that fear was nothing more than the Devil attempting to take us away from the presence of God: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind!” she exclaimed.
As we flew straight towards Winding Stair Gap, Miss Beverly firmly gripped the wheel, while repeating that line over and over—until, finally, Alexander and I began to wonder if she was attempting to school us with the potent passage in preparation for some forthcoming event on our journey. At that moment, the golden autumn sun illuminated Miss Beverly’s plume of white hair, giving her a radiant, glowing aura, and her shiny hoop earring, mirroring a brilliant sunbeam, shot a starburst towards me that penetrated deep into my soul. I remember thinking, suddenly, that we were in the presence of something greater, something brighter than just our endearing seventy-something shuttle driver and the mid-morning sunlight. The sense that something lay ahead could not have been stronger—it was as if Miss Beverly’s Honda had become our chariot, delivering Alexander and me to a moment of awakening on the Appalachian Trail—and yet it could not have been more sweet, for we were in the company of our very own angel, leopard print velour pants and all.
By the time we arrived at the AT trail head, Miss Beverly had repeated her “life verse” at least a dozen more times—so many times, that Alexander and I, having a bit of fun at Miss Beverly’s expense, quoted Timothy 1:7 back and forth to one another as we made our way towards Siler’s Bald. But to tell the truth, we had both fallen in love with that wonderful old lady. And to tell more of the truth, that would not be the last remembrance we would have of Miss Beverly, nor of those consoling words from the Book of Timothy. Although we did not know it then, our day was a long way from being over. . . .
Stay tuned: The Book of Timothy, Part II is coming soon!
TeatimeOnTheAT 