Date: 2005-02-11
To: The Dead Fish Incident- 
Miles today: 0.0

Read this long enough and you'll find the dead fish!Sitting in class last night I realized that taking off and living in the mountains for six months, assuming a new name, and bathing about once a week when lucky seems strange to some people...Imagine that! I kind of forget every now and then that this whole idea seems out of the ordinary. It seems so strange to me that some people find it odd to hike the AT. I think they perplex me as much as my plans might perplex them though! I was sitting in my Marketing Management class and we were supposed to be in our groups working on our presentations for the end of the quarter, but our group has been done for about three weeks, and so we just sit around talking and trying to avert any extra unnecessary work. My group consists of three people that are good friends who work together at the Sullivan University Bakery, and one other guy that just got married a few weeks ago. The two guys are single and their coworker has been married for twelve years. The other gentleman in our group just got married and you can sense it in the air as he talks. He seems really happy and I wish him the best of luck, Go for the long haul! I usually find group work a tragic task as it involves coordinating schedules with four or five other students who are also not quite thrilled to be doing group work, but my school prides itself on this nearly incessant ritual for prepping us to enter the ¢Real World¢. My group finds itself nearing the quarter century age mark or just past it; However, I was lucky not to find myself in a normal group of students my age who put in their daily grind each day and then get in their Honda Accords or Jeep Cherokees, and drive to their Apartments in the suburbs and watch 'Will and Grace' or 'Seinfeld' reruns before they get up in the morning and do it all over again. It seems that most people near my age are starting to finally make ends meet and their hard work is starting to pay off as they talk occasionally about buying houses and dogs and doing things like going to the trendy clubs that weekend to cut loose, and they feel rewarded by their efforts to balance maintaining their individualism, while still fitting in with everyone else. My group and I click fairly well, as we are all at similar points in our lives, and our directions are different enough in each of our futures that we all seem to intrigue each other. My group and I click fairly well, as we are all at similar points in our lives, and are directions are different enough in each of our futures that we all seem to intrigue each other.Well, now that you all know about who my group is; We were all sitting around and talking about the AT last night and they were all amazed, as most people are upon learning about a trail that goes from Maine to Georgia, and that people basically live in shelters for six months and camp... You could see the wheels in their heads turning as I would answer their questions, one by one, and it would spur on more questions. Then the girl asked, "Aren't you going to be scared, alone?", and I replied the typical answer about how I won't be really alone on the trail, but I have done a lot of solo backpacking in the past, and I wasn't scared except for one time. The one time I was scared while backpacking was when I went to Mammoth Cave National Park for Spring Break in 2001. I was only a day into the trail and so my campsite that night was close to the road, and anyone who has backpacking experience knows that the only dangerous spots when backpacking are the ones close to road crossings because they are more readily available to overnighters and partiers. Well, that night I was asleep and it was about 2:00AM and of course there was a full moon. I heard feet stepping on dead branches and leaves as they walked near the trail, which woke me up, but did not worry me. I saw shadows reflecting off of the wall of my tent and they grew smaller as they came closer to my tent in the moonlight. I had the rainfly on my tent on for warmth that evening so I couldn¢t see anything but the shadows and I heard nothing but crackling and popping from their steps to alert me as to where they were. I started to grow a bit concerned as I saw their shadows surrounding my tent and I saw the shadow people on my tent walls reaching into their packs and pulling out objects that were very large and awkward. They were only about three feet away from my tent. I almost crapped myself out of shock with what came next, as I saw them place these objects next to my tent and they started to raise their arms very quickly. What were these objects? !Were they satanic statues? !Were they holding a sacrifice? !Should I yell or shut up? !What the hell was happening? !Damn these Shadow people!And then they struck their arms down swiftly and all I heard was an incredibly loud boom! What the hell? !Bongos? ! Why are they doing this? !They continued to play around my tent for about twenty minutes and I lay there silent, even though I am SURE they knew I couldn¢t possibly still be asleep. The silence must have paid off because the Bongos loud strikes and booms subsided after that twenty minutes of hell. I couldn¢t believe it might be over as I saw/heard them putting their bongos back in their backpacks. They were finally leaving me alone! They started to walk away and then when they were about fifty yards away I heard them pull tent poles out of their packs. Were they setting up camp here? !What was wrong with these people? !Well, I finally went back to sleep when I heard the zipper of their tent zip shut, but I got up early that morning with the sun to find out who the hell these people were. I packed up my stuff and walked over to their tent, shocked at their behavior. What should I do? I ended up just walking away after I saw three empty fifths of Heaven Hill Whiskey, unsure if retaliation was the wisest choice I could make, but I prayed evil upon those psycho beatnik asses.   Even though you are safer in the woods no matter where you are, it is just the thought of being alone in the woods and being harmed that scares people, because no one would be around to help if something did happen. However, I am not really ever scared. I try to let rational thought rule my head and choices, and though it may not always work. I can¢t recall a time I was unnecessarily worried. I think my childhood may have something to do with it. Now, for the dead fish incident¢¦As a child, my family went out on our houseboat very frequently, and it was always a blast, except for one trip on one weekend that helped form me into the person I am now. As a child, I think I was a bit squeamish, but my family, looking back in retrospect, doesn¢t think I was. I however, can¢t understand the dead fish incident unless my dad felt I was a sissy or something, or else why would I have had to encounter this dead fish incident? !I was about six or seven and I was playing on the beach as my dad sat on the boat deck. He saw a dead fish and brought this hideous, bloated, stank-nasty, monster of a horrible creature to my attention, and I tried to avoid the sight of it. It was so abhorrent that the river must not have even wanted it in it and so it tossed this gross abomination of death onto the beach. My dad¢s next move was shocking. He told me to pick it up and carry it to a tree that was about fifty yards down the beach. Looking back on it, he may have been joking and I just heard him them wrong way to try to make myself do it as a challenge, but if he wasn¢t serious at the time, I sure thought he was... I did this horrid challenge. I accomplished the unspeakable, and I let my rational thought overcome any childish fears. This fish couldn¢t harm me, and it didn¢t. If I could do that, I could do anything! My dad doesn¢t remember this event, nor does any other family member of mine, but I definitely do. Maybe my dad was serious, and maybe he wasn¢t, but I knew I had to carry that fish, and become a man, and I did.Umm¢¦.Well, to make a long story short, I am not scared of the woods. It might be the lesson of the dead fish, or something else, but I know the dead fish story is funny to me, and I like to tell it!AND THAT MY FRIENDS, IS THE DEAD FISH INCIDENT!