Date: 2004-07-23
From: Georgia

To: Maine
Miles today: 22.0
Weather: broken clouds

Mile 1316.2Mashipacong Shelter, NJJuly 23, 04Some New Jersey shelter with an unpronounceable name in the rain. Beautiful. Soft wind plays surf & sand sounds through reeds of birch,maple, oak.Awakened by the slight discomfort of summer nights turned cooler than Ilike, I slip on my long johns and socks and fleece sweater, my cozyPatagonia, and set about to playing my own music, that silent song ofkeyboard and fingers in the dark. It is most always a lonesome song. But tonight I don't mind, or I should say I don't feel lonesome. Theold stonewalls and stout wood beams of this shelter are companionenough.   And Spare Pocket and Rooney Tunes, my two most congenialshelter mates this night (you just never know who you are going toget, a point which of late has kept me out of shelters).They are enough to cut the lonesome song and make it ring practical,even poetic. That Bukowski quote, ''Endurance is more important thantruth" now more than ever I feel its meaning.   I have always been atruthful person, often to my own detriment, so for me the truth partjust kind of goes without saying. But endurance, in this case it is toendure healthily, to lug along on a super-extended timeline, to endurethe repetition of four months afoot yet also the constant change ofsurroundings and curveballs thrown at you by Nature. Nature, the greatequalizer. Out here, we are all just hobo mountaineers, a kind ofsmelly bum nobility that move almost unseen through a vast narrowtunnel of green light, fireflies, wind and rain and rocks and pain, thelatter endured quietly forever. For one cannot walk twenty miles in aday every day without pain.   The magic was with me yesterday as my motel tenure was up and the raincame down and me, with my poncho lost a few days back, altogether not agood situation. But onto the highway I stepped and walked and facingan uphill climb of several miles through construction and fast cars that I doubted (in Jersey) would ever stop for me, I walked, but Istuck out my thumb anyway, almost lazily, my back to the oncomingcars. And whammo. Within seconds I had a ride, a young guy, thickJersey accent, no idea what or where the AT was but took me there, orto Gyps Tavern anyway, at the trailhead, where I went inside the lonecustomer and Genie whipped me up a burger and a birch beer for the"road." I wolfed down my burger and root beer and we talked andoutside it began to pour like a MoFo. Shit, I thought. No poncho. I'd been learning to endure long walks in the rain. You get wet nomatter what. But the poncho makes for a little mobile tent reservingfor its occupant a warm damp space in which to dwell, either on themove or at rest, folded up inside of it like a giant green Hershey'skiss by the side of the trail, waiting out the worst of the thunder ordeluge.   I seize a break in the rain and make for the door. But in the timetaken to pay the check and double check the dry bag and Ziploc¢s forthe safety of my change of clothes and my electronics, it has begunagain. In earnest. I what can I do? Sit and wait it out in thetavern all day?   The forecast is for rain all weekend. And there aremiles to be made. Maine will not come to me. Outside the tavern a manrunning a summer school in the woods is about to go get his studentsfrom up trail. He offers a ride to the next shelter. I declinegratefully, but I do accept two turkey sandwiches and some chips afterassurances that they have enough to feed the kids. Rain is drippingdown my nose. I gotta go. I thank him and cross the street and dashinto the relative "cover" of the canopy. Thanks to thirsty trees, it'salways raining a little less in the woods. Not a hundred feet into the forest, just far enough that passerby onthe streets won't see, sits a yellow delivery newspaper sleeve, full ofsomething, with the following written on it: "This Poncho belongs toDuke, aka Lord Duke aka Jester aka Rick. Hope you get it. It surewill be wet w/o it. -Rooster"Two days it sat there, two rainy days. Many hikers had passed. No onehad taken it. That's AT magic.-RSMFor the full story of Rick's journey, visit Jigglebox.com